Mariners Game Recap: Chris Coghlan Spoils Mariners Home Opener

Apr 8, 2016; Seattle, WA, USA; Seattle Mariners first baseman Dae-Ho Lee (10) celebrates with his team after hitting a solo-home run against the Oakland Athletics during the fifth inning at Safeco Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 8, 2016; Seattle, WA, USA; Seattle Mariners first baseman Dae-Ho Lee (10) celebrates with his team after hitting a solo-home run against the Oakland Athletics during the fifth inning at Safeco Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports /
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62. Final. 3. 96. 2

Dae-ho Lee gets his first Major League home run but the Oakland Athletics rally in the 9th to beat the Seattle Mariners in their home opener on Friday.

The Seattle Mariners (2-2) lost their home opener to the Oakland Athletics (2-3) on Friday evening at Safeco field. The pre-game festivities would include Ken Griffey Jr throwing the first pitch to Felix Hernandez and then Felixing before 47,065 screaming fans. However Chris Coghlan would ruin the perfect night for the Mariners by hitting a 9th inning home run.   Sean Doolittle (1-1, 3.38 ERA) was credited with the victory for the Athletics and Steve Cishek (0-1, 4.50 ERA) earned the loss.  Ryan Madson (2, 0.00 ERA) earned his second save of the season with a 1-2-3 bottom of the 9th for Oakland.

Taijuan Walker had a pretty good night on the mound for the Mariners.  Although he had several jams to work out of during his 6 innings of work he got out of it with hardly scathed.  He gave up 7 hits and 2 runs while striking out 4 and walking none.  In the first inning he gave up two singles but was able to get out of a jam with the pitcher’s best friend, a double play.  In the second inning Kyle Seager committed a fielding error and Robinson Cano a throwing error but Walker was able to get out of the inning with a strikeout.  In the third inning he gave up a single but was able to get a double play yet again to erase the threat.  In the fourth he gave up two singles, then a single by Chris Coghlan that went off of Dae-ho Lee‘s glove scored Danny Valencia for the A’s first run.  Josh Reddick homered in the fifth.  With his pitch count reaching the mid 90’s, Walker was able to get a 1-2-3 sixth inning and would leave the game at a 2-2 tie.

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The Mariners offense would stay relatively quiet until the fifth inning.  Dae-ho Lee led off the inning with his first home run in the Major Leagues off of Eric Surkamp.  Surkamp would then hit Leonys Martin.  Nori Aoki would follow with a single to move Martin to third base.  Ketel Marte then hit a sacrifice fly to deep center field to score Martin and tie the ballgame.

The game would remain tied until the top of the ninth inning.  This game came down to both bullpens.  The Mariners bullpen would pitch a pretty good 7th and 8th inning.  However, Steve Cishek would allow a solo home run to Chris Coughlan.  The Mariners could not put together a scoring rally the rest of the game against the Oakland Athletics bullpen.  This is the first run that the Mariners bullpen has given up in their first 4 games.  While that’s not all that bad, it cost the Mariners the game.

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The positives we can take away from this game was the excellent outing by Taijuan Walker for his first start of the 2016 campaign and big boy, Dae-ho Lee getting his first home run in the Majors during the Mariners home opener.  A special night indeed for Walker and Lee.  It’s too bad the Mariners bats couldn’t solve the Oakland bullpen because it would have finished off a perfect night for the ball club.  But it’s only one game Mariners fans.  There’s 158 more games.  Go Mariners!

Next: Mariners Roundtable: Can the M’s Make the Playoffs in 2016?

The Seattle Mariners (2-2) will take on the Oakland Athletics (2-3) Saturday night in the second game of the series. First pitch is scheduled for 6:10 pm PT from the corner of Edgar & Dave in Seattle. Nate Karns (0-0, 0.00 ERA) will get his first career start for the Mariners and will be making his 2016 debut. The Athletics will send Rich Hill (0-1, 6.75 ERA) to the mound to face the Mariners. As always, fans can watch locally on Root Sports Northwest and MLB.tv subscribers can watch worldwide on connected devices.