Roenis Elias vs. Clayton Kershaw goes as you’d expect for Mariners: a 12-1 loss to Dodgers

Roenias Elias against Clayton Kershaw went about how you, the Mariners and the Dodgers all thought it would.

It immediately went that way, too.

The Mariners activated Elias off the disabled list hours before Sunday’s series finale against defending National League-champion Los Angeles before 45,419 fans at Safeco Field.

They didn’t activate him enough.

Ten Dodgers batted in the top of the first inning against the fill-in starter for Marco Gonzalez. Five of them scored. Five singles, including a broken-bat one by Yasiel Puig that scored two runs, plus two walks made it 5-0 Dodgers. And that was before Kershaw even got atop the mound.

From there, the only question was what the Dodgers’ margin of victory would ending up being.

Or did you expect the Mariners to put up six runs against the three-time Cy Young Award winner?

They lost 12-1.

It was their most lopsided defeat this season. Their worst in 14 months, since a 20-7 smackdown by the Twins in Minnesota June 13, 2017.

“Not a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon,” Mariners manager Scott Servais deadpanned.

“Obviously with a spot start with Elias today, knowing we are going have to go to our bullpen, you just wanted to stay in the game competitively.

“Elias usually goes out there and competes, just let’s it fly, takes his chances. You didn’t really see that today in the first inning. Mound presence, kind of what you look for to get the game off to a good start, he didn’t have it today.”

It got so bad for the Mariners they had utility position player Andrew Romine pitching the top of the ninth. That also went as expected. Justin Turner hit a first-pitch, 3-run home run.

“You get behind early like that to a really good club over there,” Servais said, “it can get ugly.”

It was absolutely that for the Mariners. Again.

The Dodgers out-scored Seattle 23-2 in L.A.’s two wins of the three-game series. It took a game-ending balk in the bottom of the 10th Saturday night for the Mariners to get its lone home win this lost weekend.

Next up, Monday through Wednesday: The first-place, defending World Series-champion Houston Astros.

The one shining light for the Mariners on this smoky, dimmed Seattle day: they didn’t lose ground in the American League wild-card race. Houston and Oakland began the day tied for the AL West lead, then the Astros finally cooled off the rampaging A’s with a 9-4 win. So the Mariners remained 3 1/2 games back in the wild-card standings, now of Oakland.

Seattle dropped to 4 1/2 behind Houston for the division lead, with 37 games remaining in the regular season.

The Mariners are 16-23 since a season-high eight-game winning streak through July 3 had them 24 games over .500, and enjoying an eight-game lead over the A’s for the second wild-card playoff spot.

Where has the summer gone?

With ace James Paxton on the 10-day disabled list after taking a 96-mph drive off his left, pitching forearm in Oakland last week, the Mariners decided to skip Gonzalez’s scheduled turn Sunday and bump him to start Wednesday’s series finale against Houston.

Deposed ace Felix Hernandez (8-11, 5.62 ERA) is leaving the bullpen to return to the rotation Monday. He will start for Paxton against the Astros.

“We need a good, competitive outing there,” Servais said, understating.

Gonzalez is at a career-high 142 2/3 innings and had Tommy John ligament-replacement surgery in his pitching elbow two years ago. In his past five starts, Gonzales is 2-3 with a 5.83 ERA. In the 11 starts before that he was 7-2 with a 2.35 ERA.

But even a 5.83-ERA pace would have been better than the first inning Elias gave Seattle on Sunday.

He said, through an interpreter, that he made the pitch he wanted to Puig that the slugger flailed his bat onto for the two-run single in the first.

But, he added, “I know I missed with a lot of pitches.

“I felt good. My arm felt good. I just had a bad outing.”

Elias (2-1) was making his second start for Seattle this season. He was on the DL for a triceps strain he got three weeks ago in a pregame workout. In four-game rehabilitation stint with Triple-A Tacoma he lasted no more than one inning in any outing.

One inning from him was too long for the Mariners on Sunday.

“First inning, we were lucky to get through that one,” Servais said.

Meanwhile Kershaw (6-5) cruised for his 150th career win, on his third try. The 2014 NL Most Valuable Player is the first to win his 150th game in a Dodgers uniform since Kevin Brown July 25, 1999. He struck out Nelson Cruz twice and recently hot Mitch Haniger among his seven strikeout victims.

He allowed just four hits and walked one in seven innings, lowering ERA this season to 2.40.

How dominant was Kershaw? He threw 88 pitches, a crazy 71 for strikes.

NO REST FOR ZUNINO

Mike Zunino was trying to take a day game off following Saturday night’s extra-inning balk-off win by the Mariners. But Zunino’s rest last just two innings. Fill-in catcher Chris Hermann took a couple foul balls off his body early in Sunday’s game, then left with a bruised right knee.

Zunino pinch-hit for Hermman in the the bottom of the third and finished the game.

I.T. WAS HERE

Tacoma’s Isaiah Thomas, now playing for the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, was at the game sitting in the lower seats. The Mariners showed him on the big scoreboard between innings.

The cheers the former Washington Huskies star guard got when he appeared and the public-address system played a recording of “Bow Down to Washington were among the loudest in the park all day from those many thousands who weren’t Dodgers fans.

This story was originally published August 19, 2018 at 4:23 PM.