Game #158: A’s Walk It Off Against M’s, Win 6-5

***Check out today’s Game Thread***

Given how well the A’s have played at home in 2017, it would have been a shame if they’d been swept in the season’s final series at the Coliseum. It’d also have been an unfitting end to a season that broke the Coliseum’s home run record if the A’s didn’t hit a long ball today. Thanks to Mark Canha, neither of those things happened.

A first-inning sacrifice fly from Khris Davis ensured the A’s never trailed on Wednesday. In fact, they held the lead for most of the game. The Mariners did tie it on two occasions - the fourth and the eighth - but the Green and Gold answered immediately both times.

Like Davis in the first, Marcus Semien hit a sac fly in the third, allowing Franklin Barreto to score. But the A’s big inning was still to come.

Bruce Maxwell led off the scoring in the fourth by singling to center, plating Ryon Healy. Today’s hero, Mark Canha, followed Maxwell’s effort with the game’s third sacrifice fly, scoring Matt Chapman. And Matt Joyce capped the action with his third double of the game, tying an Athletics’ record.

Kendall Graveman was serviceable this afternoon; he’d make a solid backend starter next year if he guaranteed us six innings and three runs every outing. He gave up seven hits, the biggest of which was Nelson Cruz’s two-run, fourth-inning bomb.

But keep the A’s in the game he did. Out of the ‘pen, Liam Hendriks was lights-out. Chris Hatcher was not. Hatcher pitched the eighth, and with the A’s leading 5-3, this happened...

422 feet. But to Hatcher’s credit, he retired the next three in order. Blake Treinen didn’t concede in the ninth, which set the stage for Mark Canha.

It wasn’t the game’s hardest hit home run. It wasn’t the longest either. But it was its most important.

It was a recap full of tweets, so I’ll leave you with one more before I go.

Farewell to the Coliseum for 2017. Perhaps it’s because I don’t have to deal with the sewage backups or the lousy clubhouses but I will miss the Coliseum whenever it goes. It’s not a historic relic, at least not anymore so than Busch II or the Vet was, but it has its own charm, and the players seem to miss it when they go on the road. Here’s to not missing it too much for the next four days. Let’s win one last series for 2017.