And then there are those games that you wish you could send back and have them cook a little longer...
The A's just couldn't get anything going tonight against Ian Snell, going hitless until Daric Barton's single with two outs in the fifth. Meanwhile, Vin Mazzaro flirted incessantly with danger during his five frames on the hill. The Mariners played along for awhile, stranding eight through the first four innings, a José López homerun leading off the third their only score, and for a brief moment Mazzaro (5IP, 5H, 3R, 4BB, 4K) was duped into thinking he might have a chance.
But the young right-hander got a little too cute for his own good, hitting López with a pitch to start the fifth, before Ken Griffey Jr. put an end to the charade with a no-doubt-about-it blast into the right-field bleachers, the 625th of a career that will ultimately land him in Cooperstown.
Griffey may have benefited from home plate umpire Marty Foster's decision to warn both benches following the López at-bat, taking the inside part of the plate from Mazzaro. So the rook grooved one, and the 21-year veteran deposited it into the cheap seats.
The A's got one back in the sixth on a run-scoring single by Kurt Suzuki, but that was all for the A's, who left their bats back in the Bay Area.
There wasn't even the usual teA'se tonight, unless you count Jack Cust's ground-rule double to lead off the ninth, which brought up the tying run. But Suzuki flied out to right, Ryan Sweeney did the same to left, and Landon Powell struck out to end it, earning Snell (6IP, 4H, 1R, 2BB, 2K) the win, and David Aardsma his 29th save of the season.
