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Seattle Mariners at Athletics

Sun Sep 131:05 PM PTWest Sacramento, CA
By JR·2 min read
Mariners(70-80)
Athletics(61-89)
7—8
FINAL

TLDR: Seattle built a 6-2 cushion and watched it disappear, and now Sacramento's finale goes down as the one that got away in a weird, wide-open wild-card chase.

FINAL · SUN SEP 13, 8:05 PM
Mariners
(70-80)
LWLWW
7
Athletics
(61-89)
WLWWL
8
Final123456789RHE
SEA
0023100107121
ATH
200000402890
63°

Seattle built a 6-2 lead through six innings behind two Randy Arozarena homers, but Oakland's offense answered with a four-run seventh to tie it and Lawrence Butler's second homer of the day — a two-run shot off closer Andrés Muñoz — walked it off for an 8-7 Athletics win. Both bullpens, already thinned by season-ending injuries on each side, were the actual story of how a laugher-in-waiting turned into a one-run classic.

Seattle Mariners
  • Arozarena homered twice, drove in 4 runs
  • Built a 6-2 lead through six innings
  • Bullpen cracked the moment it took a late lead
  • Muñoz served up the walk-off in the ninth
Athletics
  • Erased a four-run deficit with a four-run seventh
  • Butler went deep twice, capped it with a walk-off
  • Fell behind 6-2 early against a shaky Miller start
  • Needed bases-loaded walk and pinch-hit single to tie it

First pitch at Sutter Health Park went at 1:05 PM PT, with Bryce Miller opposite Jacob Lopez in a matchup that read more like a depth test than an ace duel. Miller took the ball with a 4-9 record and a 4.19 ERA, and it showed early — Zack Gelof and Lawrence Butler hit back-to-back home runs off him in the first inning, the kind of start that can unravel a turn through the rotation before it gets going.

Bryce Miller
Bryce Miller
(4-10)·4.17 ERA
Sep 8 vs Rangers
L
3.2IP
4ER
6K
3BB
84P
09/13 Lineup
Jacob Lopez
Jacob Lopez
(7-5)·5.47 ERA
Sep 7 vs Blue Jays
ND
6.0IP
4ER
1K
1BB
93P
09/13 Lineup

Lopez, for his part, didn't exactly stop the bleeding on the other side. Randy Arozarena answered with a two-run homer in the third and an RBI single in the fourth, and by the time the middle innings were over, Seattle had built a 6-2 lead that looked like it might hold up against a rotation already down J.T. Ginn for the season and unsettled behind him.

That lead didn't account for what either bullpen actually had left in the tank. Oakland's relief corps has been operating without Justin Sterner, Mark Leiter Jr. and Brooks Kriske since each went down for season-ending surgery, and Seattle's own pen has been running thin behind the loss of Matt Brash and Nick Davila — two shallow benches that were always going to get tested in a one-run game, and did.

Seattle Mariners
(70-80)
09/13L@Athletics7-8
09/12W@Athletics19-1
09/11L@Athletics5-6
09/10WvsRangers4-3
09/09WvsRangers3-2
Athletics
(61-89)
09/13WvsMariners8-7
09/12LvsMariners1-19
09/11WvsMariners6-5
09/09WvsBlue Jays2-0
09/08LvsBlue Jays2-4

Down 6-2 in the seventh, Oakland clawed all the way back: Gabe Speier walked in a run with the bases loaded, Butler added an RBI groundout, and pinch-hitter Shea Langeliers delivered a two-run single off Seranthony Domínguez to tie it at 6. Arozarena answered right back with his second homer of the day, this one off Hogan Harris in the eighth, putting Seattle ahead 7-6 and setting up a finish nobody in the room saw coming that clean.

Both injury boards were supposed to matter, and they did — just not the way the pregame case framed it. Oakland's rotation losing Gage Jump to a shoulder issue on top of Ginn's elbow was the story entering the weekend, but it was the bullpen math that actually decided this one: Elvis Alvarado, who's now picked up saves in each of his last two outings, struck out the side-ish one-hit ninth, while Andrés Muñoz — closing for a Seattle pen already missing two key relievers for the year — was the man left holding it.

Zack Gelof's leadoff single in the ninth set up the finish, and Butler made it count with his 16th homer of the year, a two-run shot off Muñoz that went into the bullpen in right-center and ended it at 8-7. Butler finished with 4 RBI and 13 on the season against Seattle alone. The Polymarket chat felt the whiplash in real time — "Remember chat, they did all that, just to be tied" read one message the moment Oakland tied it in the seventh, and "BANGGGGGGG" landed the instant Butler's ninth-inning shot left the yard. Seattle, still within shouting distance of a wild-card field that no AL West club has managed to pull away from, walks away from Sacramento with a split series and a bullpen question that isn't going away before October.

Mariners 7, Athletics 8: Final Score & Odds Recap — A's Erase A Four-Run Deficit, Walk It Off In The Ninth