Gonzales gets in hole Mariners can't overcome 

SEATTLE -- One thing the Mariners were able to count on during their up-and-down first month of the season was the dependability of Marco Gonzales, their newly anointed No. 1 starter.

But the month of May didn’t begin well for Gonzales, who not only suffered his first loss of the season in Seattle’s 11-0 setback to the Cubs on Wednesday, but lasted just 1 2/3 innings in the shortest start of his Major League career.

“It’s part of baseball. It’s part of life,” Gonzales said. “You get punched in the mouth a lot. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t had these kind of outings before and know what to do with it. There’s work to be done, but no panic in my eyes. I just need to keep doing what I’m doing and go get the next one.”

The 27-year-old southpaw fell to 5-1 with a 3.28 ERA as he gave up six runs -- though only three were earned, thanks to left fielder Domingo Santana’s sixth error of the season -- with five hits and three walks. All the damage came in the second inning after a 1-2-3 first, with Gonzales finally lifted after throwing 39 pitches in the frame and leaving with the bases loaded.

Cubs shortstop Javier Baez jumped on the first pitch of the inning for a 430-foot homer to right-center, breaking Gonzales’ string of seven straight games without allowing a long ball at T-Mobile Park. The last Mariners starter with a longer homerless stretch at home was Aaron Sele with eight straight games in 2000-01.

“Marco is having a great run this year,” manager Scott Servais said. “Today they obviously had a game plan against him. They were very aggressive, a lot of guys getting after him early in the count. It was one of those days. He’s having a great year. He had a bad today, they took advantage of it and we paid the price.”

By the time the afternoon ended, the Cubs had clubbed three home runs -- with Anthony Rizzo and Willson Contreras going deep off reliever Chasen Bradford to continue a troublesome trend of late for Seattle. While the Mariners lead the Majors with 60 home runs, they’ve been outhomered 18-4 in the last eight games.

Seattle managed just one hit -- a Ryon Healy single in the second -- off Cubs lefty Jon Lester in his seven innings as the native of nearby Puyallup, Wash., improved to 2-1 with a 1.73 ERA in five starts on the season.

For the second time in the past four games, the Mariners used a position player to pitch the ninth inning of a blowout loss, with backup catcher Tom Murphy allowing two runs on a walk, a double and two sacrifice flies, while hitting 88 mph with his fastball in his first mound appearance since his high school days in Central Square, N.Y., in 2010.

Seattle's fourth straight loss -- by a combined score of 46-7 -- left the club at 2-4 on the homestand and 18-15 overall as it now heads out on a tough 10-game road trip through Cleveland, New York and Boston.

“We have to get back to playing better baseball, bottom line,” Servais said. “There’s no sugarcoating it. We just didn’t play well.”

A tale of two seasons … already
The Mariners' impressive 13-2 start to the season has rapidly faded, as they have lost 13 of their last 18. While the early run was fueled by a record-setting offense, that slugging machine has not been seen of late.

In Seattle's first 15 games, the club hit .295 with a .565 slugging percentage while averaging 7.8 runs a game, thanks in part to 36 home runs.

In the 18 games since, the Mariners are batting .202 with a .374 slugging percentage, while averaging 4.0 runs and totaling 24 homers.

“We’ve had a number of guys who’ve cooled off,” Servais said. “They were going great for a long time, really up and down the lineup. That’s going to happen. You have to find other ways to stay in ballgames and win ballgames. It’s just not happening here at home right now. We have a day off tomorrow and then go on a challenging road trip. We have to swing the bats better.”