(OAKLAND) -- To throw a perfect game as Dallas Braden did on May 9 earlier this season, you need a certain amount of luck.
On Tuesday night at the Coliseum, luck was not on Braden's side as the Seattle Mariners strung together some crazy-good fortune to beat the A's, 7-5, and keep Oakland from gaining ground on the American League West division lead.
Certainly, Braden can never complain about being unlucky, as perhaps he used up a lifetime of serendipity on Mother's Day this year.
But what happened in the second inning was one of those rare sequences where you can do most everything right and still get scored upon, again and again and again and again.
Baseball's cool that way.
It all started with the home-plate umpire (Jerry Crawford) and his poor call on a 3-1 pitch to Franklin Gutierrez. The Seattle batter clearly went around on his checked swing, but Crawford called ball four to start the inning innocently enough.
Jose Lopez followed with what was the only decently-hit ball of the inning, a single to left field with Gutierrez stopping at second.
And then it got crazy.
Casey Kotchman hit a flare down the left-field line than just landed fair, allowing Gutierrez to score. Adam Moore hit a sacrifice fly to score Lopez from third, but then Matt Tuiasosopo hit a weak grounder to third -- and beat the throw by A's third baseman Steve Tolleson for an infield hit.
Josh Wilson hit a weak looper that landed in short centerfield to score Kotchman, and then Ichiro Suzuki hit another soft flare to left field for another hit that scored Tuiasosopo.
Still, with one out, Chone Figgins hit a skunker off the end of his bat which found the outfield turf to load the bases. Then, in the final bit of misfortune, Russell Branyan shattered his bat -- but managed to get the ball just into short right field to score Wilson.
The Mariners went 6-for-6 with runners in scoring position in that sequence, and not one of the balls was hit hard. The inning started with a bad umpiring call, and it just went downhill from there.
"Brutal to quite brutal," Braden told reporters after the game. "I've seen less bleeding at a hemophiliac convention. That was rough."
Indeed.
Although the A's lefty managed to strike out Gutierrez and get Lopez to fly out for the final two outs, the damage was already done.
And the Mariners, with the worst offense in the AL that had gone 11 straight games without scoring more than three runs in any single contest, had a win that defied common sense.
Coming into the game, Braden had the fourth-lowest ERA in the AL since the All-Star Break and had allowed only one run in his last 14 innings.
But sometimes, luck just isn't on your side.
And Braden knows all about luck -- both the good and the bad.
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