Game #135: A's Squander Ideal Start, Lose 11-8

So, how about this weather? Just gorgeous, right? In an unexpected break from the usual late-summer heat, the weather has turned and it is gorgeous. The days are sunny and the nights hold the promise of crisp Autumn air as the baseball season winds to a close.

And it can’t come *&^%$#@ soon enough.

I mean, seriously? How do you wrap up this game with a straight face? How do you lose a game that started like this? Here's a summary of the first four batters: Burns singled, Canha reached on an error, and Lawrie singled to load the bases with no one out. Then Danny Valencia hit a grand slam to stake the A's to the immediate 4-0 lead. Still with no outs. And here we thought all starting pitcher Edgar Olmos had to worry about was his horrific mustache.

Aaron Brooks should have put it in cruise control at this point, but unfortunately, he pitched more like one of those new driverless cars; you know the one that veers off the road and repeatedly runs into a wall. He allowed a sacrifice fly in the second for the Mariners' first run, and the A's even managed to get that back, thanks to a Lawrie double in the bottom of the inning. It's 5-1. This shouldn't be this hard.

Yet back-to-back doubles, back-to-back singles, another single and two more back-to-back doubles proved otherwise, turning a 5-1 A's lead into a 7-5 deficit as Brooks was unceremoniously kicked out of the game in the top of the third inning. His replacement, Venditte, wasn't a whole lot better. Neither was his replacement, Abad, who allowed two more runs of his own to run the score to 9-5 in the fourth.

Meanwhile, Billy Burns continued to frustrate, staying close to the base when he should have run, and running when he should not have; resulting in being thrown out not once, but twice in today's game.

The middle of the A's bullpen, led by Sean Doolittle, who topped 94 in his stellar appearance tonight, looked good; Doolittle, Dull, and Rodriguez all shined in each of their innings of work, keeping the A's in the game long enough to mount a comeback.

Billy Butler led off the sixth with a double, and Crisp followed with an infield single. Marcus Semien tripled them both in to cut the Mariners' lead to 9-7 and Burns' single put the A's within a run. Unfortunately, with a 3-0 count to Canha, Burns tried to steal second, and slid terribly, his lead leg hovering over the base instead of on it and replay determined he was out, effectively killing the rally.

The A's put two on in both the seventh and eighth innings, but failed to score, and a two-run home run given up by Pomeranz in the ninth inning put the A's down by 3, an insurmountable deficit considering how the night had already gone.

And that was the ballgame. And we do this all over again tomorrow facing Felix Hernandez! Whee! We'll see you back here with all the action.