SEATTLE _ The Oakland A's inability to get through the last three innings without something dreadful happening showed up again Tuesday night, but this time Oakland dodged the bullet with ninth-inning homers by Matt Joyce and Mark Canha leading to a 9-6 win.
Down 5-4 in the ninth, Oakland was en route to a fifth straight loss when Rajai Davis singled as a pinch hitter off the Mariners' Steve Cishek to open the inning. Joyce then homered for the third time in his last five games, a shot to right-center that vaulted the A's back in front.
Canha, who had singled and doubled earlier in the game, came up following Joyce's homer with two men on and went deep himself. The blast, which carried out to left of center field, was his first home run of the season after having spent much of the first six weeks in the minor leagues.
The A's rally ended a four-game losing streak and left Oakland, fifth in the American League West, with a 17-22 record.
Oakland carried a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh, a time when the bullpen has had trouble. Two of the previous four losses during this run had seen the relievers rocked for a total of seven runs in games Saturday and Sunday in Texas.
This time the bullpen was merely a contributing factor. But it was a potential inning-ending double play that went under the glove of Ryon Healy at third base that was the prime culprit while secondary was an inning-ending double play call that was reversed on appeal, permitting the tying run to score.
Reliever Ryan Madson, who'd pitched the A's out of that seventh inning jam as best he could, was drilled for a two-out solo Kyle Seager homer in the bottom of the eighth as the Mariners took the lead. It was Madson who got credit for the win, thanks to Joyce and Canha.
Nelson Cruz, who homered in the second inning in the series opener Monday, didn't wait so long on Tuesday when matched up with A's starter Andrew Triggs. The veteran picked on the first pitch he saw from Triggs and delivered his 10th homer, good for a 1-0 Seattle lead.
Triggs kicked it into gear from that point, his almost sidearmed pitches keeping the Mariners' hitters off balance for most of the rest of the night. In that effort he got some help from catcher Josh Phegley, who cut rallies short by throwing out would-be base stealers in the second and third innings.
Triggs didn't have to pitch from behind for long. Yonder Alonso opened the A's second inning with a walk and Healy crushed his seventh homer on a 3-1 pitch, that combination good for a 2-1 Oakland lead.
Two innings later, a couple of players who may be coming out of season-long slumps combined for a run when Mark Canha and Stephen Vogt backed up doubles. Those hits produced one run and later in the inning Phegley singled up the middle to push the score to 4-1.
Manager Bob Melvin let Triggs throw six innings, by which time he was up to 98 pitches thrown and Melvin was ready to go to his bullpen.
That hasn't been a winning strategy of late, and it wasn't this time, either, although the bullpen could have used a little luck.
One out into the inning, Ryan Dull gave up back-to-back hits, one of them a slow roller to third base, and his night was done. Daniel Coulombe took over and immediately loaded the bases by hitting Jarrod Dyson with a 1-2 pitch. Coulombe thought he'd dodged a bullet when the next hitter, Carlos Ruiz hit a perfect double play grounder to third. Healy, normally the DH, had the ball go under his glove for a two-base error as two runs scored.
Then it was time for Madson to pitch. He got what he, too, believed to be a double play grounder. The first out came easily on a throw from Adam Rosales to Jed Lowrie, and Lowrie got the call on his throw to Yonder Alonso at first base, ending the inning with Oakland still up 4-3. The Mariners challenged the call, however, and they got the call. Jean Segura was ruled to have beaten the throw, which meant that Dyson had scored the tying run.
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