M’s Pineiro falters again

SEATTLE – On a team that needs its pitching to prop up an anemic offense, Joel Pineiro has been an every-fifth-day mystery to the Seattle Mariners.

The Mariners’ No. 2 starter isn’t just giving up runs, he’s allowing them in clusters of twos and fours, and his losses are bunching up that way, too.

It happened again Wednesday when the Minnesota Twins pushed Pineiro around for five runs in four innings, including a four-run fourth that made all the difference in a 5-1 victory over the Mariners at Safeco Field.

There’s a pattern here.

In Pineiro’s six starts this season, opposing teams have popped him with a four-run inning – or worse – in four of those games. Pineiro has become the king of crooked numbers, having allowed two runs in 10 of the 13 innings in which he has been scored upon.

On Wednesday, it was the fourth when the Twins, already with a 1-0 lead on Lew Ford’s RBI double in the second, scored four times. Only two of the runs were earned, but Pineiro problems included a wild pitch and a throwing error that resulted in the other two.

It left him with a 1-4 record, a 7.60 earned run average and in no mood to dissect his problems with reporters.

“You guys know what to write,” Piniero said. “It’s been the same thing all year. Just write down whatever you’ve got on file and add to that. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

That 20-second interview was Pineiro’s quickest work of a difficult night that shed little light in the Mariners’ minds on what the problem is.

He allowed nine hits and five runs in six innings, and hurt himself with a wild pitch and a throwing error in the Twins’ four-run rally in the fourth.

“It’s hard to say it’s one thing right now,” pitching coach Bryan Price said. “They’re putting the ball in play and hitting it where we’re not.”

In the fourth, Jose Offerman led off with a single and Jones hit a high drive over the left-field fence for his fifth home run of the season.

Ford hit a dribbler up the first-base line that Pineiro fielded but threw away for a two-base error. Luis Rivas lined a one-out double down the left-field line to score Ford, then advanced to third when Pineiro threw a wild pitch. Christian Guzman hit a sacrifice fly to left that scored Rivas before Pineiro got out of the inning.

“When he does make a mistake, he’s not getting away with it right now,” Mariners manager Bob Melvin said. “It’s been a struggle for him, but we’re going to stick with him and he’s going to get through it. He’s too good to keep going like this.”

The Mariners offense struggled Wednesday against a pitcher, Carlos Silva, whose undefeated record was the only truly impressive number among his 2004 statistics.

Silva entered the game with a 4-0 record, but a 4.02 ERA and no game in which he’d allowed less than six hits.

The Mariners got five off him, none of them with square, ringing contact. Jolbert Cabrera had the only extra-base hit when his hustle turned a fifth-inning roller to center field into a double.

The Mariners, who had averaged 5.8 runs in Pineiro’s five previous starts, scored only in the eighth inning. Pinch hitter Dave Hansen walked with one out and scored after Ichiro Suzuki and Scott Spiezio hit two-out singles.

Silva struck out Bret Boone with a high fastball to end the eighth and complete the longest outing of his career, which spans just seven games the last two seasons.

The Mariners are waiting for such an outing from Pineiro, who went 16-11 last year and finished eighth in the American League in victories. His only victory this season was against the Texas Rangers on April 18.

“There’s going to be great successes, and the lows are a very lonely, desperate feeling. That’s a tough place to get away from,” Price said. “I don’t have any loss of confidence in Joel. He’s got great stuff. He’s one of the most complete four-pitch pitchers in the American League. I anticipate him turning it around and soon, and we just have to find the magic button to hit to get him back to getting quicker outs and get him deeper into ballgames and avoiding the big inning.”