Oakland.Athletics.MLB.com

Damian Miller is greeted in the dugout after his second-inning home run. (Ted S. Warren/AP)

Young said Monday that he'd put in a considerable amount of time with Harden since the young righty was roughed up for 11 hits and six runs last Thursday in Texas, and while he refused to reveal what exactly they'd been working on, it's no secret that command and location have been Harden's main problem.

Harden on Tuesday said they'd been working on keeping his hands closer to his body, allowing him to find a more consistent release point, and the work paid immediate dividens. Harden was ahead in the count for most of the night against the host Mariners, he made tough pitches whenever he was in trouble, and the result was seven innings of three-hit work that served as the sign of significant progress for which the club had been hoping to see for some time.

"I'm definitely feeling a lot closer to where I want to be," said Harden.

And yet, in the end the A's were feeling blue. Raul Ibanez's second homer of the night and fourth homer in three games, a one-out shot to right in the bottom of the ninth inning off A's reliever Jim Mecir, gave Seattle a second straight 2-1 win.

Worse, the club lost rookie shortstop Bobby Crosby for at least a couple of days when he injured his left knee in a second-inning collision with left fielder Bobby Kielty. Crosby left the game in the fourth inning for X-rays, which were negative, but there was enough swelling and pain for the club to decide to send him back to the Bay Area for an MRI in the morning.

"He's not going to play for a couple of days, anyway," said trainer Larry Davis, "so we'll give our doctors the pleasure of spending [Wednesday] with Mr. Crosby."

A's manager Ken Macha said he'd already spoken with general manager Billy Beane, and the club is considering bringing Frank Menechino, who is on a rehab assignment with Triple-A Sacramento, up to Seattle to replace Crosby.

"It's a possibility," Macha said.

The big positive of the night was obviously Harden's effort. Routinely hitting between 93-97 on the radar gun, he allowed two hits and two walks through the first five innings, and some of his most impressive work came in the sixth.

After Ichiro Suzuki worked a full-count walk to open the inning and promptly stole second, Harden froze John Olerud with a called third strike and blew Bret Boone away with a 96-mph heater before getting Scott Spiezio to wave weakly at another third strike to end the inning.

"He had real good command of his fastball on both sides of the plate, and he was mostly throwing strike one," said A's catcher Damian Miller. "His velocity was up, his slider was great. His stuff was electric tonight."

Added Macha: "Rich was tremendous tonight. Tremendous outing for him."

Unfortunately for Harden, who walked four and struck out nine, the only offensive help he got came from Miller, who took Mariners starter Ryan Franklin deep in the second inning for his second homer of the season. Ibanez's first homer, leading off the seventh, tied the score and left the game in the hands of the bullpens.

"We threw a lot of sliders tonight, and that was his only bad one of the night," Miller said.

Franklin issued five walks in the first three innings, but in continuing a pattern established in Monday's 2-1 loss in 14 innings, the A's left the bases loaded in first and third, and by the time they were done batting in the fourth, they'd already left five men in scoring position.

"It'd be nice to come up with a big hit once in a while," Macha said, "and we're not doing that."

So despite Harden's success, it certainly wasn't all free gumballs and kittens for the A's, whose loss assured them their first non-victory in a series of the season. In addition to the offensive woes, they had to watch Crosby and Kielty go down after Crosby made an acrobatic catch of a Scott Spiezio popup to open the bottom of the second inning.

Crosby's left knee slammed into Kielty's ribs as Kielty slid to avoid the shortstop, conjuring images of Crosby's nasty spring collision with second baseman Mark Ellis, who was knocked out for the season with a torn labrum on the play.

"It's just like the play in Spring Training; I'm not going to hesitate. I'm going to go for the ball," Crosby said. "It's an unfortunate deal, and hopefully everything's fine."

"I tried to get down as fast as I could, but it wasn't fast enough," said Kielty, who had the wind knocked out of him in addition to sustaining bruised ribs. "Hopefully he's OK."

Second baseman Marco Scutaro moved over to shortstop, and for the second consecutive night little-used rookie Esteban German got into the action, this time at second base.

On cue, Scutaro and German teamed up for a terrific 6-4-3 double play to end the fourth. Scutaro made a tough dig of a short hop while charging a grounder by Rich Aurilia before flipping side-armed to German, who pulled something of a veteran move by gliding over the bag -- but not touching it -- as he completed the back end of the in-the-neighborhood play.

If Menechino is rushed to Seattle, German likely will be optioned to Sacramento while the A's await word on Crosby's MRI. The results should come in considerably quicker than those on Ellis' shoulder.

"Knees are pretty standard," said Davis. "There's not a lot of guesswork."

Franklin settled down after the third and retired the last 11 men he faced before taking his leave after the seventh with a pitch count of 105. He, too, allowed only three hits, and lefty Ron Villone came on in relief and picked up where Franklin left off by whipping through a perfect eighth inning on nine pitches.

Lefty Ricardo Rincon took over for Harden and was perfect himself in the bottom of the frame, and despite a one-out walk to German, Villone got through the ninth unscathed by getting Miller to ground into a double play and set up Ibanez's heroics.

"The guy's on fire," said Miller. "What can you do?"

Mychael Urban is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

print this page    |    email this page