SEATTLE_They wouldn't go quietly.
That's not the style of this team and the play of this season. They knew before the game that they had to win on Saturday night to keep their postseason hopes alive. That was the plan_win every game on this homestand first and let the rest of the wild-card issues sort themselves out. So when the Blue Jays defeated the Red Sox in Fenway, the equation was simple_win or be eliminated.
It took nine innings and then one more, but the dream to break the longest postseason drought in Major League Baseball ended on Saturday night with a 9-8 loss to the Oakland A's.
They'd come back so many times in the game, shaking off an ugly start from Hisashi Iwakuma and bullpen failures to tie the game twice.
And it was all set up to tie the game again for the third time. Ben Gamel, who tied the game in the eighth inning with an RBI single, led off the bottom of the 10th with a single and the Mariners trailing by one. A wild pitch from Ryan Madson moved him into scoring position.
That meant the best three hitters on the Mariners would have a chance to tie or possibly win the game with one swing. It didn't happen.
Robinson Cano was jammed on an inside fastball for a soft groundout to third.
Nelson Cruz's hard ground ball back up the middle hit off of Madson's foot and bounced to first baseman Yonder Alonso, who tagged Cruz.
Kyle Seager flew out to shallow center.
Closer Edwin Diaz took the loss. Asked to pitch in a third straight inning, he gave up a pair of doubles for the go-ahead run.
That the Mariners even had a chance was a testament to their ability bounce back
Down a run with two outs, the duo of Mike Freeman and Gamel delivered in the clutch.
Freeman, a waiver claim from the Diamondbacks, and Gamel, an August trade pickup, delivered two of the most important hits of the Mariners' season. Facing Oakland's Ryan Dull, Freeman doubled down the left-field line. Nori Aoki worked a walk, setting up Gamel. In the game for defensive purposes, the youngster didn't shy away from the moment, coolly singling to right field to score Freeman and tie the game at 8-8.
The real problem started at the beginning.
Iwakuma worked 32/3 innings, giving up five runs on nine hits with a walk and five strikeouts. It was the third time in seven starts where Iwakuma failed to make it past the fourth inning. He didn't look crisp from the first pitch of the outing and struggled with putting hitters away with two strikes.
He allowed a leadoff single and issued a two-out walk before getting out of the frame.
He came back to work a 1-2-3 second inning. But after the Mariners gave him a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second, Iwakuma's start fell apart in the third inning.
He allowed three straight singles to start the third inning to lead to a run, which was aided by a previous Ketel Marte throwing error.
Iwakuma came back to strikeout Ryon Healy, but gave up a deep RBI ground-rule double to Khris Davis and a two-run double to Yonder Alonso down the right field line_both on 3-2 counts_to make it 4-2.
He managed to escape the fourth without further damage, but a two-out RBI single from Healy in the fourth inning ended his outing. Drew Storen came in and record the final out.
Down 5-2, the Mariners' best player tried to bring them back into the game. Cano's brilliant 2016 season continued his 39th homer. With Seth Smith on first base, Cano crushed a 2-0 fastball over the wall in center field. The two-run blast cut the lead to 5-4 and had the crowd of 29,522 roaring in approval.
But the Mariners' bullpen, forced to take on extra work, just couldn't keep the A's from adding to the lead.
Vidal Nuno gave up a run in the sixth inning and Nick Vincent surrendered a solo homer to Khris Davis_his 42nd of the season_in the seventh inning to make it 7-4.
Down three runs in the bottom of the seventh and with their playoff hopes on life support, Cano and Nelson Cruz brought the Mariners roaring back into the game against A's lefty Sean Doolittle. After seeing his teammates fail with runners in scoring position, Cano delivered again. After Nori Aoki's leadoff double and hustle play to tag up and get to third on Frankling Gutierrez's fly ball to center, Cano fought off three straight 2-2 fastballs, singling up the middle to cut the lead to 7-5.
With his left wrist ailing with each missed swing, Cruz didn't miss on a 2-0 fastball on the outside corner, driving it over the wall in deep center for a dramatic, game-tying two-run homer.
All that good feeling was erased with two outs in the eighth inning. After getting two quick outs, Steve Cishek gave up a single to Joey Wendle. It seemed inconsequential at the time. But Cishek made it costly, firing an overzealous throw on an unnecessary pickoff attempt to first base that got past Adam Lind and up the right field line. Wendle raced all the way to third. Marcus Semien made the miscue hurt, hitting a groundrule double into left-center. No error and the hit doesn't score a run. Instead the Mariners trailed 8-7.
