A’s travel to Seattle with AL wild-card spot still in play | Fieldlevel

A week after the Seattle Mariners sabotaged their chances of winning the American League West, the Oakland Athletics have a chance to return the favor by visiting the Mariners for a critical three-game series that begins Monday night.

The Mariners (86-70) have overtaken the A’s (85-71) in the duel for second place in the AL West, thanks largely to a four-game sweep in Oakland earlier last week. their pursuit of an AL wildcard place.

The chances of the Mariners or A’s catching the west-leading Houston Astros (91-65) are slim. In fact, a Seattle win on Monday would formally eliminate the A’s.

But both are very much alive in the wildcard hunt, with Seattle starting the week with two games in second place and Oakland with three games.

Suffice it to say that any loss in this streak could be catastrophic for either team.

The Mariners hope the three-game set starts off like the third game in the series last week – with Chris Flexen trumping Cole Irvin. As in the 4-1 victory in Seattle five days ago, this is the scheduled matchup on Monday.

Mariners manager Scott Servais said he wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Without the efforts (from several players) we wouldn’t be there this year,” he said about Flexen’s performance last week, “but maybe no bigger than Flex.”

Having attended high school in the shadow of Oakland’s homeland, Flexen (13-6, 3.56) has never lost in Oakland, leaving 2-0 with an ERA of 1.32.

As a high school graduate, when the A’s started a series of three back-to-back postseason appearances in 2012 behind a team with Bartolo Colon and another local product, Tyson Ross, the 27-year-old limited the A’s to one run – one house run by Matt Chapman – and three hits in seven innings with eight strikeouts in the homecoming last week.

With a 3.24 ERA, he has won 2-2 in four starts against the A this season, the first four times he has played against them in his career.

Irvin (10-14, 3.99) will see the Mariners for the fifth time this season. Last week’s loss was his fourth straight to rival AL West after allowing 14 runs and 29 hits in 16 2/3 innings in those games.

Those were the only four times the left-hander faced the Mariners in his career, putting together a 7.56 ERA to go with the 0-4 record. Irvin served Kyle Seager and Ty France solo home runs under seven hits in five innings in last week’s loss.

The A learned on Sunday that Elvis Andrus, who was injured in the winning goal in Oakland on Saturday, suffered a broken left leg. He’ll be lost for the season, as will second baseman Jed Lowrie with a sprained right hand.

When substitute shortstop Josh Harrison left Sunday’s game with a sore knee, underutilized Vimael Machin was pushed into action and played a key role in the 4-3 win over Houston by two Bunts – a sacrifice in the seventh inning, the paved the way for two runs and a hit in the ninth inning, three batters ahead of Mark Canha’s walk-off.

A manager Bob Melvin beamed afterwards about the Bunts.

“We are not against it,” he assured her. “The hard part is when you blow in those places, it takes (Matt Olson) the bat out of your hands. But we feel confident enough in the other guys to make it.”