Kyle Seager tied it, Chris Herrmann walked it off in wild Mariners extra-innings win over A’s

Just get one of these back-loaded bullpens a late-inning lead. That’s been part of the M.O. for both the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners this season.

Well … other than that the A’s clinched a playoff berth and the Mariners will miss out for the 17th consecutive season.

But they entered Tuesday as the only teams in MLB to be undefeated when leading after eight innings, and the Mariners had to deal with a one-run deficit in the ninth against Blake Treinen, who has been discussed among Cy Young consideration as Oakland’s dominant closer.

Of course it would be Kyle Seager – who has been mired in a career-worst season offensively. He tied it with a pinch-hit, RBI single with two outs when he shot a 97-mph sinker at the bottom of the zone into right field (with no shift on because of runners on base).

That was just after Oakland’s normally stellar third baseman Matt Chapman didn’t field cleanly what should have been the game-ending ground ball off Ryon Healy’s bat.

That all set up Chris Herrmann’s pinch-hit, walk-off two-run home run off of former Mariners pitcher Emilio Pagan in the bottom of the 11th to hand the A’s their first loss of the season when leading after seven.

The Mariners’ 10-8 victory ended a two-game losing skid. Another extra-innings win for them, with Seattle improving to 86-71 with five games to play.

“It was a crazy game,” Herrmann said, shortly after being mobbed at home plate. “It was a long game. I hate extra-inning games. I’m sure a lot of people do. But I just tried to make the most of my opportunity tonight and trying to tell myself to make contact here, and I got it up in the air for a home run.”

The Mariners have a 14-1 record in extra-innings games this year.

Oakland’s bullpen of what amounts to three closers – Fernando Rodney, Jeurys Familia and Treinen, who has a 0.79 ERA for the season – helped the A’s build a 68-0 record when they led after seven innings. They were the only team in baseball undefeated when leading after seven.

And only Oakland and Seattle entered Tuesday with undefeated records when leading after eight innings, with the Mariners relying on a combo of basically two closers – Alex Colome and Edwin Diaz.

But now make that 68-1 for Oakland when leading after seven and 77-1 when leading after eight.

“We know they are loaded in the bullpen,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “But our bullpen, the guys who threw late in the game were outstanding. That was the key. Just give us a chance and stay in it against a guy who is probably having the best year as a closer in the American League.

“Our guys kept battling. I give them a lot of credit for that.”

The Mariners turned an 8-5 deficit in the eighth to 8-7 on Denard Span’s two-run double off of Rodney, the former Mariners closer.

And Seattle had two outs against Treinen in the ninth before Nelson Cruz’s single (after his three-run homer in the first inning), and Healy reached on the error before Seager’s single, with Ben Gamel scoring as a pinch runner from second.

Seager was asked how nice it was to not get the shift.

“Yeah, he laughed. “But it’s nice getting hits, so I don’t care where they go at that point. He’s been a difficult guy, too, because he throws so hard so he’s not necessarily a pull guy. So that worked out.”

Said Servais: “Those at-bats late in the game, Kyle, no matter how the game is going or how the year is going he’s going to try to grind through it and put a good swing on it. He got a pitch to do something with.”

It was basically a bullpen day for these teams after starters Mike Leake and Brett Anderson combined to allow 11 runs in a combined four innings pitched.

The Mariners used 10 pitchers in this one, which was just the second time in club history they’ve used that many and one off the record set in 1992 against Texas, which was a 16-inning game.

Mariners manager Scott Servais said there was a chance Leake could pitch the season finale on Sunday depending on how his Tuesday start went, and the shortest outing of his career will almost assuredly mean Leake pitches again.

Oakland used four singles to score three runs off Leake in the first inning.

Then the Mariners’ turn – Nelson Cruz launched a three-run home run after back-to-back hits from Mitch Haniger and Jean Segura to tie it back up. That was Cruz’s 37th home run of the season.

But Leake got just one more out before the A’s scored three more runs in the top of the second. Servais walked to the mound to pull him for Chasen Bradford and Leake handed the ball to catcher Mike Zunino in disgust after allowing eight hits and six runs in 1 1/3 innings before Servais was all the way there.

Leake has never pitched that short an outing in his career, and he entered Tuesday leading the Mariners in starts and innings pitched this season.

Mariners offense this second half of the season was hard enough to come by as it is. This night they got it, just not the pitching.

The A’s were staked to a 6-3 lead but Jean Segura brought his big bat, crushing a solo home run into the upper deck past left field for his 10th home run of the season – his third consecutive year with double-digit home runs. He cut the lead to 6-5 after Mike Zunino’s double and score in the second.

It was an 8-5 A’s lead after Marcus Semien’s home run and a two-run double for Matt Olson in the sixth. But Ryon Healy and Daniel Vogelbach led off with back-to-back walks against Rodney, the former Mariners closer, in the eighth before Span cut the deficit to 8-7 with a one-out double.

So two runs off Rodney, then Seager drove in one off of Treinen to tie it.

Lets’ get to it. Three takeaways:

Leake rocked

This was the shortest start of Mike Leake’s career – 1 1/3 innings pitched.

At first Leake was just unlucky. He struck out the first batter he faced, got Matt Chapman to ground out and should have been out of the first inning 1-2-3 had Ryon Healy had been able to hand on to a throw from Jean Segura, who dived to snag Jed Lowrie’s grounder at shortstop.

“You take that play away (at first base) as well as a lot of balls that were missing the barrel but were finding between the infield and outfield. You take those away it’s a somewhat different game,” Leake said. “They were locked in, though. They’re a good team and playoff bound and they were able to make adjustments.”

The Mariners tied it on Nelson Cruz’s three-run homer, but the A’s poured it on from there. They opened with two singles and a triple in the top of the second inning before Lowrie’s second hit in two innings scored another run for a 6-3 Oakland lead with one out in the second.

Scott Servais trotted out to pull Leake, who handed the ball to catcher Mike Zunino and bitterly walked past Servais to the dugout.

Leake threw just 43 pitches (31 for strikes) against an ultra-aggressive A’s lineup but he said afterward that he didn’t feel as if he needed one more start to salvage that outing.

“I don’t feel like I need to,” he said. “I would say most likely it won’t happen. We’ll talk and see what happens.”

Servais had talked earlier in the day about possibly using Leake on Sunday in the season finale against the Rangers.

Leake’s previous shortest outings were in 2012 and 2013 with the Reds in two starts when he pitched just 1 2/3 innings.

Safeco slugger

Nelson Cruz hit his 37th home run of the season with his three-run shot in the bottom of the first inning.

That was also his 21st home run of the year at Safeco Field, which tied a single-season record at the notoriously pitcher-friendly ballpark. Richie Sexson hit 21 homers at Safeco Field in 2008.

But that homer was also the 83rd in Cruz’s four seasons with the Mariners at Safeco, which is tied with Raúl Ibañez for most career home runs hit in this building. Ibañez did that over six seasons.

Kyle Seager has the third-most home runs at Safeco in the park’s history with 67, followed by Bret Boone’s 62 and Robinson Cano has 57.

Play of the game

One could argue it was Nelson Cruz’s two-out opposite field single in the bottom of the ninth against Blake Treinen. Or Kyle Seager’s two-out ensuing tying single, again off of Treinen to send it to extra-innings.

But Chris Herrmann had just his six at-bat of September and he launched a two-run home run in the bottom of the 11th inning to walk off against Emilio Pagan.

This was after Herrmann ended spring training after being released by the Diamondbacks just waiting for a call to play again when the Mariners reached him.

“I’m not going to hang my head just because I’m not playing,” Herrmann said. “I’m going to be ready and I hope that all the coaches and my teammates all know that, that each and every day I try to stay ready for my next opportunity. That’s what I try to tell myself.

“This situation is tough. I don’t get to play a whole lot and Z is our guy and I’m just trying to do my best to be there whenever he needs a day off or whatever it may be. But I’m going to be ready for whatever opportunity I get.”

Top pitcher

The Mariners used 10 pitchers to toss 11 innings, one short of tying their club record for pitchers used in a game, which was set in 1992 in a 16-inning game against Texas.

Eighteen total pitchers were used in this one.

But after not pitching in more than a week, both right-handers Alex Colome and Edwin Diaz locked down the 10th and 11th innings for the Mariners, despite some rust.

The pitchers the Mariners used: Mike Leake, Chasen Bradford, Roenis Elias, Matt Festa, James Pazos, Adam Warren, Justin Grimm, Shawn Armstrong, Diaz and Colome, and Zach Duke was warming up in the bottom of the 11th in case it went longer.

The Mariners are now the only team in the major leagues to be undefeated when leading after eight innings (74-0).

Top batter

Nelson Cruz went 2-for-5 with the three-run homer and the ninth-inning single that started that rally against filthy A’s closer Blake Treinen.

Also, Mike Zunino went 2-for-5 with two doubles to push his season batting average to .204 after it was at .188 earlier in the month.

Denard Span also went 2-for-3 with two doubles as a pinch hitter, cutting the lead to 8-7 in the eighth with a two-run double off of Fernando Rodney.

Quotable

The Mariners had nothing to play for except for keeping Oakland out of a home-field advantage for the final wild card and preventing them from catching the Astros for the American League West crown. But that was enough.

“It’s been a struggle,” Servais said. “Ultimately we didn’t end up where we wanted to be this year, but our guys are still playing hard and preparing every day and coming in and going about their work the right way. And it paid off.”

This story was originally published September 25, 2018 at 11:11 PM.