SEATTLE — Jason Vargas continued his impressive second half with seven strong innings against the Boston Red Sox as the Seattle Mariners left-hander improved to 14-9 and helped the Mariners to a 4-1 win on Monday that sent Boston to its seventh straight loss.

Vargas got all the help he needed in a four-run fourth inning when John Jaso and Jason Smoak delivered RBI singles off Boston starter Clay Buchholz and the Red Sox contributed two errors to the inning.

Boston's seven-game losing streak is the longest for the organization since the last month of the 2001 season.

Club owner John Henry and general manager Ben Cherington, neither of whom generally is on the road with the club, were both on hand Monday. Cherington said, for him, it was a pre-planned trip that had nothing specific to do with the losing streak. He said that Henry was already on the West Coast on other business.

That being said, the Red Sox are not used to losing like this; they've been outscored 58-16 in the seven games, losing by an average of six runs per game.

“Its' hard to watch,” Cherington said. “But the only choice we have today is to show up the next day and play.”

Buchholz shut the Mariners out for six of the seven innings he pitched. But four of the six hits he allowed came in the fourth inning, as did two Boston errors that helped prolong the inning.

Boston got a first-inning run on Dustin Pedroia's 1,000th career hit, a double, and a Cody Ross single in the first inning.

Team assessment

Henry is in Seattle to take the pulse of a Red Sox team that is failing on nearly every level on the field.

He said that ownership remains “resolute” that manager Bobby Valentine will finish out the season. Henry had a good breakfast with Valentine, he said.

Asked what he and Henry talked about, Valentine said, “What do you think we talked about? Art? Liverpool? We talked about baseball, our team, what he's concerned with, what I deal with.”

Valentine also issued a sarcastic “sorry” in case anyone was disappointed he still had a job. “To any of you that are sorry I didn't get fired, I'm sorry that you're sorry,” he said.

Henry flew here, in part, to make sure the team does not give up in the final month of the season. He said he'd like to try to see for himself why the team continues to play so poorly, and why they seem to fall behind early in nearly every recent game. He said it is important for him to see things for himself, and ask his own questions of the people who play and work for his team.

Despite breakfast with Henry appearing to bring out a dose of feistiness from Valentine, the manager has seemed to grow increasingly weary over the past week. Asked how frequently he has spoken to Henry this season, Valentine said “more than any owner I've ever worked for.”

Ownership continues to dodge the question of whether he will be around to manage next season, the final one of his contract.

Asked how difficult this week has been for him, the embattled manager said, “What difference does it make?”

Henry is deeply concerned with how the team has turned of late and talked about pulling statistician/guru Bill James back into the equation in a bigger way.

“One of (the) biggest issues we've had is that Bill James was a great resource for us but fell out of favor over the last few years for reasons I really don't understand,” Henry told the Boston Herald in an email. “We've gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly.

“He's the father, so to speak, of baseball analysis and a brilliant iconoclast who looks at things differently from everyone else. But Ben is the right person to make the final decisions for the club.”