Sacramento A’s Tyler Soderstrom (21) greets teammate Lawrence Butler (left) after scoring on a Max Muncy sacrifice fly in the top of the eighth inning at T Mobile Field in Seattle on Mon Apr 20, 2026 (AP News photo)

Sacramento A’s game wrap: Athletics Silence Mariners 6-4 with Back to Back Space Needle Shots

By Mauricio Segura

The Sacramento A’s got a couple rocket shot home runs to beat the Seattle Mariners 6-4 Monday night. The Athletics spent the first few innings looking like a team dragging an old problem back onto the field with them. They came into Seattle having scored just one first-inning run all season, and T-Mobile Park wasted no time reminding them how ugly that trend can look.

Cal Raleigh launched a first-inning homer to left-center, Julio Rodríguez swiped second after a single, and Josh Naylor lined a run-scoring double to right to put the Mariners up 2-0 before the A’s had much of a chance to breathe. When Dominic Canzone opened the second with a home run to right-center, Seattle had a 3-0 lead, Emerson Hancock was in rhythm, and the game had the feel of one that could drift away in a hurry.

Instead, the Green and Gold hung around and flipped the game like a Sunday morning flap jack.

J.T. Ginn did not have a smooth beginning, but he did something that matters just as much on nights like this: he stopped the bleeding. After the Mariners tagged him for three early runs, the right-hander settled himself and gave the Athletics room to fight back. He worked around a double by Naylor in the third, stranded Canzone at third in the fourth, and rolled through a clean fifth before striking out Randy Arozarena to begin the sixth. It was not dominance, but it was toughness, and those are not the same thing. Ginn kept the game from turning into a Seattle parade.

The Athletics lineup, meanwhile, took a while to find the right wrench to unlock Hancock. Carlos Cortes finally cracked the silence in the fourth, driving a solo homer to right to cut the deficit to 3-1. It was a needed jolt for an offense that had spent the first three innings getting very little done besides a first-inning single from Cortes and a second-inning knock from Jacob Wilson. Even when the Athletics did scratch out a bit of traffic, Seattle had an answer. Hancock erased Lawrence Butler with a pickoff at second in the fifth after Butler had singled and stolen a base, which felt like the sort of play that can bury a rally and a mood all at once.

In the sixth, the whole game changed on back-to-back swings resulting in the A’s once again taking the top spot on the AL West Standings.

Nick Kurtz led off the inning by hammering a game-changing homer to center. One batter later, Shea Langeliers followed him with another shot to center, and just like that a 3-0 Seattle lead had vanished into the Northwest night.

Baseball can spend five innings pretending it is a quiet, methodical game, and then in two pitches it turns into fireworks. Kurtz’s blast fit the shape of the player he has been all month. He came into the night on a ten-game walk streak and with the most walks in the majors, and he added to the pressure all evening, later drawing another free pass in the seventh. Langeliers, whose bat has been one of the Athletics’ most reliable weapons dating back to last season’s second half, did what dangerous hitters do when a pitcher leaves even a little room for error. He punished it.

From there, the game became a bullpen and timing contest, and the Athletics finally won both. Hogan Harris, who entered the night with a spotless road ERA, took over after Ginn and handled the middle innings with authority. He struck out Rob Refsnyder to end the sixth, blew through the seventh, and helped hand the late innings to Mark Leiter Jr. with the game still tied. Leiter then walked a tightrope in the eighth after Rodríguez and Naylor put pressure on the defense, but he struck out Arozarena and got Refsnyder to fly out, preserving a lead that had only just been built.

That lead arrived in the top of the eighth, and it arrived with force. Tyler Soderstrom started the inning by ripping a double to left. Wilson followed with a single to right, continuing his strong work against Seattle, and Jeff McNeil worked a walk to load the bases with nobody out.

Max Muncy lifted a sacrifice fly to right to bring home Soderstrom and push the Athletics in front 4-3. That alone would have been enough to change the inning. Butler made sure it became something bigger. He shot a sharp single to right, scoring both Wilson and McNeil, and the Athletics suddenly had the kind of breathing room that had looked impossible two innings earlier. Butler later got picked off again, which was not exactly a textbook night on the bases, but by then the damage he had done with the bat was the bigger story.

Seattle made one last push in the ninth when Cole Young singled and Leo Rivas doubled him home, trimming the lead to 6-4. But Joel Kuhnel closed the door from there, getting J.P. Crawford to pop out and Raleigh to fly out to right to end it.

That final out wrapped up a win that felt bigger than one April game. The Athletics came in off a shaky homestand, facing a Mariners club that has given them headaches for years, and spent the first two innings looking ready to add one more to the pile. Instead, they answered with poise, power, and one loud eighth inning that turned a flat night into a sharp one.

The A’s and M’s continue this AL West Divisional battle Tuesday night at T Mobile starting for Sacramento LHP Jacob Lopez (1-1 ERA 6.38) for Seattle RHP Luis Castillo (0-1 ERA 5.40) first pitch 6:40PM PDT.

Costa Rican-born Mauricio Segura has been covering sports in the Bay Area since 2001 for a variety of magazines and newspapers, as well as his own publication, Golden Bay Times.

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