What separates the Oakland A's from postseason bliss? A number of factors. One nagging one: Their inability to beat the Seattle Mariners. Their 13-4 loss on Monday night to open up the final road trip of the season was Oakland's 10th straight loss to the Mariners and moved their record to 4-13 against them this season.

That matches their longest losing streak against a team. They also lost 10 straight to the Houston Astros from July 20, 2016 to April 28, 2017.

The A's looked to have gained some positive momentum with a sweep of the Houston Astros to close out their home games, but this loss nearly shuts the door on the A's postseason hopes. Of the five American League teams competing for a wild card spot — the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays — the A's and Mariners were the only teams playing on Monday. With the loss, the a's fall 3.5 games back of the second wild card spot with five games left to play. The odds are slim, at best.

Cole Irvin's struggles against this Mariners team continued into Monday's start. In five starts against them this season only once — in his last start — has Irvin gone at least five innings. This was not one of them.

Though he cruised through the first two innings, history caught up to him in the third as he nursed a three-run lead earned on Seth Brown's three-run home run in the first inning off Mariners starter Chris Flexen.

A couple of singles brought up Ty France, who doubled to score Seattle's first run with no outs. Irivn was able to get A's killers Mitch Haniger and Kyel Seager out, but Luis Torrens knocked a two-out, two-run single to tie the game 3-3.

Chad Pinder and Khris Davis connected for back-to-back doubles to give the A's a one-run lead, but the Mariners sure had an answer. Irvin was pulled after issuing back-to-back walks to start the fourth inning, reliever Deolis Guerra couldn't hold them, and the flood gates opened. But first, Irvin ended his season against the Mariners with an 0-5 record and 8.69 ERA.

Hits from J.P. Crawford and France scored a pair of runs, then Haniger blasted a three-run home run to give Seattle a 8-4 lead. Guerra was pulled for James Kaprielian, now in the bullpen with Chris Bassitt's return to the rotation, who was the victim of another Haniger three-run home run two innings later.

Despite getting Flexen's pitch count up to 95 and him out of the game after the fifth inning, A's had no answers on offense.

Matt Chapman recorded his 197th, 198th and 199th strikeout of the season, the 198th broke Jack Cust's single-season 2008 record for strikeouts by an Athletic in history.

Injury updates

Starling Marte and Josh Harrison were left off Monday's lineup dealing with injuries. Marte has left lat soreness and Harrison is "banged up" from the Astros series. Both are day-to-day.