Mariners hold Oakland scoreless through nine, but A’s walk off in 10th
Throughout the final weekend of this shortened baseball season, the Mariners will remain focused on what has been a top priority all year — development of their young players.
Even with one of the youngest teams in the majors this season, Seattle (25-32) played its way into the postseason race until the final week of the season.
Though they were officially eliminated on their scheduled off day Thursday, the Mariners still have plenty to play for these final four games in Oakland, manager Scott Servais said pregame.
“We no longer have a chance to get into the postseason, but still a lot to get accomplished here this last weekend,” he said during his pregame video call Friday afternoon from the Oakland Coliseum. “We’ll give some guys opportunities, maybe in different spots they haven’t been in. … We’ll continue to take advantage of the last four games and see what we get out of those.”
The Mariners did that Friday night in the first game of their final series, holding the A’s scoreless through nine innings with a quality start from Yusei Kikuchi, and clean frames from three young relievers.
Oakland, which has already locked up the American League West, was down to its final out in the 10th before Mark Canha hit a two-run homer to lift the A’s past the Mariners with a 3-1, walk-off win. It was Oakland’s sixth walk-off win of the season, which leads the majors.
“You don’t see too many of those games anymore — 0-0 getting into the 10th inning,” Servais said. “Obviously a well-pitched game on both sides tonight.”
To see the Mariners’ pitchers contend until the final batter with one of baseball’s more veteran staffs was encouraging, and it started with Kikuchi, who wrapped up his second season in the big leagues with his second scoreless outing in his nine starts, rebounding from a troubling five-run start in San Diego last week.
“I was obviously super excited about the step forward that Yusei Kikuchi took tonight,” Servais said. “I know going into the game, Woody (Pete Woodworth), our pitching coach was pretty excited about it, and thought he did some things getting back on track, and tonight I thought he was outstanding.
“Very relaxed on the mound, went right after them, certainly controlled the strike zone, worked through some tougher innings, got a couple big double play balls to help him out. So, really a nice way for him to end the season on a positive note and really build on that.”
Kikuchi calmly worked out of traffic in four of his six complete innings, allowing four hits and three walks, but never allowing a run while striking out five. He threw 99 pitches.
“I felt like I was able to control my emotions better tonight, and it’s something that Coach Woody and I had talked about prior to this start,” Kikuchi said through interpreter Kevin Ando.
He finishes his second season with the Mariners 2-4 with a 5.17 ERA, but finished on a high note, controlling the strike zone, and appearing more relaxed on the mound in his final outing.
“That’s what excited me as much as anything tonight,” Servais said. “I thought Yusei was very calm all night, and even when it looked like some of those innings maybe start to unravel, a couple guys on, nobody out — you keep pitching, you keep grinding through it, you keep making one pitch at a time and executing. And I thought he did a good job of that tonight.”
Following Kikuchi’s solid outing, the Mariners stuck to their plan of continuing to get their younger players experience, turning to rookie relievers Yohan Ramirez and Anthony Misiewicz and second-year reliever Erik Swanson in the seventh, eighth and ninth, and each delivered a scoreless frame.
After the A’s drove in the tying run off rookie Joey Gerber, who has been one of Seattle’s most reliable bullpen arms this season, in the 10th on a Ramon Laureano double, Canha hit the decisive two-run homer.
“Tonight was the night with the kids,” Servais said. “That was the plan going into the game. Yohan hadn’t pitched much recently, Swanny hadn’t pitched much recently. Give those guys a chance and you’re hoping that, it is a tight game, so they get to experience some of those things at the end of the game, and they handled it great. I thought they threw the ball really well. And even Gerbs.
“We’re one out away from walking off there with a big ‘W’ on the road. but you’ve got to give Oakland credit. There’s a reason they’re the second-best team in the American League. They’ve won a few games like that this year.”
Dee Strange-Gordon entered the 1,000th game of his big league career as a pinch runner for the Mariners in the 10th inning.
Playing in their fourth extra-innings game of this shortened season, the Mariners sent the speedy veteran to second base by rule as their designated runner to open the frame.
Strange-Gordon played the game perfectly. He tagged up on a fly out to right from pinch hitter Luis Torrens, stayed alert, and scored the go-ahead run moments later on a passed ball to give the Mariners the game’s first lead at 1-0.
“That’s hard to do, to play 1,000 games in this league,” Servais said. “He got in there, scored what I thought was going to be the winning run. We just weren’t able to hold up for it. But, happy for Dee and getting that milestone.”
The Mariners managed little else against Oakland’s pitchers. Chris Bassitt tossed seven scoreless frames, allowing five hits with six strikeouts, Yusmeiro Petit and Liam Hendricks both retired the Mariners in order in the eighth and ninth, and Jake Diekman collected the win after allowing the one run in the 10th.
This story was originally published September 25, 2020 at 11:21 PM.
