The symmetry seemed too coincidental as the Mariners headed toward a 5-3 loss tonight to the Oakland A’s. On their way to the 100th loss of the season, they also seemed forever stuck on 100 home runs.

Then Michael Saunders hit a solo homer in the ninth inning — his 10th this season and the team’s first in 34 innings — to give the Mariners 101.

Let’s just say nobody is celebrating either number.

The scarcity of power was one of the great concerns going into the season, but that didn’t keep the pitching-rich Mariners from believing they had a much better team than this.

“We had such high expectations,” Saunders said. “We’re trying to end this on a high note, but we’ve lost three in a row. We’ll try to win tomorrow, then we’ll try to forget this year as fast as we can.”

Unless the Mariners go on some home-run barrage Sunday against A’s starter Dallas Braden, they’ll finish last in the major leagues in homers.

The next-closest team? It’s the A’s, who also entered this four-game series with 100 but now are well ahead of the M’s with107. They hit three tonight, all off Mariners starter David Pauley, who allowed only four hits in seven innings.

While Oakland’s seven homers in this series may seem like a rubbernecking high against Mariners pitchers this season, it’s not. They allowed 11 in a four-game series at Chicago in July.

It’ll be Ryan Rowland-Smith’s job to contain the A’s Sunday, along with as many relievers as it takes to finish a game that would have been Felix Hernandez’s had the Mariners not shut him down. Rowland-Smith hasn’t started a big-league game since July 27 and the most he’s thrown since then were 53 pitches in a relief stint Sept. 15.