Paxton struggles in place of injured Felix

SAN DIEGO — In case you wondered, yeah, the Mariners are going to miss Felix Hernandez. With their ace on the 15-day disabled list for the first time in eight years, fill-in starter James Paxton and four relievers got rocked in a 14-6 loss to the Padres on Wednesday night at Petco Park.

It was a rough night for a pitching staff that saw its American League-leading ERA jump from 3.37 to 3.49, even though five of the runs were unearned. The 14 runs and 19 hits allowed were both season-highs by Seattle’s hurlers.

Paxton, called up from Triple-A Tacoma when the Mariners discovered Hernandez strained his right calf during Tuesday’s pregame work, allowed 10 hits and eight runs — three earned — in 3 2/3 innings.

“It starts with starting pitching,” said manager Scott Servais. “You’ve got to get into the game and get going. It wasn’t Paxton’s night. Obviously not the kind of outing he wanted to have, coming back and trying to impact our club. But we’ll see. We’ll see where it goes from here.”

The lanky lefty was cranking fastballs in the 96-99-mph range throughout his start, but the results didn’t match the velocity, as he didn’t throw many offspeed pitches early and couldn’t command his changeup and curve well enough to make a …

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