A’s walk-off for second night in a row over Mariners

Quite the pitching duel at the Coliseum

The A’s went the walk-off fashion for the second evening in a row, beating the rival Mariners at the last second to send the fans home happy and give the A’s their 61st win of the season.

Facing a Seattle lineup that’s struggled all year (29th out of 30 teams in OPS) rookie righty JT Ginn got the ball for game two, making his second career start. His first one saw him locked in early before fading late but it was the exact opposite story for Ginn tonight. Seattle collected three straight hits to open this game up, with the big hit of the inning coming off the bat of Seattle backstop Cal Raleigh that brought in two runs. Ginn locked in after that hit, proceeding to strike out the next three Mariners to end the rally.

The offense had a tall task tonight in front of them in the form of Seattle ace Luis Castillo. He’s been having a typical season for himself and he’s coming off a quality outing last time out. He was on his top game tonight but he wasn’t unhittable either. The very first batter of the bottom of the first inning, leadoff man Lawrence Butler, welcomed Castillo to the game with a leadoff home run to get the A’s on the board and halve the Seattle lead:

Now that’s how you celebrate winning AL Player of the Week! That blast was Butler’s 21st of the year, unthinkable considering he only had two home runs back at the start of July. That’s 19 home runs in just two months. Exciting to think about a full year of this next season. Butler has also now tied the franchise record for extra-base hits in eight consecutive games. He’ll get a chance to break that record tomorrow evening in game three of the series.

Back to the game, Ginn’s tough first inning was not a sign of things to come. Ginn more than settled into this one after that rocky first inning. The 25-year-old would pitch another five full innings, allowing just a couple more hits and one walk while setting an early career-high seven strikeouts.

-JT Ginn: 6 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, 88 pitches

Still, we would need to get another run if we wanted to come back in this one. Lawrence Butler isn’t the only hot-hitting left-handed outfielder the A’s have right now. Enter Seth Brown:

That blast tied this game up at 2-apiece. New ballgame. That was Brownie’s 13th home run of the year and third over his last seven games. He’s really making the most of his opportunities here down the home stretch of the season.

After Brown’s home run this game turned into a pitching duel ‘til the end. After Ginn’s day was done it was former starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter-again-turned-reliever-again Hogan Harris taking the mound for just his second appearance since rejoining the team last week. A pair of walks was all Seattle could manage against Harris for the final three innings in tonight’s contest. He was the only reliever needed in this one as a bit of magic was coming up.

The A’s struggled against Castillo tonight outside of those two mistakes he made to Butler and Brown. The team could only manage two other hits off the Seattle ace, singles from Brent Rooker and Brown’s second hit of the game. Castillo would end up pitching seven full frames, leaving the game in a tied situation and putting this one in the hands of the bullpen. The first one out had a perfect eighth inning but the ninth, not so much. Coliseum magic struck again for the second night in a row as Seth Brown collected his third and biggest hit of the night, the walk-off single to bring in JJ Bleday and send the fans home happy:

Whew! For the second night in a row we got an exciting walk-off win. Oakland is in the drivers seat in this series, the final time the Mariners will visit the Coliseum to play baseball. Ginn was stellar after a tough start, the bats got the big hits they needed at the right time, Lawrence Butler is awesome, and Seth Brown continues his revenge tour.

The A’s will now go for the series in tomorrow evening in game three, and if they take that one they’ll get a chance at a 4-game sweep on Thursday afternoon. Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves though. Gotta win tomorrow. It’ll be lefty JP Sears on the mound for the Green & Gold while Seattle will turn to #2 starter George Kirby. Should be another pitching duel!