SEATTLE — The offense came back, well, for three innings, which was a mild positive. But in the end, the result was still the same: The Mariners watching the opposing team — this time the Kansas City Royals — line up for a postgame victory handshake for the seventh straight game at Safeco Field following a 9-6 loss in 10 innings.
With the score tied 6-6 in the top of the 10th, Salvador Perez launched a two-run homer to right field off James Pazos to put the Royals up for good and complete a three-game sweep.
It was a disappointing end to a night where the Mariners looked in line to win at home for the first time since June 23. Instead, they lost their seventh straight game at home and for the eighth time in their last 10 games.
“It’s a critical point in our season right now,” manager Scott Servais said. “We haven’t played well here over the last 10 days or so. We have struggled, and we have to get it turned around heading into the All-Star break. There were some good signs, but we didn’t get it done in the end and we needed to have that ballgame tonight.”
Down 4-0 before even having an at-bat Wednesday night, the Mariners stormed back to take a 6-4 lead in just three innings. But the failures to add to that lead on a warm night where the ball was flying out of Safeco Field for a combined six homers and a sloppy 10th inning that featured two errors led to yet another defeat.
Robinson Cano’s booted ground ball — his second error of the series — allowed the leadoff runner to reach and put unnecessary pressure on the rookie Pazos, who had worked through the heart of Kansas City’s order on Monday.
After getting a broken-bat force out off Eric Hosmer for the first out, Pazos threw a sinker on the outside half that Perez muscled over the wall.
“I liked my chances there,” Pazos said. “I think I can get him out, but he got me today. He was looking for a pitch in one spot and he got it. As soon as he hit it, I just started saying things in my head.”
The six runs scored by the Mariners might look good on the surface, but they had just two hits after the third inning.
“We just didn’t get the big hit late,” Servais said. “You’ve got to find a way to scratch out a run and keep constant pressure on them.”
It was an awful first inning for Seattle starter Ariel Miranda. With his pitches up in the zone, the aggressive-swinging Royals pounced on him. Hosmer hammered a two-run double to center and Mike Moustakas homered for the third straight game in this series, hitting a towering fly ball to right field that kept carrying over the wall to make it 4-0. His two-run blast was his 25th homer.
To his credit, Miranda did settle in, working the next three innings scoreless while his teammates gave him the lead.
The Mariners cut the lead in half in the bottom of the first. Jean Segura led off with a single and scored on Nelson Cruz’s ground ball to second. Ben Gamel followed with an RBI single to score Robinson Cano.
Seattle took the lead an inning later. Mike Zunino led off the second with his 12th homer of the season — a towering solo drive to left. With one out and Jarrod Dyson on third base, Segura launched a 2-2 fastball over the wall in dead center for his sixth homer of the season and a 5-4 lead.
Cruz snapped a 24-game homerless streak in the third inning, leading off with a solo shot to left-center to make it 6-4.
Former Mariner Jason Vargas, who made the All-Star team, made it through five innings, giving up six runs on eight hits with no walks and four strikeouts. It was the second time this season he’d yielded more than three earned runs.
