SEATTLE — Like the season as a whole, another game went bad in a hurry for the Seattle Mariners on Friday night at Safeco Field.
Before the Mariners could record three outs, the Detroit Tigers scored seven runs. Before starting pitcher Carlos Silva could find his rhythm, he was looking for a seat in the dugout after the shortest outing of his career.
Before the Mariners could feel any satisfaction about outscoring the Tigers 4-0 in the final eight innings — or that they’ve shut out opponents in 20 of the past 21 innings — the stark reality was the final number.
The Tigers won 7-4, handing the Mariners their 20th loss this month.
It was the eighth time in franchise history that the Mariners have lost as many as 20 games in a month, the last coming in June of 1998.
This one was decided in the first 20 minutes when the Tigers hit nearly everything Silva threw at them.
“If I make my pitches, I’m going to be able to get outs,” said Silva, now 3-5 with a 6.00 earned run average. “I didn’t make my pitches. Nothing was moving today, nothing. I didn’t have anything on the ball.”
Manager John McLaren said he couldn’t explain Silva’s struggle, but hinted that the Tigers might have figured out what was coming.
“It looked like he had a good sinker to start off, then the ball straightened out a little bit,” McLaren said. “We’re going to study some film. There could be a good chance they got to his pitches. He’s thrown a couple of outings against these people and he’s really had a rough go.”
Ten days earlier, the Tigers scored seven runs on nine hits off Silva, who lasted four innings in that game in Detroit.
“It’s hard to explain because it hasn’t been one pitcher, it’s been all of ours,” McLaren said. “We’re trying to figure this out.”
In four games against the Mariners this season, the Tigers have scored 37 runs.
They had seven in a hurry on Friday, continuing a troubling trend by the Mariners.
Opponents have scored multiple runs in 31 innings over the past 20 games, including at least one multi-run inning in each of the past 19 games.
Silva gave up three straight hits and a run before he recorded an out, then allowed two more hits and two more runs before he got the second out. Two more hits, including Brandon Inge’s high-fly two-run triple over Ichiro Suzuki’s head in center field, made the score 7-0 and sent McLaren out of the dugout to pull his starter.
In seven major league seasons, Silva’s shortest outing had been a one-inning start on Sept. 11, 2005, while pitching for the Twins at Cleveland.
It also was the shortest outing by a Mariners starter this season and the shortest since Sept. 15 last year when Horacio Ramirez didn’t get an out against the Devil Rays before he was pulled.
Adding to the frustration Friday was that the Mariners out-played the Tigers the rest of the game.
Knuckleball specialist R.A. Dickey followed Silva and pitched 51/3 scoreless innings, allowing five hits; Mark Lowe gave up a hit in two innings; and Sean Green stopped the Tigers in the ninth.
“Dickey was very impressive,” McLaren said. “He’s already told us he can pitch (today). It’s invaluable to have a guy like that on your staff who, No. 1, accepts his role and No. 2, is always there for you as a staff saver.”
Adrian Beltre hit solo home runs in the second and fifth innings, extending his team-high total to 12 homers,
The Mariners scored twice in the sixth on RBI ground outs by Jose Lopez and Jose Vidro to make the score 7-4, but they managed only one hit in the final three innings — Miguel Cairo’s two-out double in the seventh.
“Beltre had a huge night and we had some good defense,” McLaren said. “But it goes back to the first inning. We were behind the eight-ball.”
Same could be said for the season.
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