Young and old Mariners contribute to 7-5 win

SEATTLE -- Separated by 18 years and nine months, Seattle 22-year-old rookie Nick Franklin and 41-year-old teammate Raul Ibanez come from different generations, but they helped the Mariners beat the Oakland A's on Saturday night.

Ibanez tied the score with a three-run homer in the seventh inning and his young teammate finished Oakland off with a two-run single in the bottom of the eighth, leading the Mariners to a 7-5 win.

Oakland (44-33) used four relief pitchers after starter Dan Straily's shortest outing of his career and fell into a tie with Texas atop the American League West standings.

A's reliever Ryan Cook (1-1) gave up three consecutive singles to open the eighth, including Franklin's liner to center field to break a 5-5 tie with his second and third RBIs of the night.

"With two strikes, I was just trying to put something in play," Franklin said.

Mariners manager Eric Wedge said of his 22-year-old second baseman: "He likes being up in those situations."

Ibanez, who graduated from Miami's Sunset High School the year Franklin was born in 1991, is impressed by his young teammate and fellow Florida native.

"He's a really heads-up player; he plays really, really mature," Ibanez said. "He listens to all the classic music, which I couldn't believe. He told me he likes Journey and all the great rock bands, so his parents obviously raised him well. Yeah, he plays well above his years."

Ibanez gave the Mariners (33-43) new life after Oakland opened a 5-2 lead with a two-run top of the seventh. Ibanez's three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh, his team-high 15th homer of the season, tied the score 5-5.

Seattle reliever Yoervis Medina (2-2) pitched the final 2 1/3 innings to pick up the win after giving up RBI singles to the first two batters he faced.

Jed Lowrie drove in Oakland's first three runs of the game before back-to-back RBI singles from Josh Donaldson and Josh Reddick off Medina in the seventh opened a three-run lead.

"When we have a 5-2 lead like that, it's pretty much in the bank," Oakland manager Bob Melvin said. "Just didn't happen tonight."

Lowrie had three hits, a walk and a sacrifice fly in his five plate appearances, including a leadoff single in the ninth. But Medina got a double play and flyout to center to finish it off.

Oakland's Yoenis Cespedes nearly tied the score when he hit an 0-1 pitch from Medina deep down the left-field line, but that ball drifted foul before he hit into a double play to account for the first two outs of the ninth.

Franklin, who was playing in just his 25th major league game after being called up from Triple-A Tacoma on May 27, had three hits and three RBIs for Seattle.

The two teams combined for 25 hits, and neither starting pitcher made it past the fifth inning.

Gutierrez, fresh off the 60-day disabled list, led off the second inning with a home run in his first at-bat since April 22. He hit a 3-2 pitch from Straily over the center-field fence for a 1-0 Seattle lead.

"It was good for him to start out like that," Wedge said. "We're a different team with him in that lineup."

Straily struggled with control after that, throwing six consecutive balls before A's pitching coach Curt Young visited the mound. After walking two batters, Straily struck out two in a row and then gave up a two-out, RBI single to Franklin to put Seattle ahead 2-0.

Oakland led off the third with back-to-back hits but had to settle for only one run, on a Lowrie sacrifice fly that cut the deficit to 2-1.

Lowrie struck again in the fifth when his bases-loaded single drove in two runs to give Oakland its first lead at 3-2. Mariners starter Aaron Harang eventually got out of the jam while stranding two runners on base, but after five innings he had thrown 95 pitches and given up six hits.

Straily lasted just 3 1/3 innings while giving up six hits, three walks and two runs in his shortest outing of the season. He allowed a one-out double in the fourth and was pulled after only 78 pitches.

"He just didn't have a good release point today," Melvin said. "He was teetering from the beginning. ... He just had a rough start."

NOTES: Oakland C John Jaso (abrasion on non-throwing hand) was out of the lineup for a second consecutive day, leaving Derek Norris as the A's only available catcher. Jaso suffered the injury in the series finale at Texas and was a late scratch for Friday's game after struggling through batting practice. ... The Mariners placed OF Michael Morse (quad) on the 15-day disabled list. ... Mariners OF Jason Bay (hamstring) missed his sixth consecutive game, but manager Eric Wedge said he should be back in action sometime in the next week.