PHOENIX — The guy who made sure the vibes were always good in the Mariners' clubhouse during his time with the club sent his former team back to Seattle with a very opposite feeling.

The Mariners' vibes right now? They’re very bad.

“Baseball just kicks your ass sometimes. It’s just kind of how it is. Nobody feels sorry for us. Nobody is going to hand us any wins. We got to create our own luck,” M’s pitcher Bryan Woo said. “Got to be present for the next game we get. As much as the last two weeks or so has really sucked, still got a lot of baseball to play. It’s still June.”

It was old friend Eugenio Suárez who provided that crushing blow to his former team, hitting a grand slam in the sixth inning as the Arizona Diamondbacks rallied for a 5-2 win over the Mariners on Wednesday afternoon before 25,696 at Chase Field.

Seattle lost for the eighth time in nine games. They were swept by the D-backs, their second time being swept in the past week and third time in the past month.

At 33-34, the M’s are below .500 for the first time since they were 8-9 after losing on April 15.

“It’s a tough stretch. Nobody in this clubhouse likes to lose, but I feel like we all know that the game of baseball is going to go up and down and everybody through the season is going to go through stretches like this,” Julio Rodríguez said. “I feel like everybody is staying, you know, pretty even keel throughout and kind of putting one foot in front of the other. I know we have lost (a) good amount of games, but we can’t do anything about that anymore. Just kind of keep moving forward and see what the next one brings, and just bring the best effort and see what happens.”

Suárez’s slam was his 19th homer of the season and his third grand slam. He’s in the final year of his contract and the idea of a reunion via trade with the Mariners is an intriguing thought.

But the D-backs would need to fall out of the race in the National League and decide to become sellers. More importantly, the Mariners would have to prove they’re worthy of investment as a postseason contender.

Right now, they are decidedly not. They’ve been an underperforming baseball team for the better part of a month and in the process, gave back every bit of the best start the M’s have had in more than 20 years.

“These guys, the attitude has been there, the energy has been there. Everything’s been there except the results and we’ve got to change the results. And we will get there,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said.

Woo got the start for the M’s and was dominant for five innings before it all fell apart. He needed just 55 pitches to get through five innings and allowed only three base runners.

The situation changed quickly in the sixth.

Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte both singled to open the inning. Rodríguez made an important catch running in to grab Geraldo Perdomo’s short fly ball, but Woo missed on a borderline 3-2 slider to Josh Naylor — not getting the call from home plate umpire Scott Barry — to load the bases.

They didn’t stay loaded for long.

Woo missed on a slider and left it in the middle of the plate and Suárez did his part, sending it 410 feet into the left-field seats. Two batters later, Pavin Smith cleared the wall in right by a few feet for a solo shot and five overpowering innings from Woo were replaced by allowing a five-spot in the sixth.

Woo (5-4) has allowed two homers in each of his last three starts after giving up just five total in his first 10 this season.

“I thought he threw the ball really well. It’s a shame it comes down to one pitch today. You know, he deserved a better fate, clearly. A tough one,” Wilson said. “And we had our opportunities offensively to kind of give him a little more cushion and we just weren’t able to do it.”

While Suárez’s slam off Woo was the big blow, the M’s bats again were just as culpable, unable to generate much of anything against Arizona starter Eduardo Rodriguez and his intimidating 6.70 ERA entering the day.

Jorge Polanco parachuted a soft fly ball into right field for a single to score Rodríguez with two outs in the first inning and Donovan Solano hit his first homer of the season leading off the fifth. Solano’s last homer came on the penultimate game of the 2024 season

But that was all the M’s would get. Rodríguez and Mitch Garver both hit leadoff doubles in the sixth and seventh innings and neither advanced as the M’s continued to fail at some of the things required to generate runs without always slugging homers.

Rodríguez doubled again in the eighth, this time with one out, but Cal Raleigh popped out and Randy Arozarena grounded out.

While getting swept, the M’s went a combined 5 for 41 with runners in scoring position.

“It’s been, I think, a stretch where it seems like baseball has kind of bitten us a little bit and we just haven’t been able to get those situations and take advantage of them, whereas we were able to do that earlier in the year,” Wilson said. “That’s what makes this game so great in a lot of ways is that we can bounce back from it. We will.”

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