SEATTLE — Cole Irvin upset a few folks with his comments after the A’s lost 4-3 to the Mariners on May 25. Irvin gave up all four runs and allowed 10 hits over 4 2/3 innings that day and was in disbelief afterward.
“A team like that should not be putting up 10 hits against me or anyone,” Irvin said.
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Those words (or, at least a paraphrased version) were mentioned minutes before Monday’s first pitch by Mariners radio play-by-play broadcaster Rick Rizzs, who somewhat gleefully noted that Irvin had an ERA of 7.56 in his four starts against the Mariners this season, all of which ended with Irvin taking the loss. Well, those numbers ballooned even further Monday night as Irvin couldn’t record an out in the fourth inning before getting pulled. He was charged with five runs on six hits and three walks and got stung with his fifth loss to Seattle as the A’s fell 13-4.
It’s not just Irvin who’s had problems against the Mariners, of course. The A’s are 4-13 against Seattle and Monday’s loss marked the A’s 10th consecutive defeat to the Mariners. It also eliminated them from AL West contention and made a wild-card berth next to impossible to attain. The A’s are 4 1/2 games behind the Yankees and 3 1/2 back of the Red Sox. They trail the Blue Jays by 2 1/2 games and the Mariners by two.
But Irvin seemed to place the blame on himself for Oakland’s struggles against the Mariners this season because he said they’ve been visibly motivated to humiliate Irvin and the A’s ever since May 25.
“Well, it’s plain and simple,” Irvin said. “Baseball has a way of humbling itself and, to be honest, it goes back to the comments I made early in the season. They’re hungry every time. They want to face me. They want to beat me into the ground and they did that every time I faced them. My job is to go out there and be able to execute and make good pitches and I feel like I have at times, but not enough when they want it more so. Again, it just wasn’t good enough. It’s embarrassing on my end.”
Monday’s game followed a familiar script when these two teams face each other. The A’s jumped out to an early lead, this time on Seth Brown’s towering fly ball that drifted over Mitch Haniger’s outstretched glove for a three-run homer in the top of the first. The A’s carried that lead into the third until Irvin gave up three straight hits to start that inning and ended up allowing the Mariners to tie the game at 3. The A’s answered in the fourth when Chad Pinder hit a ground-rule double and Khris Davis knocked him in with a single, but the bottom of the fourth is when things got bad for Oakland.
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A’s manager Bob Melvin had Deolis Guerra warming up after Irvin walked the first batter he faced, Jarred Kelenic. When Irvin followed that with a walk to Tom Murphy, Melvin had seen enough. But Guerra, who seems like he’s simply run out of gas over the past week, gave up consecutive singles to J.P. Crawford and Ty France before Haniger clobbered one out to left to give the Mariners an 8-4 lead.
“Deolis shouldn’t even be in that situation,” Irvin said. “Walking two guys to lead off an inning. Walking guys in general just hasn’t boded well for success for me and that’s just how it is.”
It was the first of two three-run homers for Haniger on another dreadful night for the A’s against a division rival that dislikes them more than anyone else, Irvin said.
Cole Irvin admitted he regrets comments he made about the Mariners' lineup in May, and said he deserves the beating Seattle has given him all season
— A's on NBCS (@NBCSAthletics) September 28, 2021
“I know probably three or four of those guys pretty well,” Irvin said. “I played with some of them in the past, going back to maybe even high school days. And there isn’t many words said to me, if any. So I know there’s bad blood. And I deserve it. I deserve the beating that I’ve been getting by them all season long and I just haven’t been able to figure it out.
“I said what I said. I regret it. I’ve thought about it every start, after poor performances. And it’s just something that, I’m not like that. I don’t say those types of things. But again, those words came out of my mouth and they were publicized so it is what it is and now I just got to put my best foot forward and share my personality. I don’t mean any harm against those guys.”
Irvin has shown many sides to his personality after his starts. He apologized for showing up Melvin by protesting when he was taken out at the end of a successful start against the Royals after just 62 pitches in June. He’s talked about bringing doughnuts to cheer up his teammates before one of his best starts of the season — eight shutout innings in a road win over the Giants. But he’s never looked quite like he did during Monday night’s news conference, with his hat pulled low over eyes that were full of embarrassment and remorse. Irvin certainly learned a lesson this season about what not to say about an opponent, but he still had to suffer the indignity of getting beaten badly by them all five times he faced them.
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“They’re in the playoff race for a reason. They’re a good club. They find ways to win ballgames and they have a lot of success against us,” he said. “I don’t know what (their success is) attributed to. But I feel like on my end, I just haven’t pitched well. I haven’t even got past the fifth inning against these guys.
“They’re competing against us. There’s something about us they don’t like. Probably from my comments earlier in the year. They got more blood in the water and they’re hungry. You can attribute it to what I said or even attribute it just to bad pitches on my end. I mean, I don’t know. I’m not particularly happy. All I can do right now is really (pick) up the pieces and get out of this lion’s den and keep moving forward. Because the best I can do is trust in my faith, trust in the ability that I can go out and pitch every fifth day and that’s what I’ve been doing all year. So there’s no reason to question it. It’s just that I need to get back on the horse and get back to where I’m good. And that’s executing down the zone. Few pitches left up (tonight) so, yeah.”
Irvin might believe that he’s completely to blame for the A’s losing streak against Seattle. But Brown, who got his first career major-league start in center field due to Starling Marte’s absence (sore left lat), said that had nothing to do with it.
“I think it’s just that time of year,” Brown said. “Everybody’s digging and everybody’s trying to get that wild-card spot and trying to position themselves correctly, so I really don’t think that has any play into it.”
Either way, it’s a lock that next season, and probably for the rest of his career, Irvin will treat his opponents with nothing but compliments and respect. Especially a certain team from the Pacific Northwest that did more than any other to sabotage the A’s chances at a fourth consecutive postseason berth.
(Photo of Cole Irvin and Bob Melvin: Stephen Brashear / USA Today)
