By Bob Dutton
The News Tribune
OAKLAND, Calif. — Kyle Seager joined a select group Sunday by collecting a pair of doubles the Seattle Mariners continued their August surge with an 8-4 victory over the Oakland Athletics.
Seager drove in four runs with his two doubles and took over the club lead in RBI with 77. He became the sixth player in franchise history to reach 30 doubles and 20 homers in four different seasons.
Hitting coach Edgar Martinez did it seven times.
“It’s nice to build a little bit of a lead there,” Seager said, “and let our pitchers settle in and not throw quite as many stressful pitches. We’ve been putting together pretty good at-bats, top to bottom.”
The Mariners built a 7-1 lead through 5 1/2 innings for Wade LeBlanc, who gave two runs back in the sixth on a homer by Khris Davis before the Mariners turned to their bullpen.
A Wolfpack relay of Drew Storen, Archimedes Caminero and Nick Vincent closed out the Mariners’ 10th victory in 12 games.
Seager led a 12-hit attack with an RBI double in a two-run third inning that broke a 1-1 tie and a three-run double in the sixth. Nori Aoki added three hits, while Shawn O’Malley had two hits and a walk.
“A lot of guys chipped in,” manager Scott Servais said. “We needed it. To go out and win the series, you need to score a few runs. We got it done today.”
Storen inherited a 7-3 lead from LeBlanc (2-0) but started the seventh by giving up a homer to Brett Eibner. The Mariners answered in the eighth inning on Aoki’s two-out RBI single.
That’s how it ended. Caminero worked around two singles in a scoreless eighth before Vincent finished up.
LeBlanc had a season-high seven strikeouts while gaining his fifth quality start in seven turns since arriving in a June 22 trade from Toronto. The Mariners are 6-1 in his starts.
“Anytime you can get a win and give up less runs than your team scores,” he said, “you’ve got to be happy about it.”
The Mariners (62-54) closed to 5 1/2 games of first-place Texas in the American League West Division and remained two games behind Boston in the race for the AL’s final wild-card berth.
Oakland starter Zach Neal (2-2) had given up four runs and eight hits in 5 1/3 innings when he departed after Mike Zunino’s single.
The Mariners then feasted on reliever Daniel Coulombe, who walked O’Malley — who had two hits against Neal — on four pitches before Aoki’s single loaded the bases.
Seager followed by driving a three-run double into the right-center gap and, although he got trapped between second and third for an out, the Mariners led 7-1.
“We’re sitting there watching and thinking, `Here we go,’” Servais admitted. “`We’re up by a couple. We’ve got the big at-bat.’ Really good hitting by Kyle. He hung in there and kept fighting.
“Foul ball. Foul ball. And then he got a fastball, and he smoked it in the gap.”
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