Mariners hand Red Sox a third consecutive loss
SEATTLE -- Jon Lester's latest return to his home state didn't go as planned Monday night, and the Boston Red Sox matched their longest losing streak of the season after an 11-4 loss to the Seattle Mariners.
Seattle jumped out to a 10-2 lead and piled up 15 hits while handing the Red Sox (54-37) their third consecutive defeat.
"We've just got to find a way to get to this (All-Star) break and find something positive," Lester said after Boston fell to 1-3 on its current road trip.
The Mariners tagged Lester (8-5) for nine hits and five runs, doing most of their damage in the fourth, fifth and sixth. The native of nearby Tacoma labored through five-plus innings, eventually giving way to reliever Alex Wilson after allowing back-to-back singles to open the sixth.
"When you're going well, those balls find (fielders)," Lester said. "Right now, they're finding grass on me. I've just got to keep grinding away and finding a way to get better."
Seattle's Raul Ibanez broke a 2-2 tie with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the fifth inning, his 22nd homer of the season and his eighth in the past 13 games, then added an RBI single with two outs in the sixth to give the Mariners a 6-2 lead.
Felix Hernandez (9-4) earned his first win since June 15, allowing six hits and two runs in seven innings.
Eight Mariners had hits in the game, led by Justin Smoak, who went 3-for-4. Smoak had RBI doubles in the fourth and seventh innings, the latter of which gave Seattle a 7-2 lead while chasing Wilson from the game. Smoak, Mike Zunino and Michael Saunders -- Seattle's No. 7, 8 and 9 hitters -- combined to go 7-for-12 with six RBIs and five runs.
Seattle (40-49) won for the fifth time in its past seven games, and the Mariners have now hit a home run in 16 consecutive games. The 11 runs were the most the Mariners have scored in a game since a 12-2 win over the New York Yankees on May 15, when they had a season-high 16 hits.
"Once these guys figure it out, we should have that (success in the batting order) 1 through 9 that we've always talked about," Seattle manager Eric Wedge said.
The Red Sox have had four three-game losing streaks this season, but until Monday they had gone nearly eight weeks without dropping three in a row.
After 3 1/2 scoreless innings, the Mariners sent eight players to the plate in the bottom of the fourth while taking a 2-0 lead.
Boston tied the score on a Daniel Nava RBI single and a Hernandez wild pitch in the fifth, but Ibanez gave the Mariners the lead for good with his solo homer in the bottom of the fifth.
The Mariners broke the game open in the seventh, when they scored four runs for the second time in the game. Nick Franklin's RBI double gave the Mariners a 10-2 lead before Hernandez came out of the game and the Red Sox scored twice on the Seattle bullpen.
NOTES: Red Sox LHP Andrew Miller, who was placed on the 15-day disabled list Sunday night, is scheduled to undergo season-ending surgery on his injured left foot, manager John Farrell said Monday. Miller has ligament damage in the foot. ... The Mariners designated RHP Jeremy Bonderman for assignment and called up LHP Lucas Luetge. Bonderman, 30, came back from 2010 Tommy John surgery but struggled in his past two starts, going 0-2 with a 10.80 ERA. The fill-in for Bonderman's scheduled Thursday start has not been determined -- Luetge is a reliever -- but Triple-A RHP Erasmo Ramirez seems a likely option. ... With singles in the second and fourth innings, Red Sox DH David Ortiz moved within four hits of tying the all-time record for career hits by a designated hitter. Harold Baines holds the mark with 1,688. ... Boston LF Mike Carp was a member of the Seattle organization until Feb. 20, when he was traded to the Red Sox for cash considerations. Carp told The Boston Herald on Sunday that he was eager to "do some damage against my old team." He went 1-for-4 Monday.
