ANAHEIM, Calif. — The search for the Mariners’ first win following the All-Star break will have to resume in a few days and in a different city.

With their best chance at a victory in perhaps their most competitive game in weeks, their best reliever —which isn’t necessarily a lofty distinction given the bullpen roster —entered a tie game to get one out and give the Mariners a chance to win it in the ninth inning or later.

Instead, left-hander Roenis Elias served up a line-drive three-run homer to left-handed hitting rookie Matt Thaiss, who came into the game batting a lofty .071 with no homers and one RBI.

After giving away three runs on the bases earlier in the game, there was no coming back in the ninth.

Angels closer Hansel Robles secured a 6-3 win and sweep over Seattle.

The Mariners limp out of Anaheim having lost seven of their last eight games to fall to 39-58.

They have Monday off and then open a two-game series in Oakland vs. an A’s team that has won four in a row and is 8-2 in its last 10 games.

Eventually, Seattle will snap the losing streak, but the level of play in all aspects must get better.

Right-hander Anthony Bass took the loss. He started the eighth inning and issued a one-out walk to Kole Calhoun and allowed a two-out single that put runners on the corners for Thaiss.

With Mike Trout removed from the game due right calf tightness, the Angels only had catcher Kevan Smith on the bench. So the light-hitting Thaiss, who previously snapped an 0 for 13 stretch earlier in the game, had to bat. Manager Scott Servais went to his interim closer and most effective reliever. After a first-pitch strike, Elias fell behind 2-1 and piped a 94 mph fastball that Thaiss was ready to hammer.

Starter Yusei Kikuchi and the Mariners’ beat-up bullpen couldn’t take advantage of three runs of support, which isn’t a lot, but better than the first two games of the series.

Of course it could have been more than that if not for the Mariners running the bases with complete disregard for sense and purpose.

In a fourth inning where they had runners on second and third with one out, Austin Nola was thrown out at home on a ground ball to shortstop with the drawn in infield on the contact play. Moments later Mallex Smith was got picked off at first base. Dylan Moore tried to score from third while Smith was hung up in the run down and was thrown out at home.

And then in seventh inning of a 3-3 game, Smith tripled with one out to give Seattle a prime chance to take the lead. Instead he got caught off third on a comebacker to the pitcher and was thrown out at home after a brief run down.

With inconsistent command from his first pitch of the game, Kikuchi struggled to get ahead and to put hitters away. He didn’t go full count to every batter, but it just felt that way. Perhaps the biggest sign of his issues were the 47 pitches it took to get through two innings and the four walks he issued in his four-plus innings of work.

Perhaps it was a sign of things to come when Kikuchi recorded the first two outs of the game and then issued walks to Shohei Ohtani and Justin Upton before getting the third out of the inning.

Kikuchi was effectively wild enough to allow just two hits in the game. With a 2-0 lead, Kikuchi allowed his first hit to start the second inning when Kole Calhoun launched a curveball over the wall in right field to cut Seattle’s lead in half.

After the two pitch-filled innings, Kikuchi back work 1-2-3 frames in the third and fourth. He started the fifth and never recorded an out. He walked Dustin Garneau to start the inning and then allowed a single to No. 9 hitter Matt Thaiss. With the top of the Angels order cycling through for the third time, Servais went to right-hander Matt Carasiti to stop the problems. Instead Carasiti made it worse by walking the first two batters he faced to force in a run. The Angels tied the game on Andrelton Simmons’ sac fly to left field. Both runs were charged to Kikuchi.

Carasiti did limit further damage by retiring the next two batters to keep the game tied at 3-3.

Seattle grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first inning against Angels starter Jose Suarez on three straight two-out singles from Domingo Santana, Tim Beckham and Tom Murphy.

Austin Nola pushed the lead to 2-0 to start the second by belting his second homer of the season.

After briefly losing their two-run cushion, the Mariners got it right back when Santana led off the third with a solo homer to deep right-center. It was 19th home run of the season.