And the 4-3 triumph Saturday provided a verifying reminder that few of them will be easy.
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In the past seven years, the A’s have had just two men reach the 30-homer mark. The A’s appeared to have turned an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play, but after a video review Dae-Ho Lee was ruled safe at second because second baseman Tyler Ladendorf missed the bag.
Seattle improved to 61-54 and remains two games back for the second wild-card spot. He went 2-for-4 and homered for the third straight game against Seattle. LeBlanc worked 5 1/3 scoreless frames versus the Athletics in his last outing against them on September 23, 2014, to improve to 1-0 with a 5.17 ERA in four games (two starts) against them.Neal made a seamless transition from a long-relief role to the rotation for the second time this season to get the win against Baltimore on Tuesday, yielding one run on two hits over 5 1/3 innings. Oakland scored a couple of runs in the sixth, but there would be no late-inning fireworks from the A’s.
Seattle got to the A’s right-hander early, then Kyle Seager did more damage off the bullpen as the A’s lost 8-4 and dropped the rubber match of this three-game series. James Paxton emerged from his bullpen session feeling fine and is slated to start Tuesday in Anaheim. “That was the story of the game”. “Very, very good and they needed to be tonight”.
The Mariners put runners on second and third with one out in the ninth inning on Chris Iannetta’s line-hugging double but failed to score when Ketel Marte hit a weak pop to short and Nori Aoki grounded out. It was a battle for him all evening.
Kendall Graveman was charged with four runs in six innings in a loss to the Mariners on Saturday. The spasms were bad enough that he scrapped much of his day-before-start regimen to get treatment.
“It kind of stiffened up yesterday and I was a little anxious yesterday”, Iwakuma said through an interpreter.
Iwakuma got treatment before the game, and though he didn’t feel 100 percent, he still managed to give the Mariners a chance to win. “I think you could see my body was starting to fly open and my elbow wasn’t as high as I wanted it to be”.
“Anytime you can get a win and give up less runs than your team scores”, he said, “you’ve got to be happy about it”. Seattle is 6-1 in his seven outings. He also scored a run and drove in Seattle’s eighth tally with a single to left in the eighth inning that plated CF Leonys Martin. Nick Vincent, Arquimedes Caminero, Tom Wilhelmsen and Diaz didn’t allow a run in 32/3 innings.
“I was just hoping it was going to go over (the center fielder’s) head”, Cano said.
“I thought that would be a good time to do it”. But you are in Oakland. His last time out he could have fallen apart, and he hung in there and gave us five innings, which allowed us to come back in the game. What’s most impressive is that 16 of Davis’ home runs have come at the spacious Coliseum, normally considered a pitcher’s park. Josh Reddick hit 32 in 2012, Brandon Moss 30 the following season. Before the season, Cano promised he would be more aggressive on first pitches, feeling he was giving away too many hittable pitches.
“It’s your job as a hitter to be ready for that pitch”, he said. “I have nine homers on the first pitch, but how many do I have where I’m out?”
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The Mariners got even on Cruz’s leadoff homer in the fourth inning on a first-pitch fastball from Graveman.
