PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) _ The Seattle Mariners are supposed to be the team to beat in the AL West, but they're not playing like the favorites.

The Mariners lost for the seventh time in eight games when the Arizona Diamondbacks beat them 18-6 on Sunday. The day the Kingdome was blown up, Seattle's pitching staff was blown up, too.

With only four games left before they leave Arizona, the Mariners watched their staff ERA climb from 6.60 to 7.11, worst in the American League. To make matters worse, they did it in a game that was televised back to Seattle.

``Our pitching's been hit pretty well this spring,'' manager Lou Piniella said. ``I didn't expect it coming in here.''

With starters Brett Tomko (left Achilles tendon) and Gil Meche (tightness in his right shoulder), Piniella gave Paul Abbott his first spring start. In three innings, Abbott allowed four runs on eight hits and a walk.

Kevin Hodges, who was a strong candidate be in Seattle's bullpen, gave up nine runs on eight hits and three walks in 2 1-3 innings.

``I'm not going to be concerned about anything,'' Piniella said. ``We'd like to see them do better, but at the same time it's still spring training. If we go on how we pitched the second half of last year, you would think that the pitching staff is going to be much better than what we've seen here and I fully expect that.''

The Mariners got some more bad news, too, when veteran DH Edgar Martinez suffered a badly bruised left elbow when he was hit by a pitch from Todd Stottlemyre while leading off their second inning. Martinez, 37, was taken out of the game because of swelling and taken for X-rays, which proved negative.

``Edgar got hit pretty good,'' Piniella said. ``I think he's going to be out for a couple of days. It swelled up pretty good.''

``It's hard to say,'' Martinez said. ``We'll have to wait until the swelling goes down.''

The Diamondbacks pounded six pitchers for 24 hits, including triples by Hanley Frias and Steve Finley. Left-hander Arthur Rhodes pitched a scoreless eighth inning for the Mariners.

``By the time he came in, the cows were out of the barn,'' Piniella said. ``I think they were tired of hitting by then.''

In his fifth spring start, Stottlemyre allowed three runs on three hits and three walks in 5 1-3 innings. He struck out two.

Travis Lee was 3-for-5 with four RBIs, while Luis Gonzalez and Tony Womack each went 4-for-5, with Gonzalez driving in three runs for Arizona. Kelly Stinnett and Frias had three RBIs apiece for the Diamondbacks.

For the Mariners, John Mabry and minor leaguer Chad Akers had home runs.

Notes: Seattle general manager Pat Gillick watched the game intently from the press box after meeting in the morning with Piniella. Piniella said the pair talked about the Mariners' pitching. He spent part of the game on the telephone. ... The Mariners and Diamondbacks played before 12,112 fans, the largest crowd to watch a Mariners' game at Peoria Stadium. ... The Mariners made two roster moves on Sunday. They reassigned catcher Robert Machado to their minor league camp and added catcher John Wathan to their major league camp. Machado is scheduled to be the No. 1 catcher for the Mariners at Triple-A Tacoma and they wanted him to begin catching their Triple-A pitchers, including top prospect Ryan Anderson.