Seattle Mariners' offensive woes reappear as win streak snapped by Padres
SAN DIEGO - After a weekend when a beat-up Houston Astros pitching staff put them on base at a ridiculous rate and into hitters counts that allowed them to swing aggressively to awaken an offense that had been largely dormant for the first two weeks of the season, the Mariners on Tuesday were hit with a cold, efficient reminder of what it's like to face competent, let alone outstanding, major-league pitching.
San Diego starter Michael King held the Mariners to one run in his six innings of work while the Padres' dominant bullpen, anchored by overpowering closer Mason Miller, held Seattle hitless over the final three innings in a 4-1 Padres victory at Petco Park.
The loss snapped Seattle's four-game winning streak. And for the fifth time in their last six road games, the Mariners were held to two runs or fewer.
Tough ball game," manager Dan Wilson said. "I thought some opportunities earlier in the game that we didn't convert. Against a team like this, with a back end of the bullpen like they have, we've got to score early, and we weren't able to do that tonight."
In King's six innings pitched he allowed just the one run on four hits with two walks and five strikeouts. He was aided 14 ground-ball outs.
"He's a veteran," Wilson said. "He's a guy who's gonna mix and he's not gonna give in. And I thought he pitched us pretty tough. He got us out front. I thought he changed speeds pretty well tonight, and that's why we hit a lot of balls on the ground. He's tough that way."
Seattle picked up its lone run in the second inning. Randy Arozarena singled with one out and Luke Raley dropped a perfect bunt down against the shift for a single. The Mariners loaded the bases when J.P. Crawford was grazed by a pitch. Dom Canzone scored Arozarena with a sac fly to deep center. But King ended the inning by striking out Cole Young looking.
The Mariners had a chance to add another run in the third inning. With two outs and Julio Rodriguez on first, Josh Naylor singled to right to put runners on the corners. But King came back to strike out Arozarena on three pitches to end the threat.
The Padres' defense helped eliminate possible runs over the next three innings. With Rodriguez on first with two outs in the fifth inning, Naylor's line drive down the first-base line was gloved by old friend Ty France with a tremendous diving stop.
"That was a great play," Naylor said.
In the sixth, Arozarena led off with a single and Raley followed with a hard-hit ball to left-center that had 108-mph exit velocity. But left fielder Ramon Laureano made a difficult grab near the wall.
"We had some bad luck on a couple of hard-hit balls," Wilson said.
Seattle wasted another quality start from Bryan Woo, who pitched seven innings while allowing three runs on eight hits with a walk and three strikeouts.
"I thought he threw the ball extremely well," Wilson said. "To give us seven innings, allowing three runs, he kept us in the ballgame."
It was Woo's third quality start in four outings this season and the Mariners 11th in 18 games.
"I'm glad I was able to go deeper in the game and take stress off the bullpen," Woo said. "But obviously, you wish you made some adjustments earlier in the start, rather than waiting for them to score, waiting for them to punch me and then to punch back."
All three runs allowed came in the third inning.
Laureano hit a ball over Raley's head in right field that bounced off the wall just enough to be turned into a triple. Fernando Tatis Jr. followed with a single up the middle past the drawn-in infield for the Padres first run. Jackson Merrill followed with a single to right that put runners on first and third.
When Woo got Manny Machado to pop up in the infield for the second out of the inning, it looked like he might escape, allowing just the one run.
But Merrill stole second and Xander Bogaerts dumped a soft single into center that scored both runners for a 3-1 lead.
"I got to 0-2 pretty quickly," Woo said. "And then, I threw two pretty bad sliders, and then the last one just kind of (spun) and really wasn't sharp and he was able to get a bat to it. By the time that we got to 3-2, I think he had seen three or four sliders in a row. So I just have to execute better.
San Diego picked up a big insurance run in the eighth off right-hander Casey Legumina.
The trio of lefty Adrian Morejon, right-hander Jason Adam and Miller didn't allow a hit. The Mariners got a base runner against Adam when Rodriguez worked a one-out walk, but France, who won the Gold Glove at first base last season with the Minnesota Twins/Toronto Blue Jays, turned Naylor's hard ground ball into a 3-6-3 double play to end the inning.
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This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 11:32 PM.