From his first pitch of the game to his 84th, starter J.A. Happ seemingly could not get into a groove against the Mariners on Tuesday night.

On his first pitch, Happ gave up a home run to J.P. Crawford. He then gave up a one-out double to Ty France, though he managed to strand the Mariners’ first baseman. But the tumultuous outing for the Twins' lefty hit its roughest stretch in the second inning of a 10-0 loss to the Mariners at T-Mobile Park.

The 6-foot-5 hurler walked Tom Murphy to lead off the second and surrendered back-to-back singles to Jake Bauers and Luis Torrens to load the bases, which were cleared in short order on a triple by Shed Long Jr., who later scored on a passed ball.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said Happ’s struggles to find a groove from the start led to the rocky outing.

“He didn't look, I would say, completely comfortable out on the mound tonight,” Baldelli said. “I'm not sure what that would be. From the very beginning, I mean, that's going to happen [when] the first batter of the game [is] going out there hitting a homer like that.

“That can happen any time. I can't necessarily point to that as being an actual issue of any kind. I think he had a tough time following the [first] inning and then nothing really came easy.”

Happ managed to limit the Mariners to soft contact as Seattle hitters averaged an 81.5 mph exit velocity against him, according to Statcast. But even in instances when the Mariners didn't square up his pitches, things did not go well for the veteran southpaw.

Happ gave up back-to-back softly hit singles to start the fourth, which were followed by an RBI single by Jake Fraley, who dropped a blooper into shallow right field.

“Even when the Mariners' lineup hit the ball softly -- I mean, they hit some balls hard -- but even when they didn't, things just did not seem to work out today for J.A.,” Baldelli said.

Happ started the season strong before his struggles began in early May. He had gone 2-0 with a 1.91 ERA over 28 1/3 innings over his first five starts before he was roughed up in an outing on May 12 against the White Sox, giving up nine runs in 3 1/3 innings. Since that start against Chicago, he has given up four or more runs in five of his last six starts, completing six innings just once in that span with his ERA spiking to 6.12.

Baldelli said he hasn’t seen much of a difference in Happ’s pitches since May 12. He noted that Happ has been averaging more velocity on most of his pitches, which was true on Tuesday night as he averaged 88.2 mph compared to 87.3 mph from his outing against the White Sox.

The main issue for Happ, as Baldelli noted, has been locating his pitches.

“I don't think he looks drastically different,” Baldelli said. “I'd actually say his velocities, I think [are a] tick up right now than where it was when he was throwing at the beginning of the year. … I think it's probably more execution than anything else. I think he was probably living on the edges in a lot of ways. Today, some of the pitches were probably middle-middle, and that's always going to be an issue anytime you're pitching at this level, so I think that's part of it.”