Zoom out and the two teams are pointed in very different directions. The Athletics are buried at the bottom of the league with nothing left to play for beyond auditioning September call-ups, yet that hasn't stopped them from beating up on Seattle specifically. The Mariners, meanwhile, are still fighting to stay relevant in the wild-card picture, and a soft stretch of schedule against clubs like the A's was supposed to be exactly how they climbed back in — not how they kept sliding.
The form card tells the story. The Athletics have won 3 straight, with the last two coming against this same Seattle pitching staff, while the Mariners have lost 2 straight and went 2-1 against Boston in their last five before this skid started. That's a real step back for a Seattle club that needs length from its rotation, and it puts extra weight on Kirby to be the guy who stops it.
Between the two injury lists, there's a lot of season-ending business mixed in with the day-to-day stuff. Oakland has already lost Nick Kurtz, Brent Rooker, Tyler Soderstrom and Jacob Wilson for the year, which says plenty about why a team with this much talent on paper is sitting at the bottom of the standings. Seattle's issues are fresher and shallower — Lazaro Montes banged up, two players on the family medical emergency list — but shallower doesn't mean nothing, not with a bullpen already stretched thin.