OAKLAND -- Friday night’s spectators at the Coliseum witnessed an increasingly uncommon sight: A starting pitcher who actually works deep into the ballgame.\n\nSuch beings are rare in this era of pitch counts, “openers” and skeptics who doubt that any man can face a batting order three times or more and survive. But Mariners left-hander
Gonzales largely determined his fate in the first inning, when he coaxed Chad Pinder’s double-play grounder with the bases loaded and one out.\n\n“I thought that the biggest part of that inning was not getting out of our approach of getting ground balls,” he said, referring to ground-ball singles by Marcus Semien and Matt Chapman. Gonzales also prompted a double-play grounder from Josh Phegley that stopped a fourth-inning rally before it started.\n\nAnd, of course, such plays extended the length of Gonzales’ outing.\n\nSaid Mariners manager Scott Servais, “He has multiple pitches he can throw for strikes at any point. Once he gets into a nice rhythm and gets all of \\[those pitches\\] working, that’s when he’s at his best.”\n\n“He throws a lot of changeups and cutters,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said of Gonzales. “He wants to make you expand \\[the strike zone\\]. He doesn’t want to have to throw the ball over the plate unless he has to. We played into his hand a little bit.”
Gonzales also received ample offensive support, particularly from catcher
But the Mariners succeeded without power during their biggest inning of the night, a three-run fourth. Trying to protect a 2-1 lead, Oakland starter Chris Bassitt (3-3) encountered trouble as the Mariners loaded the bases with nobody out. Daniel Vogelbach walked and Narvaez singled before Tim Beckham hit a potential double-play grounder to A’s second baseman Jurickson Profar. But shortstop Semien mishandled Profar’s short flip for an error.