A’s drop first game of series to Mariners 11-2

Oakland dropped their fifth straight game this evening, falling to Seattle by a final of 11-2.

It was ugly and early in this one. Muller served up a quick 2-run home run in the bottom of the first inning, then allowed a 3-run shot in the second. It was a 5-0 disadvantage with the A’s yet to even record a hit against Seattle ace Luis Castillo. Oakland got their first hit on a leadoff Shea Langeliers double in the third but stranded him.

And it wouldn’t be until the fourth that the A’s finally got a scoring opportunity. Brent Rooker almost got the A’s on the board but his deep flyball died on the track. But Seth Brown, fresh off the IL, got the second A’s hit with a two-out single, his first back. JJ Bleday followed up with a walk but the A’s couldn’t break through. Then the team loaded the bases in the fifth but still couldn’t push even one across.

Muller only had two scoreless frames today after he gave up one in the fifth, which ended up being his last of the evening. At least he finished his final frame:

-Kyle Muller: 5 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 2 BB, 3 K, 97 pitches

That was a rough start from the Opening Nighty rookie. He gave up a lot of hard hit balls other than the two home runs and wasn’t fooling Seattle hitters with what he had tonight. Still, he battled through to give the A’s five innings. The bullpen wouldn’t be expected to throw 7 or 8 frames which can be taxing. Especially at the beginning of a series.

RIghty Adrian Martinez started the sixth out of the Oakland bullpen and got jumped all over. He allowed two runs but was lucky to get out allowing just that after loading the bases, but he got a big strikeout to escape. Shintaro Fujinami came on for the seventh and had a perfect inning with a couple strikeouts, but gave up 3 runs in his second inning.

Up by such a large margin, Seattle decided to pull Castillo after shutting down the A’s for seven innings. With the Mariners ace out of the game Oakland finally got some offense in. Rooker grounded out to bring in Esteury Ruiz, and Brownie had his own RBI groundout to bring in Ryan Noda. That was it though as the A’s went down in order of the ninth to seal yet another loss.

So the losing streak continues. They’ve lost five in a row and 13 of their last 15. We knew it would be bad but ugh, didn’t think it would be approaching historically bad. Oakland needs a win desperately right now. On the plus side, Ruiz’s hitting streak continued with his single; it’s now at 8-games.

They’ll go for just that elusive win tomorrow evening in game 2 of the series. Oakland will be throwing out rookie right-hander Luis Medina. He’s been solid in his past two starts and will hope to keep that rolling. He’ll be opposed by the left-handed Marco Gonzalez, who has not had a good year and is coming off arguably his worst start of the year. I like our odds.