The Mariners had all the makings for a bounceback win in Sunday’s series finale against the Rangers at Globe Life Field: quality starting pitching, timely hitting and solid relief pitching.

Instead, in an exact replica of Saturday’s loss, the Mariners were once again walked off by Jonah Heim in a 4-3 loss to close out the series.

“Not quite sure how to summarize that game other than it sucks,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “It really does.”

The loss represented a major gut punch for Seattle, which entered the 9th inning with a 3-1 lead, before Andy Ibáñez blasted a game-tying two-run home run off Erik Swanson, scoring Nathaniel Lowe, who led off with a single. Heim continued his torrid stretch, landing the finishing blow via a walk-off home run in back-to-back games to send the Mariners packing.

Coming into Sunday’s finale, the Mariners owned a 43-1 record when leading after eight innings.

“Those are the games that we typically lock down, and we've been winning all year long,” Servais said. “And they just flipped the script on us here the last couple days.”

Seattle similarly took the lead late on Saturday before reckoning with the same fate from the very same bat on Sunday.

“When you go on a roll like that, [pulling off] those close games, you just expect it to happen every night," Servais said. "Unfortunately, we just didn't get it done here the last couple of days.”

Marco Gonzales kicked off the game with another strong outing as the 29-year-old has returned to form since coming off the paternity list on June 30.

He delivered six efficient innings of one-run ball, striking out four and inducing five ground-ball outs and eight fly-ball outs on 88 pitches (64 strikes).

“Marco threw the ball great today,” Servais said. “I thought he was pretty sharp. Got the changeup going early, thought the fastball had more life than what we've seen the last couple outings. He did a great job getting us through six innings.”

Working with rookie backstop and the Mariners’ No. 5-ranked prospect Cal Raleigh, Gonzales generated a total of 22 called strikes and nine swings and misses in his outing, making great use of the changeup and his four-seam fastball.

“I felt like some of the best stuff that I've had,” Gonzales said. “Certainly, command-wise, I felt really consistent. … Credit [to] Cal, too. He really called a great game, caught his tail off, and I thought we were working well tonight.”

Seattle jumped to an early 2-0 lead in the second inning, led by Jarred Kelenic’s walk to load the bases, Jake Bauers’ RBI single and Dylan Moore’s bases-loaded walk. Both walks came on a full count, helping illustrate the type of at-bats that accentuated the Mariners' day at the plate.

However, despite the constant traffic on the basepaths that came from nine hits and five walks, Seattle never quite landed the big hit. The Mariners finished having gone 3-for-10 with runners in scoring position with 10 total base runners left on base. 

“There were a lot of quality at-bats to get those guys on base [and] whatnot, just couldn't get them across,” Servais said. “Really, if you look at throughout the course of the game with the opportunities we had, you’re really hoping to stretch that game out -- you know, 5-1, 6-1, 7-1, something like that. It's a little bit less stress, obviously, on your bullpen late in the game, but [that wasn’t] the case.”  

Seattle added a late insurance run in the seventh, when Kyle Seager bunted against the shift with runners in scoring position and two outs, marking his second RBI bunt single this season -- the most in the Majors.

“Really heads-up play by Seags,” Servais added. “I tip my hat to him [for] understanding the situation. That’s being a good baseball player. That's what the situation called for. It was there, and he executed it. It was awesome to see.”

A series loss on the heels of back-to-back walk-off home runs in the shadow of what has been described as a “tough week” for the team isn’t what the Mariners had in mind as they continue a road trip that will see them face contenders in the Rays and Yankees across this next week.

“We got a lot of games left to play. There’s no question about it,” Servais said. “I do know something about this group -- they’ve got a lot of grit. We will show up in Tampa, we'll come up with great effort, and we're going to that series expecting to win it, even though they’re playing good baseball.”