Brandon Moss homers as A’s take Seattle series

SEATTLE — Before this series at Safeco Field, manager Bob Melvin sat his team down and had some of the more experienced players stand and do some talking about the A’s increasingly worrisome situation.

Ten players spoke, sources told The Chronicle, and it was a rewarding session, with some frank opinions and some good back-and-forth.

The A’s then won a game started by All-Star and frequent Oakland nemesis Felix Hernandez on Saturday night, and followed that Sunday with a 4-0 victory over the Mariners — the A’s first back-to-back wins in three weeks.

The A’s moved 1½ games ahead of Kansas City and 2½ games ahead of Seattle in the American League wild-card race.

“I know it was beneficial for me to kind of get some stuff out for me and the team,” third baseman Josh Donaldson said of Friday’s meeting. “We’re all professionals here, we all want success, we all want our team to have success. It was just, 'Get your mind right.’”

Donaldson was one of the players to speak, along with, among others, starters Jon Lester and Jeff Samardzija, outfielders Jonny Gomes and Brandon Moss, infielder Nick Punto and catcher Derek Norris.

“I’ve never spoke like that before. It’s different. It’s not my most favorite thing to do,” Donaldson said. “But it went OK. I felt like as a team we walked away with a little better mind-set.”

Said Gomes: “Letting people speak — everybody — is really nice, to know that wherever everyone is at mentally, the goal is the same.”

Donaldson ended a bit of a power funk with a line-drive homer off Hernandez on Saturday. On Sunday, it was Moss, who belted a 2-0 pitch from Chris Young into the seats in right in the seventh inning, his first homer since July 24.

Getting Moss going would be huge for Oakland, which has plummeted in the standings during his funk. Moss has 24 homers, second most on the club, but he’d gone 39 games without one.

“No cliches for once; that was much needed. It really was,” Moss said. “I can stop pressing about how long it had been.”

“It was a relief for everyone, especially him,” Melvin said. “His comment to me was, 'Boy, that felt good.’”

Oakland starter Lester threw a ton of pitches but was nails, working out of far more trouble than necessary because of walks and because Norris was having trouble throwing. Lester walked four men, tying his season high. Seattle, running at will, stole four bases, a season high against Oakland.

Lester had to work out of jams with runners in scoring position in each of the first five innings. Seattle went 0-for-8 against Lester with men in scoring position.

“It was a grind from pitch one,” Lester said.

“That’s how you tell the really good ones,” Melvin said. “They go out there maybe not with their best stuff and give you six shutout innings.”

Dan Otero had an even dicier situation in the seventh, when the Mariners got back-to-back pinch-hit singles by Endy Chavez and Logan Morrison to open the inning. A wild pitch moved the runners up to second and third with no outs, but Otero got Austin Jackson to hit a bouncer to first on which Chavez couldn’t score. Otero then struck out pinch-hitter Michael Saunders, intentionally walked Robinson Cano and got Kendrys Morales to fly to left.

Otero’s thoughts on getting out of that? “ 'How did I do that?’”

“That was the game right there,” Lester said. “Talk about momentum.”

Through the first five innings, Sam Fuld’s homer was the A’s only hit off Young. The A’s had better results with Seattle’s bullpen, getting two runs in the eighth when Coco Crisp doubled and scored on a single by Fuld, followed by an RBI single by Adam Dunn.