Felix Hernandez tries to become the Mariners only 10-game winner - and snap the team's eight-game losing streak.
The biggest problem won't be the Oakland lineup but his own. The Mariners have two players, Jose Lopez (.443) and Ichiro (.333) hitting more than .300 on this trip - and seven players hitting below .200.
If the Mariners give up more than three runs, they're in trouble.
You can't say the Mariners aren't trying different cominations. Rob Johnson is DHing tonight, and he's the 16th player to DH for the Mariners this season.

Raining and 65 degrees at first pitch, which shouldn't favor the offense tonight.
Hernandez seems loose - he's throwing 96 mph in the first inning and has already shattered one bat. An 11-pitch first inning for Felix.

Mariners have two hits throuh three innings, and neither left the infield. In the third, they got Ichiro as far as third base, but stranded him there.
Oakland put their first runner on base when Yuniesky Betancourt bobbled a ground ball for an error.
This doesn't have the feel of a high-scoring game.
No score after 3.

Outfielder Travis Buck got a hit that left the infield, then the outfield - his fourth home run, giving Oakland the lead. Kurt Suzuki's two-out RBI doubled it.
Two runs is hardly insurmountable - it just feels that way.
Athletics 2, Mariners 0

Felix is mad, and he has reason. He's made a couple of mistakes, it looks like his ankle may be bothering him again and - oh, yes - the Mariners haven't scored.
This is about the time of game when former Mariner Randy Johnson would storm into the dugout and start screaming at his teammates to get him some runs. It didn't make him friends, but occasionally it got him a few runs.

Ichiro doubled with two outs in the seventh and now has 202 hits this season. He did not, however, score his 97th run.
Yuniesky grounded out.
Athletics 2, Mariners 0

Small consolation for Felix, but as he walked to the mound in the eighth inning, he'd already established a career high for innings in a season.
Back in 2006, he'd pitched 191 innings.
Through seven tonight, he's worked 193 2/3 innings in 2008.
The Mariners, meanwhile, are three outs from being shut out for the second game in a row.

No matter who the general manager or manager is by spring training, one of the more complicated questons the Seattle Mariners face is behind the plate.

Kenji Johjima, who began the 2008 season as a 31-year-old with a career .289 big-league average, signed a three-year contract extension in April.

Jeff Clement was just beginning to make strides - at the plate and behind it - when knee surgery ended his season last month.

And then there's Jamie Burke, Rob Johnson and, not far behind, Adam Moore.
Some might see that as a wealth of catching, but it's unlikely the Mariners can carry more than two next year.

Johjima and Clement are catchers, and using either as a first baseman or full time designated hitter isn't in the immediate future.

Clement's knee surgery will keep him off the field until December. The team doesn't see him as a first basemnan or DH yet, and doesn't want him to think otherwise.

Similarly, Johjima is eating up the lion's share of September starts despite the presence of Johnson.

Why?

"Right now, Johjim is the No. 1 catcher," Jim Riggleman said. "He's throwing runners out, and in the last six weeks he's come on at the plate and as a catcher. I think we're starting to see what this team saw his first few years."

If Joh's No. 1 going into spring, where is Clement?

Can the team platoon them and get the most from either?
And if you're Burke, Johnson or Moore, is your future somewhre other than Seattle?
Not only don't the Mariners know the answers, they don't yet know who will be answering them.