Mariners' 3-2 defeat is doubly painful

Already sweating out a hip injury to Erik Bedard, the last thing the Mariners need is for their other major pitching acquisition to get hurt.

But sure enough, there was Carlos Silva, in the midst of another fine outing on Wednesday, being examined on the mound by trainer Rick Griffin in the top of the seventh.

And, ominously enough, Silva was lifted from the game. The diagnosis was tightness in Silva's right thigh, but his prognosis was brighter than the team's mood after a tough, 3-2 Seattle loss to the Orioles at Safeco Field.

"It doesn't seem to be anything serious at all," Mariners manager John McLaren said after the game.

Silva, in fact, stated flat-out: "I will make my next start. It's not bad. It's hard to come out of the game, but sometimes you have to be smart. It's only my fifth start. There's a long way to go."

Baltimore's winning run came on an eighth-inning home run by Nick Markakis off lefty Ryan Rowland-Smith, breaking a 2-2 tie.

Rowland-Smith, last seen whiffing Garret Anderson to end a tense duel with the Angels, was brought in with one out to face the left-handed Markakis. But Markakis jumped on his first pitch and sent it over the wall in right.

"I tried to get ahead. It was a stupid choice," Rowland-Smith said. "He was sitting dead red. He was going to swing no matter what I threw. I learned my lesson. It won't happen again."

McLaren said of the fateful pitch: "He was trying to get the ball low and away, and it split the plate. He [Markakis] got a pitch to hit out and he did."

The Mariners managed only six hits as Orioles starter Daniel Cabrera turned in a brilliant outing over eight innings. The often-erratic Cabrera didn't walk a batter for the first time in his last 30 outings, while allowing five hits.

"We always say if he ever figured it out and put it together like tonight, he's tough to beat," the Mariners' Richie Sexson said of Cabrera. "He didn't have to throw too many off-speed pitches with the movement he had on his fastball."

It was a familiar outcome for the Mariners, who have absorbed five of their 11 losses this season against Baltimore and are hitting .196 against Orioles pitching.

Ex-Mariner George Sherrill nailed down the save, his seventh, despite giving up a leadoff single to Raul Ibanez in the ninth.

Silva, pitching on his 29th birthday, brought a 3-0 record and 2.79 earned-run average into the game. He had worked at least seven innings in each of his four starts.

Silva seemed headed toward another workhorse outing when he took the mound in the seventh inning of a 2-2 tie.

He walked the leadoff batter, Aubrey Huff, and Griffin came out after Silva threw a called strike to Adam Jones. The next thing anyone knew, Silva was walking toward the dugout and Sean Green was entering from the bullpen.

Silva said after the game he suffered the injury when his spikes got caught in the dirt while making a pickoff attempt on Brian Roberts, who led off the Orioles' sixth with a single.

Silva wound up giving up his only two runs in that inning. The Mariners let him start the seventh but lifted him after Silva walked the leadoff hitter.

"He felt something in his leg driving off, so we took him out," McLaren said. "We'll see how he is tomorrow, but I'm hearing good things from the training room."

Markakis came into the game with a .538 career average against Silva — including a three-homer game in 2006 when Silva was with Minnesota — and struck out looking his first two at-bats.

Rowland-Smith said that when he faced Markakis in Baltimore earlier this year, "he swung hard at my first pitch like he was trying to hit it to the moon. I should have learned from that."

That time, Markakis popped out, but this time he assured that the Mariners would lose a game in the standings to Oakland and the Angels. But at least, it appears, they didn't lose Silva.

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com