A’s lose again, their 10-40 start worst in MLB in 91 years

SEATTLE — The A’s lost for the sixth consecutive game and the 14th time in 16 games after J.P. Crawford and Ty France hit back-to-back home runs in a three-run fifth inning to help Seattle beat Oakland 3-2 Tuesday night.

Oakland dropped to 10-40, which projects to a 32-130 record. That would the most losses for any team in a season since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders went 20-134.

The A’s matched the 1932 Boston Red Sox and 1897 St. Louis Browns for the fourth-worst 50-game start in big league history at 10-40, ahead of only the 1897 Louisville Colonels at 7-43, and the 1899 Spiders and 1904 Washington Senators at 9-41.

A controversial fan interference call hurt the Mariners in the eighth. After France was hit on the left hand by a Trevor May pitch leading off and replaced by pinch-runner Sam Haggerty, Julio Rodríguez hit foul fly down the line near the right-field seats.

Ramon Laureano settled under the ball and was about to catch it but a fan raised an arm out of the stands and over the field. Though the fan didn’t touch the ball, first base umpire Carlos Torres decided the fan interfered with with Laureano’s view and called Rodríguez out, a decision upheld in a video review.

Laureano and Carlos Pérez hit RBI singles in the first off Marco Gonzales (4-1). who allowed five hits in six inning with four strikeouts.

Tom Murphy doubled off Luis Medina (0-3) with two outs in the fifth, and Crawford tied the score when he hit his second home run of the season on a 1-0 changeup. Six pitches later, France drove a slider 420 feet into the left-field bullpen for his third home run this season.