The Padres have come back quite a bit this season.

Early, late. Down eight, down five, down four. They have battled from behind to win all sorts of ways.

They have done so enough that it seems they are almost never out of a game.

Tuesday was different. It never felt like they were in the game, trailing from the start and not being anything resembling competitive until it was far too late.

They were dominated by Mariners right-hander Logan Gilbert in a way they haven’t been all season and lost 8-3 in front of a sellout crowd that was largely disinterested by the middle of the fifth inning.

The crowd stirred to life for a few seconds when Jake Cronenworth sent a pitch into the seats beyond right field with one out in the seventh inning and then grew animated again briefly when Kyle Higashioka hit a two-run homer in the eighth.

That late surge only served to blur how overpowering Gilbert was for most of the evening.

David Peralta’s two-out single in the eighth prompted the first stirring all night in the Mariners’ bullpen, as left-hander Tayler Saucedo began to warm up and entered the game when Higashioka homered.

Gilbert (6-5, 2.94) took 87 pitches to get through 7 ⅔ innings, allowing four hits, walking one and striking out seven.

“He didn’t throw many pitches over the heart of the plate,” Cronenworth said. “… He was really on.”

Donovan Solano’s infield single gave the Padres their only baserunner in the first five innings. A double-play grounder after that meant Gilbert had faced the minimum number of batters. He had also thrown just 45 pitches to that point.

All night, no Padres batter saw more than five pitches from Gilbert.

They actually made him throw 16 pitches in the sixth inning, as the first three batters all saw five pitches, with Higashioka drawing a walk with two outs before Luis Arraez ended the inning with a fly ball to shallow right field on the first pitch he saw.

The Padres actually would have preferred to be more aggressive. They tried to wait out Gilbert. But he was throwing strikes early and often (almost a 75 percent rate).

“He had a comfortable game,” Jurickson Profar said. “He had a lead. It’s different. We have to go out there and see pitches. That type of pitcher, who is really good, you  need to be aggressive.”

The Padres have still won 12 of their past 18 games and hold the final wild-card playoff spot in the National League. But they have lost three straight games, totalling eight hits in the past two.

The Mariners came to San Diego leading the American League West but having lost 12 of their past 17 games. They also ranked 28th in the major leagues in OPS and runs scored.

They scored a run in the first inning and another in the second, two in the third and one in the fourth.

The last of those was on a home run by Julio Rodriguez to the second deck of seats beyond left field. It was Rodriguez’s second home run in 19 games.

He also drove in a run with a first-inning single, which meant he had twice as many RBIs Tuesday as he had in his previous 18 games.

The 5-0 lead was built against rookie Adam Mazur, who was for Stephen Kolek with two on and two down in the fifth.

Mazur (1-3, 7.84) allowed seven hits, walked two and hit two batters.

Kolek worked through the sixth inning without issue before Yuki Matsui surrendered a two-run homer to Cal Raleigh in the seventh. Raleigh, who entered the game with a .676 OPS, also hit a two-run homer off Mazur in the third inning.

Wandy Peralta departed in the ninth inning with what manager Mike Shildt said was a “mild adductor strain” after allowing a two-out double to Raleigh, who entered the game batting .203 on the season. Enyel De Los Santos replaced Peralta and yielded an RBI double to Victor Robles.

Other than Cronenworth’s 13th home run of the season and Higashioka’s 11th, Gilbert had no such issues in winning for the fourth time in five career starts against the Padres. He has a 1.69 ERA in those games and has allowed 18 hits in 32 innings.

The 27-year-old right-hander, the Mariners’ lone All-Star, has been dominant against other teams much of the season.

He came into Tuesday’s game having thrown eight shutout innings in three games this season.  His 15 quality starts are tied with the Royals’ Seth Lugo for most in the major leagues.

“He’s an All-Star for a reason,” Shildt said. “He’s got a really, really nice arm. Good life on his ball tonight, was throwing it where he wanted to, secondary was working. The guy was really, really good. … We got to him late, but it was too late.”