OAKLAND, Calif. — The former Oakland A’s outscored the current A’s on Tuesday night, leading their new team—the Seattle Mariners—to a 6-3 victory.
Yonder Alonso ripped a two-run homer in the fourth inning and Danny Valencia crushed a three-run homer in the seventh inning to put the Mariners up for good.
Friends from their days of playing amateur baseball while growing up in Miami, teammates at the University of Miami and teammates on the Oakland A’s last season, Alonso and Valencia were reunited in August. The Mariners acquired Alonso from the A’s in exchange for outfielder Boog Powell. The move was to find a left-handed hitting complement to the right-handed hitting Valencia at first base. And while the move didn’t push the Mariners into the postseason, Alonso has been a solid acquisition.
On Tuesday, they were both in the lineup with Valencia getting the start in right field. Their two homers elicited some loud grumbles and boos of disapproval from the 13,513 in attendance at the Oakland Coliseum
With Seattle trailing 1-0, Alonso turned on a 0-2 fastball that was mistakenly left up in the zone, sending it over the wall in right field. It was his 27th homer of the season. It was his fifth since joining the Mariners with three of them coming against Oakland.
With the Mariners trailing 3-2, Valencia greeted reliever Ryan Dull in excitable fashion, crushing his 15th homer of the season—a three-run shot over the wall in left-center.
Seattle starter James Paxton pitched 51/3 innings, giving up three runs on six hits with no walks and five strikeouts. While he wasn’t dominant, he did flash a fastball that was back sitting above 95 mph—always a good sign.
All three of his runs allowed came via the home run. On Paxton’s third pitch of the game—a 1-1 curveball over the inside of half of the plate—Marcus Semien yanked it over the wall for his first career leadoff homer.
It looked as though Paxton was en route to his 13th win on the season, holding the A’s scoreless over the next four innings while Alonso provided him a 2-1 lead in the fourth.
But Paxton couldn’t make it out of the sixth. He gave up a one-out single to Jed Lowrie and then watched as Khris Davis lifted a 95-mph fastball on the bottom of the strike zone over the wall in deep right-center. The two-run blast—Davis’ 42nd homer of the season—gave the A’s a 3-2 lead and ended Paxton’s outing.
Notes: With the Mariners eliminated from the postseason and essentially playing for nothing more than pride and a few victories, Seattle’s front office and coaching staff decided to not have Felix Hernandez or Mike Leake make their last scheduled starts in Anaheim against the Angels in the final series of the season. Leake was scheduled to pitch on Friday, while Hernandez was set to go on Saturday. Instead, left-hander Marco Gonzales will start on Friday and right-hander Andrew Moore will start on Saturday.
After his start on Monday night where he pitched six innings and allowed one run to improve to 6-5 on the season, Hernandez confirmed he wouldn’t pitch again in 2017. It’s something he discussed with manager Scott Servais in the days leading up to it.
“He’s gone through a long year with the shoulder barking for the majority of the year,” Servais said. “I thought (Monday) night he did a really good job to hang in there. He didn’t have really great stuff. It wasn’t hurting him. But it was just kind of dead arm. He’s at the end of the year and I don’t know what benefit there would be to running him out there.”
Hernandez had two separate stints on the DL for shoulder bursitis this season, missing from April 26 to June 22 the first time and from August 5 to September 13. He was on the disabled list for a total of 82 games. Hernandez made a total of 16 starts and posted a 4.36 ERA. It was the fewest amounts of starts for a full season in his career. Hernandez is under contract for the next two seasons and owed over $53 million.
Guillermo Heredia’s season is over. The Mariners have decided to not use Heredia in the remaining games because of right shoulder soreness.
Obviously, if the Mariners were still vying for a playoff spot, Heredia would’ve played through the discomfort. But with Seattle being eliminated, there was no reason to risk further damage.
“It actually happened last season on a pickoff throw to first base when I was diving back in,” Heredia said through interpreter Fernando Alcala. “It felt like I dislocated the shoulder. It wasn’t really an issue until recently and they decided to shut me down.”
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