KANSAS CITY -- Royals super-utility man Whit Merrifield's 31-game hitting streak came to an end with Thursday afternoon's 7-6 loss to the Mariners.

Merrifield went 0-for-6 against Seattle at Kauffman Stadium, one day after setting the club record by surpassing George Brett’s 30-game hitting streak from 1980. Before the game, Royals manager Ned Yost talked about how Merrifield's nonchalance when it came to discussing the streak had him rethinking his superstition about the old-school baseball tradition of not talking about active streaks.

Merrifield hit the ball hard twice, lining out to right field in the first and lining to center in the sixth. In the eighth, he flied out to center in what seemed to be his final at-bat. But the game went to extras, and Merrifield struck out to end the 10th, the contest and the record-setting streak.

Merrifield would have been happy to not get that extra at-bat, though.

“Oh, I was happy to have five at-bats … usually means our offense is rolling pretty good,” Merrifield said. “I was happy with my at-bats today. Baseball’s hard. If it’s going to end, that’s how you want it to end -- feeling good, feeling like you made some good swings and it just didn’t happen. Don’t want to get [hurt] by a call or get walked a lot or something like that. So I was content with where I was and felt good about my day, and I was eager to walk away in the ninth with a win.”