BOSTON _ "This is embarrassing."
Nelson Cruz said it. Scott Servais hinted at it. And the rest of the Mariners players and staff in the cramped visitor's clubhouse had to be thinking it as they sat in silence following a 5-0 loss to the Red Sox on Saturday.
For the second straight day, the Mariners were held scoreless at the hitter's dream that is Fenway Park. It's something that had not happened in club history _ not in the ugly early years of the franchise nor the recent rebuilding past. But a team that features Cruz, Robinson Cano, Kyle Seager and Jean Segura, the American League batting leader, became the first to be shut out on consecutive days in Boston.
Seattle (21-29) has lost nine of its past 12 games, including seven of the past eight.
It left the normally upbeat Cruz critical of himself and the rest of the team.
"We just have to change the attitude," Cruz said. "Go out there with a chip (on our shoulder) and be proud of what we do. This is embarrassing. I don't think we should be in this situation. I understand we have injuries and all of that. But there's a point where we have to turn everything around."
Is embarrassing the best word to describe how the team is feeling?
"We haven't scored a run in how many days?" Cruz said. "So, yes. It looks even worse because we haven't been winning and now we cannot hit. We have to do better as a team."
Asked if he could've imagined being shut out on back-to-back days, Cruz grimaced and replied with a one-word answer: "No."
It's not as if the Mariners were facing Chris Sale or David Price or even Rick Porcello in these two games. Porcello will try for the third straight shutout on Sunday.
On Saturday, it was Brian Johnson, a middling left-hander with only two career big-league starts that yielded a 7.71 ERA in 91/3 innings pitched, who shut them down. The plan was for Johnson to make the start on Saturday and then likely head back to Class AAA Pawtucket with Price finally healthy enough to return to the rotation next week.
In his first ever start at Fenway, Johnson tossed a gem, allowing five hits with eight strikeouts and no walks in nine innings. Of his 109 pitches, 85 were strikes. The last pitcher to throw a shutout in his Fenway debut was Pedro Martinez on April 11, 1998. Johnson would never be considered similar to Martinez in terms of stuff or future success.
But facing a Mariners team that has managed nine runs in the past eight games, Johnson didn't need to be Martinez. Nope, he used his low-90s fastball to get ahead of batters, decent offspeed pitches to keep them off balance and the Red Sox's brilliant outfield defense to run down possible hits. Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts robbed the Mariners of multiple hits. Betts stole a possible homer from Cruz in right and Bradley Jr. made three outstanding catches in center on hard-hit balls _ two to secure Johnson's shutout in the ninth.
Cruz, Cano and Seager combined to go 0 for 12 with five strikeouts. They are 1 for 22 with two walks and six strikeouts in the series. The Mariners had just two runners in scoring position in the game.
"They have good players and we have good players," Servais said. "Their good players are playing lot better than our good players right now."
On a trip in which Servais questioned his team's intensity in Washington D.C., his emotion was palpable postgame.
"Not good," he said. "It wasn't a good ballgame. We're better than that. There's only way I know out of it _ you have to come out and fight and you have to compete. Their guy threw the ball over the plate, he threw strikes. I don't want to take anything away from what he did. But we are not swinging the bat very well. The only way to get out is you have to fight and get a little pissed off and show up tomorrow with a little chip on your shoulder."
Servais didn't question the intensity this time.
"Everybody was trying hard," he said. "I've never met a big-leaguer who didn't try hard. But it's easy to get caught up in not feeling good about where we are as a team and not playing that well and it just kind of snowballs. There's only way to stop it _ step up and make it happen."
The Mariners were starting their own rotation fill-in _ they've been doing that for a while now _ but he wasn't quite as successful.
Right-hander Rob Whalen was the 12th Mariners pitcher to make a start for the team this season _ the most used by any team in 50 games since 2000.
His outing was eventful.
Whalen almost didn't get out of the first inning. A 33-pitch inning with three hits, three runs, two walks and two hit batters was not ideal.
"I felt good warming up and just lost in that first inning," he said. "I didn't have a feel for it."
To his credit, Whalen was able to settle down and give the Mariners some quality innings before allowing a two-run homer to Bradley Jr. in the seventh inning.
