A’s lend a hand to Mariners’ victory

SEATTLE – Having dug themselves into a last-place hole a month into the season, the Mariners are in no position to turn away anyone’s charity.

The Mariners took advantage of four Oakland errors Saturday to run away with their most lopsided victory of the season, a 7-2 victory before a crowd of 37,441 on a beautiful evening at Safeco Field.

After limping home from a 10-game road swing in which they lost six of seven, the Mariners have won the first two games of this nine-game homestand. They hit the 30-game mark with a 13-17 record and sit in third place in the American League West.

Felix Hernandez (5-0, 1.73 ERA) takes the mound today as the M’s try for the series sweep of Oakland.

The A’s have made at least one error in seven consecutive games and their 32 errors in 31 games are the most in the majors. Two of the Mariners’ seven runs were unearned Saturday, and their seventh run came home on a wild pitch that bounced just a few feet away from the plate.

Mariners left-hander J.A. Happ continued his solid start to the season, allowing one run on four hits in five innings. He struck out eight and walked two on 93 pitches to improve to 3-1.

The Mariners gave Happ early run support – or, perhaps more accurately, the A’s helped Happ with early defensive blunders.

Seattle scored two runs with two outs off A’s right-hander Jesse Hahn in the first inning. Robinson Cano singled and scored on Nelson Cruz’s double, giving the M’s slugger an A.L.-best 27 runs batted in.

Kyle Seager walked and Logan Morrison followed with a hard-hit ground ball up the middle that A’s shortstop Marcus Semien kicked around. Cruz scored from second and Semien’s wild throw home – his second error on the same sequence – moved Seager and Morrison each up a base. Mike Zunino then grounded out to end the inning.

Seth Smith made it 3-0 in the second when he doubled to right-center to score Dustin Ackley from second.

Oakland (12-20) cut its deficit to 3-1 in the top of the fifth on Billy Butler’s run-scoring single. The Mariners answered with two more in the bottom half of the inning thanks to a throwing error by A’s third baseman Brett Lawrie, who had made a diving stop of a Cruz grounder but threw wide of second base trying to get a force out on Cano. That allowed Smith and Cano to score, pushing the Mariners’ lead to 5-1.

Right-hander Angel Castro, at age 32, made his major-league debut for Oakland out of the bullpen in the sixth inning. Cano singled off Castro to score Chris Taylor to make it 6-1. Two batters later, with the bases loaded, Seager flew out to the warning track in right-center, just missing a grand slam off Castro to end the inning.

Oakland’s Mark Canha hit a solo homer off Danny Farquhar to make it 6-2 in the top of the eighth. With two runners on and two outs, Ackley made a sliding catch in left field to save at least one run. He received a standing ovation from the fans behind the Mariners’ dugout as he jogged off the field.

In the bottom of the eighth, Justin Ruggiano scored from third base on a Fernando Abad wild pitch that bounced just a few feet away from A’s catcher Josh Phegley, who couldn’t find it.

The Mariners’ bullpen, for the second consecutive game, had a productive night, allowing one run in four innings. In the 11-inning victory Friday over the A’s, the bullpen pitched six shutout innings.