NEW YORK -- Marco Gonzales bounced back from the shortest start of his career with six strong innings of one-run ball, but the Yankees spoiled that effort by scoring three times in the ninth to hand the Mariners a 5-4 walk-off loss on Tuesday night as Seattle's bullpen struggles continued in the Bronx.

Gio Urshela’s two-run homer off Anthony Swarzak tied the game with one out in the ninth, and DJ LeMahieu singled in the game-winner off Roenis Elias one out later.

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Swarzak, assuming the primary closer duties since Hunter Strickland was sidelined by a strained lat muscle five weeks ago, has blown three save opportunities in his last six appearances and has allowed a home run in five of those outings.

“If there was one thing, I’d say I just have to attack,” said Swarzak, a 33-year-old veteran acquired from the Mets as part of the Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz deal. “I have to do a better job of attacking. I feel like I did that tonight, but I obviously didn’t get the results I needed. And that’s unfortunate, because our team played a heck of a game.”

Gonzales put a 1 2/3-inning stumble against the Cubs quickly in the rear-view mirror as he allowed just three hits with one walk in an 89-pitch gem, but the no-decision left the 27-year-old southpaw at 5-1 with a 3.08 ERA.

“I’ve been thinking about this one for five days now,” Gonzales said. “I had some time to weigh how my last one went, and I thought I corrected a lot of things I wanted to work on. They’re a very aggressive team, so I wanted to locate the offspeed early and get ahead and get them off-balance, and I think we did a good job of that.”

After rain hit in the top of the seventh, Mariners manager Scott Servais brought in reliever Cory Gearrin with a 2-1 lead following a 72-minute delay. He escaped a first-and-third jam with a 1-4-3 double play before Brandon Brennan allowed one run in the eighth and Swarzak gave up three straight one-out hits in the ninth before LeMahieu drove in the decider off Elias.

“This is the game we needed,” Swarzak said. “We felt it. We had the lead during that little delay. Guys were feeling good. It’s a happy clubhouse, a happy place to play. Guys are pulling for each other. Then you go out and give away the lead like that, that’s not very good for the club. I’m going to do the best I can to keep going out there and trying to get zeros. That’s it. That’s all I can do. I’m not giving up. I would never give up. I’m going to try to figure this out.”

Seattle’s starters have a 4.25 ERA on the season, which ranks smack in the middle of MLB’s 30 teams. But a 4.90 ERA for the bullpen is 25th, and the eight blown saves are tied for last.

“We’ve had a tough time closing out some games, and Swarzy has struggled a bit and made some mistakes tonight,” Servais said. “We had a chance to kind of bury them at a couple different points in the game, we just couldn’t push across a few more insurance runs. You still have a lead going into the ninth and feel good about your chances, but that’s been a struggle the last 10 days or so, and certainly the home run ball is getting us.”

The Mariners scored two unearned runs in the eighth to provide some apparent cushion on Domingo Santana’s two-out single for his 33rd RBI of the year, followed by a run-scoring double from Jay Bruce.

Bruce came into the game on a 3-for-31 skid, but he went 3-for-4 with two bloop doubles, lifting his average to .196 to go along with his team-leading 11 homers.

The loss drops the Mariners to .500 for the first time this season at 19-19, as they’ve now lost eight of their last nine and are 6-17 since opening the year at 13-2. The Yankees are 21-14 despite a slew of injuries and have beaten Seattle seven straight times in the Bronx since 2017.

Another blast for Encarnacion
Edwin Encarnacion ripped his third homer in the past four games to put Seattle up 2-1 in the sixth, and it was a rocket off of Masahiro Tanaka. The 113 mph exit velocity made it the hardest homer he has hit since Statcast started tracking in 2015.

The 36-year-old slugger has clubbed 163 homers in that span, with the previous hardest being 112.8 mph on Sept. 6, 2016 -- also at Yankee Stadium -- off Luis Cessa, when Encarnacion was with the Blue Jays.

“Edwin continues to have good at-bats,” Servais said. “That was about as hard as he’s hit a ball all year. It got out of here in a hurry. Jay got a couple hits to fall in tonight, which was good to see, Dee [Gordon] continues to swing the bat well and Domingo had a pretty good night. We’ll be back at it tomorrow. These are tough losses. They’re tough for everybody. But we’ll show up tomorrow and get back after it.”