Gage Jump #61 of the Athletics pitches during the second inning against the Seattle Mariners as he makes his MLB Debut at Sutter Health Park on May 26, 2026 in Sacramento, California. (Mandatory Photo Credit: Scott Marshall/Getty Images)

By Jeremiah Salmonson

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento Athletics were back in action on Tuesday night to take on the Seattle Mariners in game two of a three-game series. After losing the opener on Monday, the A’s looked to get a game back in game two.

The A’s failed to put it all together on Tuesday and dropped game two, and the series, to the Mariners, 4-1.

Tuesday had a bit of added anticipation as it was highly touted A’s prospect Gage Jump’s debut for the Athletics. Jump has been a highly anticipated call-up for the A’s after he had a very promising start to his minor league career, where he has gone 9-9 with a 3.58 ERA across 35 appearances (33 starts) for the A’s minor league club in Las Vegas.

Jump throws a hard fastball that sits comfortably around 96 mph, and an 85 mph slider that he throws off of that. Those two pitches make up over 75% of the pitches he throws while he also mixes in a curveball, sweeper and changeup. He throws the fastball 56% of the time while everything else is secondary.

In Jump’s debut for the A’s on Tuesday, it was an up-and-down debut for the left-hander. Jump retired the side in the first inning, including two strikeouts, but he ran into trouble in the second inning. Jump gave up four hits and three runs in the second inning as the start began to unravel for the 23-year-old rookie.

However, Jump was able to compose himself and get through five innings of work as the A’s were in game 15 of 16 straight games without an off day. Jump allowed nine hits and four runs in his five innings of work while walking one and striking out five. Jump needed 88 pitches to get his 15 outs during his appearance.

Mark Kotsay was pleased with the outing from Jump, albeit with room for improvement.

“The focus obviously for Gage is throwing strikes, and he did that Tuesday night. One walk, a hit by pitch. But outside of that, I think just the putaway pitch, he left some two-strike pitches up in his zone that hurt him tonight.”

Jump himself was hard on himself after the game, but was grateful for the experience and for every baseball player’s dream coming true.

“It was a lot,” Jump said after the game. “It was fun, but I wanted to take today to focus on competing and winning a ballgame, and that didn’t happen. So I’m frustrated. But yeah, I mean, it was an awesome experience.”

The A’s bullpen pitched well in relief for the Athletics.

Jose Suarez was first out of the pen for the A’s as he went one and two-thirds innings of scoreless baseball while giving up two hits and striking out one.

Justin Sterner came in to relieve Suarez with two outs in the seventh inning and retired the first batter he faced. In the eighth, Sterner went back out and retired the side in order as he threw one and a third innings of hitless baseball and struck out one.

In the ninth inning, Hogan Harris came on in an effort to keep the game where it was. Harris succeeded in his task as he tossed a three-up, three-down inning while striking out one Mariners batter.

For the A’s on offense, it was another rough day that followed the tough showing on Monday. The A’s managed only one run on four hits on Tuesday as the offense continued to stall after returning home from the road trip.

The A’s lone run came courtesy of a Tyler Soderstrom line-drive home run over the right-center-field wall that left the bat at 111 mph. The home run traveled 409 feet and landed on the grass. That’s all the A’s could muster at the plate as they continue to search for their form.

With the loss, the A’s fell to 27-28 while the Mariners improved to 27-29. The A’s are now just over one-third of the way through the season.

The A’s will take on the Mariners in the final game of the series on Wednesday at 12:05 p.m. PST. Jeffrey Springs (3-5, 4.11 ERA) is slated to start for the A’s while the Mariners will counter with Logan Gilbert (2-4, 4.04 ERA).