Today's Daily Faily Is Straily As A's Fall 6-3

Sometimes just one defensive misplay and one bad pitch are enough to do you in for the evening. That's pretty much how it went for the not-so-swinging A's tonight.

In the bottom of the 1st, with one on and one out, Kendrys Morales chopped a sure DP ball between SS and 3B. The only questions were whether Donaldson or Lowrie would field it, and whether instead of making a relay throw Sogard might just run the ball to 1B himself -- post grand slam celebration, Morales is that slow. However, Donaldson missed it, obscuring Lowrie's view so that Lowrie also missed it, and the Mariners wound up scoring 2 runs on Justin Smoak's subsequent double.

Then in the bottom of the 4th, with two on, Straily left a changeup in what I can only assume Scott Hatteberg referred to as Raul Ibañez' "honey hole". Ibañez launched a 3-run HR to make it 5-0, and it was all over but the teAsing. It should be noted that Straily is not HR-prone -- he just gives up a lot of HRs. Or something like that. The A's RHP wound up charged with 6 ER in 5+ IP, continuing a troubling trend of A's starting pitchers going about 5 IP. And not usually 5 really good ones, either.

As for the offense, well...for a long time that would be John Jaso leading off the game with a single. Because after that, Hisashi Iwakuma retired 16 in a row and took a shutout into the 7th. In his final inning, Jed Lowrie got to him for a 2-run double that cut the deficit to 6-2 and in the 8th Derek Norris took Oliver Perez deep for his 1st HR of the season. Hence a final score that looks respectable, in a game that belonged to the Mariners wire to wire.

That's 5 in a row in the loss column for the A's and their first 5 game deficit in the AL West. At 18-19, Oakland is under .500 for the first time since April 3rd and in their last 21 games the A's are a positively Astrosian 6-15. At the moment, Josh Donaldson looks like he is trying to hit for himself, Crisp, Young, and Reddick combined, Yoenis Cespedes looks he is not quite sure whether he playing baseball, golf or cricket, and the bench looks like it would produce pinch hitters who are 2 for 35 for the season. Hey, what a co-inky-dink, they are!

Jarrod Parker goes for the A's tomorrow night, a thought that makes my neck hurt. Hopefully he comes up big, gets back on track, and takes the team back on track with him.