SEATTLE —The final out was surprisingly easy: Three pitches, three strikes, the finishing touches on what was a crazy, thrilling finish.

Everything else before those three pitches … not easy at all.

But the fact is, the Mariners held on for a 7-6 win Wednesday against the Orioles, their second straight win after five straight losses. They are back to .500 (61-61) and still just 1 1/2 games back in the wild-card race.

“That will put a few gray hairs on here,” manager Scott Servais said, removing his hat.

The Mariners led 7-4 at the start of the ninth inning with closer Edwin Diaz on the mound. Diaz walked the first three batters he faced, and then he fell behind 2-0 to Manny Machado with the bases loaded. Fourteen of Diaz’s first 21 pitches were balls.

Machado drove a ball to the right-center gap. Normally that would be the terrain of center fielder Jarrod Dyson, but Dyson was slowed by a groin injury. He was only in the game because Guillermo Heredia had to leave after getting drilled in the forearm by a pitch (Servais said he X-rays were negative and Heredia was fine).

Knowing that Dyson was hampered, right fielder Leonys Martin made a sliding catch to allow only one run to score.

“The defensive play was really the story of the game,” Servais said. “If that ball falls in, we’re in all kinds of trouble.”

“That’s why I run hard every single time,” Martin said.

It appeared Diaz had settled down when he struck out Jonathan Schoop for the second out. But then he hit Trey Mancini on the arm, which prompted Servais to argue the call, which got him ejected.

Diaz had had two strikes on Mancini, and Servais argued Mancini swung at the pitch that hit him.

“If he swings, whether it hits him or not, it is strike three, and the game is over,” Servais said. “That was my beef with it. I think it’s pretty clear when you watch it on replay. Again, it’s a judgment call by the umpire. I’m not quite sure what he’s looking at, but we got out of there with a W.”

A run scored, and then another run scored when Diaz also hit Mark Trumbo. At that point, the Mariners brought in lefty reliever Marc Rzepczynski to face lefty Chris Davis.

Rzepczynski struck out Davis on three pitches.

“If I’m still down there (in the bullpen),” Rzepczynski said, “I’m locked in because you never know.”

Both Servais and Diaz admitted his problem was mechanical. Servais said Diaz’s front side was “flying out,” causing the ball to run. The bigger issue was that Diaz couldn’t fix the problem during the game, which was part of the reason he lost the closer’s job in May.

“I think he knows what the issue is, but in the heat of the moment, the heat of the battle, you’ve got to be able to slow it down, and he wasn’t able to do that today,” Servais said.

Diaz agreed.

“I think I was thinking too much about my mechanics today in the game,” he said. “I wanted to fix it, but I didn’t find the point to fix it. I made a couple good pitches but then got back to rushing, rushing, rushing. That cost me the two runs and almost blew the game.”

The Mariners’ offense had struggled for most of the seven-game homestand. In the first six games, the Mariners had scored more than three runs just once, and they are 5-42 when scoring three or fewer runs this season.

Yonder Alonso hit his first home run since the Mariners traded for him and had three RBI. Martin also homered, and Danny Valencia and Heredia each drove in runs.

That helped overcome another rough fifth inning for starter Marco Gonzales, who has hit a wall in the fifth in all three of his starts for the Mariners.

Gonzales had allowed just one run — a home run on the second pitch of the game — through four innings. But he allowed four runs and five consecutive hits in the fifth inning, a concerning trend.