SEATTLE — It was set to be another landmark start for Felix Hernandez. He only needed one pitch to put himself in the Seattle Mariners record book with his 324th career start, passing Jamie Moyer for most in club history.
Instead it was one he’ll want to forget.
Hernandez overcame the Arizona Diamondbacks’ four-run first to get through 6 2⁄3 innings on 106 pitches and somewhat spare an already fatigued bullpen. But he allowed seven runs (all earned) and a season-high 12 hits as the Arizona Diamondbacks swept the three-game interleague series with an 8-2 victory Wednesday at Safeco Field.
“I made some mistakes,” Hernandez said. “That’s all. Some pitches were out over the middle of the plate and they put a good swing on it.”
It was the Mariners’ fourth loss in their past five games and the fifth consecutive game they’ve allowed at least four runs.
If the Mariners (46-56) were to match their 87-75 record from last season, they’d need to go 41-19 the rest of the way.
“We got our butts kicked in this series,” Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon said. “And we got to regroup and go on the road and try to win a game.”
Maybe more frustrating than the loss itself was who supplied the bulk of Wednesday’s damage.
Welington Castillo, who played six games for the Mariners this season, hit two home runs — both off Hernandez (12-6) — and reached base in all five of his plate appearances.
No pitcher in MLB history with at least 25 interleague starts had a better interleague ERA than Hernandez entering Wednesday. He was 18-8 with a 2.27 ERA in 34 interleague starts, and he didn’t allow a run in eight innings his last one — a 2-0 win against the San Francisco Giants on June 17.
But the Diamondbacks scored as many runs off Hernandez in the first inning as he had allowed in his past five starts combined.
It came after they scored six runs in 5 2⁄3 innings against Hisashi Iwakuma in an 8-4 win Tuesday.
“They are an aggressive club — you got to make quality pitches,” McClendon said, “and we just didn’t do it the last two days.”
The Diamondbacks (49-51) got their first two runs in the first inning on Paul Goldschmidt’s single and two more on Castillo’s home run to left field.
Hernandez found a groove, retiring seven of the next eight batters, before running back into apparent Felix-killer Castillo, who homered on the first pitch he saw in the top of the fourth inning.
Castillo is the sixth player to hit multiple home runs against Hernandez in a game, and he now has eight in 35 games since the catcher was traded from the Mariners in a six-player deal on June 3 that netted Seattle Mark Trumbo and Vidal Nuno.
At the time, Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik said he was parting with a backup catcher for an everyday player in Trumbo.
Since? Castillo is batting .281 as a Diamondback with the eight homers and 19 RBI in 35 games. Trumbo has hit .234 with three homers and 13 RBI in 42 games for the Mariners.
Seattle got a run back in the bottom of the fifth when Brad Miller hit a two-out single the other way to left field, scoring Kyle Seager from third. Miller was playing second base for Robinson Cano, who is day-to-day with an abdominal strain.
But Arizona punctuated the Mariners’ disparaging effort with David Peralta’s two-RBI triple in the seventh on a catchable fly ball to center field. Jackson said he lost the ball in the sun and it bounced near the warning track between he and right fielder Nelson Cruz.
That allowed Peralta to cruise into third, and Arizona to push its lead to 7-1.
“Just a tough day with the sun,” Jackson said. “Even with glasses on it was tough.”
That could also describe this series, one Jackson said will test their mental toughness.
“We got a lot of veteran guys in here who have played for a while and have been through this kind of roller-coaster-type season,” Jackson said. “So we just got to keep playing and weather the storm and believe in ourselves.”
Hernandez then walked Castillo after Peralta’s triple and McClendon replaced him with Nuno.
Hernandez’s final line: 6 2⁄3 innings, 12 hits, seven runs (all earned) and seven strikeouts.
But he also allowed the Mariners to only need Nuno and Fernando Rodney, who pitched a scoreless ninth, to finish the game out of the bullpen, sparing it before a seven-game road trip starting Thursday with a four-game series against the Minnesota Twins.
Franklin Gutierrez drove in the Mariners second run, scoring Jackson with a ground-rule double in the bottom of the eighth after Ender Inciarte pushed Arizona’s lead to 8-1 with a single in the top half of the inning.
But on an historic day for Hernandez, there just weren’t many other highlights for he and the Mariners.
“It’s tough because we know we have the talent here to do it,” Jackson said. “We just got to put everything together, execute the plan and not get down on ourselves.
“Nobody likes to lose, especially when you have the talent like we got in here. Just got to keep playing and hopefully we can turn it around.”
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