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Thanks to a big offensive explosion, the Seattle Mariners snapped their five-game losing streak Thursday afternoon against the Washington Nationals. That offensive explosion? It was four runs (SEA 4, WAS 2). That qualifies as an explosion for these Mariners.

Prior to Thursday's win, the Mariners had scored exactly one run in each of their previous five games. They were outscored 41-5 in those five games. 41-5!

Nelson Cruz put three runs on the board with one swing of the bat Thursday afternoon. Here is his three-run home run:

As a fan, when you're watching your favorite team struggling to score runs like the Mariners have this week, a three-run home run feels like a 300-run home run. It feels like such a huge weight off your shoulders. That the home run turned a 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 lead made it even sweeter.

This week the Mariners became the first team to score no more than one run in five consecutive games since the Kansas City Royals last year. The Royals did it in six straight games. The last team to score exactly one run in five straight games was the 2011 Minnesota Twins.

Despite this recent funk, run prevention has been a bigger problem for the Mariners this season than run creation. They've allowed an AL-high 243 runs this season -- only the San Diego Padres (257) and New York Mets (246) have allowed more this year -- and when you look at their list of pitching injuries, it's no surprise they're having trouble keeps runs off the board. Here is the rotation depth chart:

  1. Felix Hernandez -- out with shoulder bursitis
  2. James Paxton -- out with a forearm strain
  3. Hisashi Iwakuma -- out with shoulder inflammation
  4. Drew Smyly -- out with an elbow strain
  5. Yovani Gallardo
  6. Ariel Miranda
  7. Christian Bergman
  8. Chase De Jong
  9. Dillon Overton
  10. Sam Gaviglio
  11. Ryan Weber -- out with a biceps strain

Seattle's top four starters are all on the disabled list. No team in baseball can survive that. Imagine if, say, the Chicago Cubs lost Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta, John Lackey, and Kyle Hendricks. Take Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, and Tanner Roark away from the Nationals and what happens? Exactly. They wind up near the top of the runs allowed leaderboard like the Mariners.

The good news is the injured pitchers are starting to work their way back. Paxton is the closest. He's slated to make a minor-league rehab start this weekend. Hernandez, Iwakuma, and Smyly all played catch earlier this week. They're still a few weeks away, but at least they're making progress with their rehab. That's better than waiting for the doctors to give them a thumbs up to resume throwing.

For now the Mariners have to rely on their offense to pick up the slack for the pitching staff if they want to have any shot at ending baseball's longest postseason drought. It didn't happen earlier this week. Runs were very hard to come by. The Mariners hope Thursday's four-run outburst is a sign things are turning around.