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SEATTLE — If the Mets are attempting to push aside OMG to become LOL, the past two nights have served as a good start.
To be clear, the Mariners have good pitching and are a team that might win the AL West and create a ruckus in October.
But that excuse only gets the Mets so far when dissecting the first two games of this series.
On Saturday, they managed only four hits, barely showing life in getting shut out for a second straight night in a 4-0 loss at T-Mobile Park.
The best for which the Mets (61-56) can hope at that point is to win Sunday, call it a .500 road trip and head home with thoughts of another surge to increase their NL wild-card chances.
The Mets are again chasing, behind Atlanta by a half-game for the third spot.
Logan Gilbert dominated the Mets by allowing only three hits and one walk over seven innings.
All three of those hits were singles and two were produced by Francisco Lindor.
The Mets got a fourth hit, a two-out single from Harrison Bader in the eighth.
But the Mets did not put a runner in scoring position all night.
Pete Alonso, who ended the game with a meek grounder to shortstop, had a second straight 0-for-4 performance after blasting two homers in Thursday’s series finale in Colorado.
On Friday, the Mets got throttled by Bryce Miller, who surrendered only three hits with a walk over six innings.
It won’t get any easier for the Mets on Sunday, when Luis Castillo’s high-octane arm is scheduled to face this slumping crew.
The Mets will hinge their hopes of avoiding a three-game sweep on Luis Severino.
The interleague portion of this four-city trip hasn’t been kind to the Mets, who have four losses in five games to the Angels and Mariners.
In between they won a makeup game in St. Louis and won two of three in Colorado.
After two straight superb starts that had run his scoreless streak to 15 ²/₃ innings, Sean Manaea turned in a clunker.
The left-hander lasted only three innings — in which he threw 85 pitches — and surrendered three earned runs on four hits with five walks and three strikeouts.
Manaea got knocked around in the first inning, when the Mariners sent seven batters to the plate and jumped to a 3-0 lead.
Victor Robles doubled leading off and after a delayed steal of third scored on Randy Arozarena’s double.
Justin Turner’s shot off the right-field fence became the third Mariner double of the inning, with another run scoring.
Mitch Haniger’s RBI single brought in the third run.
The rest of Manaea’s night was ugly, but the Mariners didn’t add further runs against him.
Manaea walked two batters in the second but escaped.
He walked the bases loaded in the third and maybe only averted trouble in the inning because of Bader’s running catch on Jorge Polanco’s drive to left-center with a runner on first.
Lindor’s single leading off the game stood as the only Mets hit until the sixth.
Lindor never got beyond first, as Polanco’s diving grab near second base on J.D. Martinez’s grounder and flip across his body started a highlight reel inning-ending double play.
In the sixth, Lindor smacked a two-out single and was left stranded when Gilbert retired Brandon Nimmo.
Reed Garrett, in his return from the IL, struck out the side in the sixth.
Phil Maton pitched the seventh and surrendered an RBI single to Turner that placed the Mets in a 4-0 hole.
