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A’s pull away late to pound Mariners

May 12 – Joey Estes pitched five innings to earn his first major league victory as the Oakland Athletics defeated the host Seattle Mariners 8-1 on Saturday night.

Max Schuemann hit a three-run double with two outs in the eighth inning and JJ Bleday added a two-run homer in the ninth as the A’s pulled away late.

Seattle opened the scoring in the bottom of the second, as Raleigh hit Estes’ first pitch of the inning over the right-center-field wall. It was Raleigh’s team-leading 10th homer of the season, making him the first AL catcher to reach that mark in his team’s first 40 games since the New York Yankees’ Jorge Posada accomplished the feat in 2003.

The A’s responded with two runs in the top of the third to take the lead.

Lawrence Butler drew a leadoff walk and Brett Harris grounded a bad-hop single to left. Abraham Toro lined a run-scoring single just over the glove of leaping first baseman Ty France to tie things at 1. With two outs, Brent Rooker blooped a single down the right field line to score Harris.

Oakland scored three times in both the eighth and ninth innings.

The Athletics made some outstanding defensive plays to back Estes, with first baseman Tyler Soderstrom, right fielder Butler and third baseman Harris all leaving their feet to rob the Mariners of potential extra-base hits leading off the third, fourth and fifth innings, respectively.

Soderstrom leaped to snare Luke Raley’s liner in the third, Butler made a long run and jumped just shy of the wall to catch a deep drive by Julio Rodriguez in the fourth and Harris made a diving catch on a low liner down the left field line by Mitch Garver in the fifth.

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Cal Raleigh homered for the Mariners, who missed a chance to move past the Texas Rangers and into first place in the American League West