OAKLAND -- Kyle Seager returned to the Mariners’ lineup Saturday. Apparently it’s going to take more than the addition of an All-Star third baseman to completely shake Seattle out of its ongoing funk.

But with Seager going 2-for-4, scoring a ninth-inning run and starting a nice double play in his return, a 6-5 loss to Oakland at the Coliseum, the Mariners left the tying run at second base in the ninth inning and didn’t look like the team that came into the game having been outscored 63-33 during the first eight games of this road trip.

“It was a good game, going back and forth,” Seager said. “It felt good to be out there. It felt normal.”

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The Mariners hadn’t won a game all year in which they saw the other team score first, and when the A’s jumped up 1-0 on Matt Chapman’s first-inning homer, things immediately seemed ominous. But once Domingo Santana’s second homer of the game with one out in the ninth cut the Seattle deficit to 6-4, Seager doubled. Rally time.

He scored, too, but he was left wanting more. J.P. Crawford brought Seager home with a double off Blake Treinen, but the double just missed going out and tying the game.

“Trienen is as good as it gets,” Seager said. “His stuff is top of the food chain. But Crawford being two feet away from a home run, that was a really good at-bat.”

Shed Long flew out to right with Crawford representing the tying run at second base. And that happened only after Robbie Grossman accelerated toward the line in left field, covering 108 feet to track down what would have been a double off Jay Bruce’s bat.

“It was nice to see Kyle back in the lineup,” manager Scott Servais said of Seager, out all season with a hand injury, “Kyle looked really good today, not just what he brings defensively, but with the approach to use the whole field going forward could be really important.”

While doing his rehab, Seager has been tinkering with his swing, looking to go more to left field when the situation presents itself. His single in the fourth inning went to left-center and his double in the ninth went to left.

“I’ve definitely been working on going to left, really trying to use the whole field,” Seager said. “[After getting those hits] I could breathe a little bit.”

Just a dozen games into his MLB career, Seattle starter Yusei Kikuchi has now faced the A’s three times. He handled them well the first two times, but the third time was no charm. Twice the Mariners bailed him out after he fell a run behind. Then in the fourth inning, with the game again tied at 2-2, he was roughed up by an RBI single from Marcus Semien and a two-run double from Chad Pinder.

Speaking through an interpreter, Kikuchi said having faced the A’s so much might have helped them sit on his curve. He didn’t think he was tipping the pitch, but he couldn’t rule it out.

“I felt today they were hitting my curve pretty well, and that’s a pitch that I have kind of leaned on this year,” Kikuchi said. “That could be a factor of seeing them three times already. I was throwing strikes with it; I didn’t feel it was a bad curveball at all. But I felt they were sitting on it.

“I don’t think I was tipping, but I’ll look at it.”

When Servais came to get the ball and turn the game over to Austin Adams, it was clear Kikuchi wanted no part of leaving the game for a team that is 10-29 after starting the season 13-2.

“The way we’ve been going I wanted to have a good game and turn the baton over to the next guy,” Kikuchi said. “That didn’t happen.”