Luis Castillo overcame a sluggish start to pitch seven strong innings and earn his first victory in a month as the Seattle Mariners defeated the visiting Washington Nationals 8-4 on Monday.

J.P. Crawford and Eugenio Suarez homered for the Mariners, who snapped a two-game losing streak by taking the opener of a three-game series.

Lane Thomas and Dominic Smith went deep for the Nationals, who were thwarted in their bid for a third straight victory, which would have tied their season high. Thomas added a run-scoring double in the ninth inning.

Castillo (5-6), who lost his previous four starts and last won May 27, allowed runs in each of the first three innings before settling in. He gave up three runs (two earned) on seven hits, with one walk and seven strikeouts.

Seattle's Paul Sewald came on with the bases loaded and two outs in the ninth and struck out Jeimer Candelario for his 14th save.

After Thomas and Crawford hit leadoff home runs in their respective halves of the first inning, Smith belted a solo shot with two outs in the second.

The Nationals made it 3-1 with an unearned run in the third. CJ Abrams led off with an infield single and took second on a throwing error. An out later, Luis Garcia grounded a run-scoring single up the middle.

Suarez sparked the Mariners' comeback, leading off the fourth with a homer to left field off Nationals starter Trevor Williams. Jarred Kelenic followed with a single to right and took second on a disengagement violation. Crawford drew a two-out walk before Julio Rodriguez grounded an RBI single to center to make it 3-3.

Williams went four innings and allowed three runs on eight hits with one walk and four strikeouts.

Seattle pulled ahead with three runs in the fifth off reliever Cory Abbott (0-1).

Teoscar Hernandez led off with an infield single and took second on a throwing error. He advanced to third on a groundout and scored the go-ahead run on Suarez's sacrifice fly. Kelenic walked, stole second and scored on Mike Ford's single to center, and Kolten Wong doubled high off the wall in right center to score Ford and make it 6-3.

The Mariners tacked on a pair of runs in the eighth on an RBI single by Ty France and a sacrifice fly by Hernandez.

--Field Level Media