A’s skid against Mariners reaches 13 as comeback falls short

SEATTLE — Futility against the Mariners helped scuttle the Oakland Athletics’ playoff hopes last season. A much-altered A’s team must improve to make their matchups as meaningful this year yet faced a Seattle team Monday night that is also reeling.

The result recalled the teams’ final dozen meetings of 2021. The A’s mounted a burst of offense and still fell 7-6 to the Mariners. It marked their 13th straight loss to Seattle, matching their longest losing streak against one team in the Oakland era.

The margin of those defeats adds an element of exasperation. Eleven losses to Seattle last season came by two or fewer runs. Monday the A’s erased a 3-0 deficit and nearly clawed back from 7-3, leaving the tying run 90 feet from home in the sixth inning.

Starter Zach Logue had shaky command and the Mariners capitalized. Logue issued two walks and hit a batter in the second inning but escaped with three strikeouts. After Ty France doubled in the third, Logue walked J.P. Crawford. Julio Rodríguez hit Logue’s next pitch for a threerun home run. Logue issued his fourth walk to Luis Torrens an inning later. Cal Raleigh followed with a line-drive homer to left.

“I was just kind of losing a lot of stuff arm-side, especially my fastball and then my cutter, which is a little uncharacteristic I would say for that pitch,” Logue said. “A lot of the time the way I attack right-handers is to bust them in with fastball and cutter and wasn’t able to do that for the most part tonight, and when they can get their hands extended and eliminate that part of the plate it makes their job a little bit easier and my job a little bit tougher.”

In his first four outings with Oakland, Logue totaled 14 threeball counts; he went to nine Monday. In the fifth, he fell behind 3-1 to Eugenio Suárez with a man on first. Suárez drove his next pitch for a two-run homer. Logue got 12 misses on 36 swings, but the Mariners put 13 balls in play at an average of 99 mph — above the 95-mph mark Statcast defines as hard-hit.

“I think the outing was not one that we’re used to seeing from him,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “The walks really hurt him. When he’s not locating that heater in and not getting the ball in to right-handed hitters to keep them off breaking pitches away, it just kind of led to the night.”

Old guard: Two grizzled majorleaguers met at a key moment in the sixth. The A’s had pulled to 7-6 and had runners on second and third with one out. Seattle summoned Sergio Romo.

Romo, 39, spent part of pregame catching up with former A’s teammates from last year. He entered with a 1.50 ERA in six outings for Seattle. He fell behind 3-1 to Sheldon Neuse, then threw a trademark slider that Neuse popped up. Seattle first baseman Ty France caught it against the boundary netting. Kotsay, who unsuccessfully challenged the catch, deemed it the “play of the game.”

“We had second and third there with one out and it would have been nice to see Neuse get another shot,” Kotsay said. “It was a great play by France, really helped them get out of that inning.”

Romo walked Chad Pinder to load the bases for Jed Lowrie. Lowrie, 38, made his MLB debut on April 15, 2008. Romo debuted about two months later. Julio Rodríguez, the Mariners center fi elder on Monday, was 7 years old at the time. It marked the fifth matchup between Romo and Lowrie, who was 0-for-3 with a walk against the sidewinder. Romo threw Lowrie four changeups. Lowrie grounded out on the last.

“That might be the first time he’s ever thrown four changeups in one at-bat,” said Lowrie, who then went into the matchup in detail.

“He’s known for the slider, right,” Lowrie said. “So that pitch is always in the back of your mind because you can’t give up on it. He can throw it way off the plate and it’ll come back for a strike.

“He just threw four changeups in absolutely perfect spots, all four times. He executed and I was just trying to in that situation really just do what I did in my last at-bat (a single up the middle), especially against the shift. But he just put them in such good spots, I didn’t have a chance to stay through it.”

On Julio: The A’s may see Rodríguez, 21, for a long time. Rodríguez entered Monday hitting .268 over his first 41 major-league games and offered a glimpse of an advanced approach at the plate.

In the third, Rodríguez got a first-pitch slider from Logue and hit it 376 feet to right-center at 103.8 mph off the bat for his fourth home run. He went to the opposite field again in his next atbat, shooting an 89-mph fastball through the open right side of the infield for a 107.4-mph single.

“The guy obviously has the tools to hit a ball out the other way,” Lowrie said. “But then to have the discipline to take his hits the other way when that’s what’s being given to him, that’s a pretty good sign of a guy who knows how to perform. So yeah, if he can continue to develop that approach, it seems like the sky’s the limit for someone like that.”

On Trivino: Rodríguez came up in another key spot in the bottom of the sixth, with the bases full and two outs. Lou Trivino entered from the A’s bullpen and got Rodríguez to offer at a 2-2 curveball for a strikeout.

Trivino returned to work a clean seventh, an encouraging sign for the right-hander after recent struggles.

“Honestly, I feel better than I did last year, just sometimes when it rains it pours,” Trivino said. “Getting that out and then coming back to get through the (seventh) clean, it was good, and keep on building that momentum.”

Good plan: Pache made more solid contact with a 91.7-mph groundout in his first at-bat and a 96.8-mph grounder for a fielder’s choice in his second. On his two-run double, Pache pulled a 2-2 slider from right-hander Penn Murfee on a line into left field.

The A’s totaled eight hits against Seattle starter Marco Gonzales. Pinder homered to open a fourth inning in which they scored three runs on eight hits and made Gonzales throw 34 pitches.

“I think we fouled off a lot of tough pitches and got into situations where we forced him to come over the plate,” Lowrie said. “For the most part we didn’t try to do too much. He’s the type of guy that wants your effort level to go up so you get yourself out.”