SEATTLE - Mike Leake certainly wasn't the biggest-name pitcher to enter the American League West in the past couple of days, but he means an awful lot to the postseason hopes the Mariners cling to.
The A's gave the right-hander a rude welcome in the first inning Friday night, then they let him get all too comfortable in his Seattle debut. Leake lasted seven innings and held Oakland to just the two runs in a 3-2 Mariners victory that sent the A's to their fourth consecutive loss.
With the postseason out of reach this season, the A's are at least catching a glimpse of the shifting pitching landscape in the AL West. They got their first look at Leake in a Mariners uniform. A week from Sunday, if things hold with the Astros' rotation, they're likely to face their one-time postseason nemesis in Justin Verlander at the Coliseum.
Houston swung a headline-grabbing trade with Detroit to acquire the one-time MVP and Cy Young winner Thursday, just before the deadline to get players on a team's roster and have them be eligible for the postseason.
The A's will see lots of these guys in the coming seasons - Leake is signed through 2020 and Verlander through 2019. Then again, comparing Leake to Verlander is apples and oranges when it comes to awards and track records.
Leake entered Friday night having posted a 7.32 ERA over his previous eight starts. And the A's looked primed to extend his misery. They opened the game with three consecutive hits - singles by Marcus Semien and Matt Joyce and a double from Jed Lowrie - in a two-run rally that put them up early.
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But in a troubling recent trend, the A's went silent with the bats after their one scoring outburst. They have begun this six-game road trip 0-4, and over those four games, they've put up runs in just four of 36 innings.
"We score a couple and then in the third, we get first and second with nobody out and hit into a double play," A's manager Bob Melvin said. "Then after that, (Leake) started finding the corner a little bit more than the middle of the plate. He has a lot of movement on all his pitches and we knew that going in. We made him throw the ball over the middle of the plate in the first three innings, and then he got better after that."
Seattle picked up a game on Minnesota for the AL's second Wild Card spot. They trail by 3 1/2 games, but they also need to leapfrog four teams to catch the Twins. The Mariners hope Leake can help buoy a starting rotation that's without Felix Hernandez and James Paxton probably until the middle of the month.
The A's didn't mount much after their two-run first. In the seventh, Matt Chapman's double and a wild pitch from Leake put the tying run at third with one out. But Leake then struck out Boog Powell on a curve and then got Marcus Semien to chase a slider for strike three.
"They showed they were going to be pretty aggressive today," Leake said. "So I had to make a pretty quick adjustment. I started locating my fastball. … One thing that's been difficult for me is being able to put guys away. The fact I was able to do that tonight was nice."
The silver lining for the A's was Sean Manaea's outing. He went 6 2/3 innings, his longest start since July 27, and allowed three runs. He also walked three and plunked Robinson Cano with a pitch, but Melvin was encouraged by Manaea's stuff. His fastball, lacking its zip throughout August, touched 93 miles per hour and his secondary pitches were crisp too.
"The velocity was there, he had a sharp slider, which he hadn't had for a while. Good changeup," Melvin said. "… I think as far as his stuff goes, it's the best we've seen in a while."
