SEATTLE — The largest regular season crowd ever at Safeco Field started Friday night by lauding to-be Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. only to walk away three hours later after watching a late mistake from the Mariners closer.
“We’ll have a lot of games like we had tonight. I talked about it all offseason; we’re going to play a lot of close one-run games,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. “Can’t get it done all the time. It’s disappointing not to win tonight, but we’ll show up tomorrow.”
Chris Coghlan hit a solo home run with one out in the top of the ninth inning off new Seattle closer Steve Cishek to give the Oakland Athletics a 3-2 win over the Mariners and provide a thud to an otherwise electric night.
Whether it was the presence of Griffey throwing out the ceremonial first pitch, the record crowd of 47,065 in the stadium or the unseasonably warm temperatures in the 70s until game time, Seattle was amped to welcome its baseball team home after starting the season winning two of three in Texas.
But it crumbled in the ninth, when Coghlan turned on a 1-2 pitch on the inside corner from Cishek (0-1) and lined it down the right field line for his first homer of the season and the first run allowed by Seattle’s bullpen.
“It was just a good piece of hitting on obviously way too good of a pitch,” Cishek said. “In that part of the game, you don’t want to go lose a ball game, I was trying to elevate a little bit more and get it up there and he put a good swing on it. I felt great out there, just didn’t execute that pitch.”
While most of the attention was on Cishek’s mistake, Seattle did little offensively to provide any room for error. Oakland took a 2-0 lead on an RBI single by Coghlan and Josh Reddick’s solo home run before Seattle rallied in the fifth.
Dae-Ho Lee provided the jolt with his first home run of the season to deep center field. Lee became the seventh Mariners player in team history whose first major league hit was a home run. The last was Japanese catcher Kenji Johjima in 2006. Lee won the backup first baseman job in spring training in part because of his propensity for the long ball in the past — Lee hit 98 home runs combined over the past four seasons playing in Japan.
Ketel Marte added a sacrifice fly later in the inning off Oakland starter Eric Surkamp, but the key at-bat came when Fernando Rodriguez got Nelson Cruz to ground into an inning-ending double play with runners at the corners.
“Fernando was in a spot where he had to be almost perfect,” Oakland manager Bob Melvin said.
Four Oakland relievers combined for 4 2/3 scoreless innings. Sean Doolittle (1-1) pitched the eighth inning and Ryan Madson worked the ninth for his second save.
“It’s opening night, fans are into it. We didn’t give them a lot to cheer for offensively, but it happens,” Servais said.
WALKER’S DEBUT
Taijuan Walker got the start for Seattle and pitched six solid innings, giving up seven hits and two runs. Walker didn’t walk a batter and wasn’t helped by errors from Kyle Seager and Robinson Cano that resulted in extra pitches but did get a pair of key double plays in the first and third innings.
Walker’s one mistake was leaving a breaking ball up over the plate that Reddick jumped on for his first homer of the season.
“(I) really didn’t think he was going to be waiting on the curve ball, so I tried to sneak one in there,” Walker said.
TRAINERS ROOM
Athletics: Reddick was partially given the day off. Rather than playing the outfield, Reddick was the A’s DH after his back bothered him following Thursday’s loss to the White Sox.
Mariners: Seattle manager Scott Servais said he plans to split outfield and DH with Franklin Gutierrez if the Mariners face left-handed pitchers on consecutive days. Gutierrez was the DH on Friday and expected to play right field on Saturday.
UP NEXT
Athletics: Rich Hill (0-1) gets his second start after going on opening day.
Mariners: Nathan Karns makes his Seattle debut after being acquired in an offseason trade with Tampa Bay.
