OAKLAND, Calif. — Five games, five wins, and suddenly the Seattle Mariners are making noise in the playoff race.
The Mariners capped a 7-3 road trip with a 3-2 victory Sunday against the Oakland A’s, sweeping the three-game series with their season-high fifth consecutive victory.
The Mariners moved within six games of Texas for the American League’s second wild-card spot, and Seattle opens a four-game series against the Rangers on Monday at Safeco Field.
“We’re playing extremely hard,” Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon said. “We’re getting timely hitting. The guys are doing a good job, but we got a long ways to go.”
The Mariners have underachieved for much of the season, but they finally are playing the way they expected to from the outset.
“This is a good group of guys in here,” Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager said. “We have a lot of players that have a lot of talent. We didn’t play as well as we’d like to at the beginning, but the confidence in each other never wavered.”
The Rangers have seven wins in their past 10 games, but they will come to Safeco on the heels of a 7-0 loss Sunday to the Los Angeles Angels.
“Every game’s a big game,” Mariners first baseman Logan Morrison said. “It doesn’t matter who we’re playing at this point. Knowing that they’re ahead of us, does it add something? Maybe. But it’s not like we’re going to try to win more. We just got to do what we got to do, play loose, play relaxed, have fun and see what happens.”