Major League Baseball
Seattle 5, Oakland 2
When: 9:40 PM ET, Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Where: RingCentral Coliseum, Oakland, California
Temperature: 81°
Umpires: Home - Will Little, 1B - Greg Gibson, 2B - Ryan Wills, 3B - Rob Drake
Attendance: 4246

Marco Gonzales won his eighth straight decision as the Seattle Mariners defeated the host Oakland Athletics 5-2 on Tuesday night.

J.P. Crawford homered with one out in the ninth for the Mariners (82-69), who have won the first two games of the four-game series to pull even with the A's (82-69) for second place in the American League's West Division. Seattle and Oakland are three games back in the race for the AL's second and final wild-card playoff berth.

Gonzales (9-5) went six innings and allowed two runs on four hits, with the runs coming via solo homers by Matt Olson and Starling Marte. The left-hander walked one and struck out three.

Right-hander Drew Steckenrider pitched the ninth for his 10th save of the season.

A's lefty Paul Blackburn (1-3) gave up four runs -- three earned -- on six hits over four innings. He walked one and fanned five.

Olson gave the A's a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, hitting a two-out homer to right-center field on a 3-2 count. It was his career-high 37th homer of the season, surpassing the 36 he hit in 2019.

The Mariners tied it in the second as Jake Bauers was hit by a pitch with one out and Tom Murphy grounded a single into right field. Both runners advanced on a groundout by Jake Fraley and Bauers scored on Blackburn's errant pickoff attempt.

Seattle took the lead with a three-run fourth. Jarred Kelenic led off with a triple to center and Fraley drew a two-out walk. Dylan Moore hit a two-run triple to left-center and Crawford grounded a single to center to make it 4-1.

Marte led off the bottom of the inning with a homer to center on a 2-1 pitch.

Marte doubled with two outs in the eighth off right-hander Paul Sewald and the Mariners intentionally walked Olson to bring the go-ahead run to the plate, but Sewald struck out Matt Chapman to end the inning.

--Field Level Media

Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Seattle   Oakland
Marco Gonzales Player Paul Blackburn
Win W/L Loss
6.0 IP 4.0
3 Strikeouts 5
4 Hits 6
3.00 ERA 6.75
Hitting
Seattle   Oakland
J.P. Crawford Player Starling Marte
3 Hits 2
2 RBI 1
1 HR 1
7 TB 6
.600 Avg .667
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Seattle 9 1 19 .257 14 11 4 2 0 0
Oakland 6 2 14 .182 12 5 2 2 0 1