Winless in Seattle: Wrapping up the series loss at Seattle

SEATTLE - For the Orioles, it was a terrible series in Seattle. They lost four games by a combined 31-15 score. Their starting pitchers gave up 21 runs in 18 innings. Seattle's Seth Smith homered in every game and hit a grand slam today. The Orioles are 1-6 versus the Mariners in 2016.

After today's 9-4 loss at Safeco Field, the Orioles reach the season's halfway mark at 47-34. They lead the AL East by three games. But they came to Seattle with a seven-game win streak and leave equaling a season-high with four consecutive losses.

I asked center fielder Adam Jones if the starting pitching was disappointing to him in this series.

"To me, no," Jones said. "I'm not disappointed in anybody. Because they are going out there giving it their all. So, at the end of the day you have to understand that the people in the (batter's) box make hefty salaries also. When you have guys on base for (Seth) Smith, (Nelson) Cruz, (Robinson) Cano, (Kyle) Seager, (Adam) Lind, those guys have a track record of getting RBIs. It's the same on this side. If a pitcher gives up homers to us are you going to say he had a bad night or we did good? Tip you cap, they hit our pitching. Move on. We hit their pitching too."

The Mariners out-homered the Orioles 10-4 in this series. Today Smith hit a grand slam for a 4-0 lead in the third. He went 8-for-17 in the four games with four homers and 11 RBIs. His homer came on an 0-2 pitch from losing pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez.

"That's the hardest part," Jimenez said. "It's really hard to get a hitter like him like he's hitting right now, you get ahead and just allow that home run. It's tough.

"It's disappointing. There's no doubt about it. As a starting pitcher, you want to be the best out there for your team. We haven't been able to do the job. It's not fun. At all. We have to find a way to get back on track and keep fighting."

Seattle completed its first four-game sweep at home over the Orioles since June 22-25, 2000. The Mariners' 23 extra-base hits ties for their second most ever in a four-game series.

"There is no, 'we're losing, so fold over,'" Jones said. "This team ain't going to do that. We'll play 27 outs and that is what our makeup is. I wouldn't even allow anybody in this clubhouse that wasn't going to play like that.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It's four games. It's not September. This didn't knock us out of contention. Cool. They played a great series, tip your cap to the Mariners. We didn't play as good as we envisioned coming in here. Let's get to L.A. tonight, get a good dinner and get the hell out of Seattle."

Some postgame comments from manager Buck Showalter:

On Jimenez: "Combination of those things. He just made a lot of mistakes command-wise. He was crisp, too. Had pretty good stuff early on. Just a lot of counts have been a challenge for him. He gets counts in his favor and he either runs it back 3-2 or makes a mistake 0-2. Couple mental mistakes too."

On Ariel Miranda's big league debut: "Felt good for Miranda, getting an opportunity. He presented himself well early but a lot of it comes from an ambush, not knowing and you can see the second time through the order kind of sneaks up on him. He threw 50 pitches, he'll be down a couple days. We'll see if we need to get somebody in. We are going to have to replace Pedro (Alvarez), too. Try to get our best foot forward. Try to get this behind us and try to turn the page to Los Angeles."

Will losing four straight hurt the team's outlook?: "No, just like (winning) seven straight didn't. We don't live in that world. We didn't pitch very well and tried to dig out of a hole. Kind of what we've been doing to other people. Just turn the page.

"Not glad to be done with them, no. They're a good club. We're a good club. It's got nothing to do with it...we play good, we're in good shape. We don't play well, doesn't matter who we are playing."

So, at the season's midpoint the Orioles are on a 94-win pace with a three-game division lead. Mark Trumbo preferred to look at that and not dwell on the last few days at Safeco Field.

"It was tough," he said. "It's just kind of one of those things. They swung the bat extremely well. I don't think anybody would have matched up very well with them this series. Sometimes you are going to run into it.

"Very happy, very pleased (overall with 47-34). You have to look at the big picture and can't get too caught up in day-to-day and week-to-week. If you are to look at the overall picture, we've played excellent baseball. Really proud of the way guys have gone about it, day in and day out. These last four are not ideal, but overall we've done great."