OAKLAND, Calif._It was going to happen at some point this season and likely in his next few outings. James Paxton was going to stop pitching like Canada's version of Sandy Koufax and turn into a mortal for at least one outing.
Regression to the mean in baseball is the ultimate opponent for any player and it rarely loses. The odds of Paxton continuing to put up scoreless inning after scoreless inning would grow slimmer with each one he notched.
The question would be_could the Mariners do enough to offset that inevitability and win a game when Paxton wasn't tossing six shutout innings of dominance? It's something that a team with the Mariners' aspirations does with some regularity.
That inescapable moment came on Thursday night against an unremarkable Oakland A's team and the Mariners failed in a 9-6 loss.
Paxton was nothing like the pitcher of his first three outings, pitching just 4 1/3 innings, giving up five runs on nine hits with a walk and eight strikeouts. Coming into the game, he'd give up just eight hits in his first 21 innings pitched.
And yet this was a winnable game for the Mariners. Instead, two costly errors, inability to add on to an early lead and bullpen failures late turned into a forgettable defeat.
Seattle is now 1-7 on the road.
The Mariners seemed poised to pile up a plethora of runs. They were facing 32-year-old right-hander Cesar Valdez, who was called up from Class AAA Nashville to make the start. The last time he pitched in the big leagues was in June of 2010 when Edwin Diaz was 16 years old.
Since then he's bounced around, pitching for almost any team in any league that would give him a uniform and a chance.
Seattle treated him as such, scoring three runs in the first two innings. But they would score no more. Valdez was able to get through four innings without any further damage.
Still, with an early 3-0 lead, Paxton had everything set up to attack hitters without fear and keep rolling. But it didn't happen.
His scoreless innings streak, which was at 21 innings coming into the start, reached 23 innings after two scoreless frames. But it all fell apart in the third inning. Three straight singles would yield his first run allowed, with Adam Rosales lining a pitch into to right to score Jaff Decker.
Then the Mariners got hit with some bad luck. Mitch Haniger's throw in from right field to Taylor Motter hit off the second base bag and bounced into the outfield, allowing Rajai Davis to race home from third base. Paxton came back to strike out the next two batters and appeared ready to get out with a lead. But Ryon Healy laced a double down the left field line to score Rosales to tie the game at 3-3.
Paxton was chased two innings later. His defense let him down to start the inning. A Davis leadoff single to center was inexplicably misplayed by Leonys Martin as the ball just rolled past him. It allowed Davis to advance to third. The A's took the lead on a sac fly to left field moments later. But they weren't finished. Jed Lowrie doubled and later scored on Healy's RBI single to left, ending Paxton's night.
Down 5-3, the Mariners tied the game in the sixth inning. Taylor Motter hammered a first-pitch fastball from reliever Frankie Montas over the wall in center field to tie the score at 5.
But the bullpen torpedoed the victory hopes. Evan Scribner gave up a run immediately in the bottom half of the inning to put the Mariners down 6-5.
And Dan Altavilla let the game get out of reach in the seventh, issuing a pair of one-out walks and serving up a three-run homer to Trevor Plouffe to make it 9-5.
