Emerson Hancock allowed one hit over six scoreless innings and Victor Robles had a season-high three hits to help the Seattle Mariners post a 4-1 victory over the Athletics on Tuesday night at West Sacramento, Calif.
Hancock (4-2) struck out three and walked two in an 87-pitch effort. He threw first-pitch strikes to 13 of the 22 batters he faced, and three relievers finished up as the Mariners beat the Athletics for the second straight night.
Mitch Garver had two hits and an RBI and Josh Naylor had two hits and a run for Seattle, which moved within a half-game of the first-place A’s in the American League West.
Athletics star Nick Kurtz went 0-for-4 and struck out three times to halt his streak of reaching base at 48 games. That leaves him tied with Mark McGwire (1996) for the franchise single-season record.
Tyler Soderstrom homered for the Athletics, who lost for the fourth time in five games and dropped below .500. The A’s had just four hits — two by Soderstrom and two by Zack Gelof.
Seattle’s Jose A. Ferrer allowed one hit in the seventh and Gabe Speier hit a batter with a pitch in the eighth. Andres Munoz allowed two hits, including the homer by Soderstrom with one out in the ninth, in a non-save situation.
Highly regarded Athletics prospect Gage Jump (0-1) made his major league debut and gave up four runs and nine hits over five innings. The 23-year-old left-hander struck out five and walked one.
Brent Rooker walked against Hancock to start the fifth and Soderstrom followed with a single for the Athletics’ first hit of the game.
Hancock responded by getting Jeff McNeil to line out and Gelof to pop up before retiring Lawrence Butler on a tapper in front of the plate.
Gelof reached on an infield single in the seventh against Ferrer for the Athletics’ second hit of the contest.
Speier hit Henry Bolte with a pitch with one out in the eighth before fanning Kurtz and getting Shea Langeliers on a hard liner to left.
Jump, rated as the Athletics’ No. 3 prospect by MLB Pipeline, started the game strong by striking out two in a flawless top of the first inning.
However, Seattle collected four hits against Jump in the second inning while pushing across three runs on Garver’s RBI double and sacrifice flies by Cole Young and J.P. Crawford.
The Mariners increased their lead to 4-0 in the fourth as Robles led off with a double, moved to third on Crawford’s one-out bloop single and scored on Julio Rodriguez’s sharply hit single.
