SEATTLE — The Seattle Mariners keep waiting for the night they play the perfectly executed game that has become necessary to overcome their struggle to score runs.
It wasn’t Thursday, when the Mariners managed four singles in an 8-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays at Safeco Field.
The Mariners, 11-17, have lost all six games on the homestand and haven’t scored more than three runs in any of the games. They’re averaging 1.5 runs the past six games, and this was the third time they’ve been shut out this season.
“It’s hard to watch the same game,” manager Don Wakamatsu said. “I know the fans are getting tired of it and we’re getting tired of it in here. But we’re going to continue to believe in what we can do and continue to work and try to stay as positive as we can.”
This loss featured bloops that fell between fielders, a successful squeeze bunt by the Rays and a rocky outing by Mariners starter Ryan Rowland-Smith.
Oh, and the Rays mashed the ball as well, with six doubles and Carl Crawford’s two-run homer in the eighth inning among their dozen hits. They turned three of the Mariner pitchers’ five walks into runs.
Execution? If looks could kill, maybe.
There were a few staredowns in this one, not necessarily accusatory looks among the Mariners but some bewildered expressions nonetheless.
That was especially the case after three popups that fell between fielders.
The first one scored a run in the Rays’ two-run second inning when Gabe Kapler hit a routine-looking fly to shallow center. Center fielder Franklin Gutierrez took one step back, then couldn’t recover in time as the ball fell between him, shortstop Josh Wilson and left fielder Ryan Langerhans. Carlos Pena scored.
In the fifth, Pena hit a popup down the line in shallow left field that seemed like a sure out. Third baseman Jose Lopez broke back quickly while Langerhans sprinted in. Lopez pulled up and the ball fell in foul territory.
In the eighth, Ben Zobrist hit a fly to shallow left-center that again became a Bermuda Triangle play with an awkward outcome. It fell for a hit and Langerhans wound atop Gutierrez, with Wilson close by.
“The one down the line I thought Lopez had a play on it,” Wakamatsu said. “But I think he thought Langerhans had it. With Guti, he’s playing in the right-center gap and that ball threads the needle.
“But that’s not really the ballgame. Right now, our woes are offensively and everybody knows that.”
Tampa Bay starter Jeff Niemann held the Mariners to singles by Ichiro Suzuki, Chone Figgins, Ken Griffey Jr. and Jose Lopez.
The only time the Mariners had him in trouble was the second inning after Lopez’s single and back-to-back walks to Langerhans and Wilson when Niemann threw eight straight balls to load the bases.
Niemann made it 11 straight balls when he went to a 3-0 count on Rob Johnson, who then took two strikes. Johnson took another pitch that seemed inside, but plate umpire Doug Eddings called it strike three as Johnson began to trot toward first base, only to stop and look back at the umpire with disbelief.
“We had an opportunity and I thought we got a bad call,” Wakamatsu said.
Rowland-Smith struggled from the beginning, pitching with baserunners in every inning but the third before he exited the game in the fifth. By then the Rays led 4-0 after a successful squeeze bunt by Ben Zobrist, their No. 3 hitter.
“He threw a lot of pitches on the corners and missed, and this last inning he got every one of those pitches up in the zone and got hurt on them,” Wakamatsu said.
Rowland-Smith, 0-2, allowed seven hits, three walks and a career-high six runs in 41/3 innings. It was his first loss to the Rays in four starts.
“It’s not mechanical, it’s all psychological,” he said. “You start to doubt yourself. I’m better than the pitcher you saw on the field. I have to deal with my insecurities, make adjustments and go from there.”
The Mariners’ offense is going through that, too, and Wakamatsu vows they’ll work to produce better at-bats from the beginning of the game to the end. The last 13 Mariners went down in order, six by strikeout.
“There’s got to be a little bit more fight in there,” Wakamatsu said. “The dilemma we’re going through offensively kind of stifles us in a lot of ways. Our ballclub is built around some speed and our ability to do the little things. But when you’re not getting on base, that stifles everything. That’s where we’re at right now.”
Read Kirby Arnold’s blog on the Mariners at www.heraldnet.com/marinersblog
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