Hernandez shaken up in ruinous 3rd inning

NEW YORK — Felix Hernandez was starting to look a lot more like the 2007 version as a long third inning unfolded.

So much so that pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre left the dugout and went to the mound to calm him down. Stottlemyre didn't like what he saw from Hernandez after he'd caught a rough break when a grounder over the third-base bag by Hideki Matsui was ruled to be a barely fair ball.

A run scored on the play and a subsequent throwing error by Raul Ibanez moved Matsui up to second base. Hernandez then compounded the damage, in what was still a 3-1 game at that point, by walking Jason Giambi.

That got Stottlemyre out of the dugout.

"He looked a little unsettled," Stottlemyre said.

After the visit, Hernandez yielded a run-scoring single to Melky Cabrera. The way Seattle has struggled to score runs, those final two markers looked to have settled the Saturday afternoon game right there. Hernandez had a couple of widely-publicized episodes on the mound last summer against Baltimore and Toronto when he gave up runs and lost games after fretting over setbacks.

This latest defeat, coupled with one against Oakland last Sunday, mark Hernandez's first consecutive losses since those Toronto and Baltimore contests last year.

Hernandez appeared to change his attitude and mound demeanor after setbacks during a stellar April this season. The opening month saw him go 2-1 with a 2.22 earned-run average, overcoming his share of bad fielding plays and breaks along the way that left runners on base behind him.

"He told me, 'Don't get frustrated,' " Hernandez said of Stottlemyre's words to him on the mound about Matsui's single over the bag. "He said, 'You made a good pitch. Don't get frustrated about it.' "

But Hernandez insists he wasn't overly frustrated by his bad luck this time, even though he walked Giambi afterward. His biggest problem of the day, he said, was that he had nothing working for him pitch-wise, other than his changeup.

He figures he missed his spots about 75 percent of the time, including a fastball right down the middle that Johnny Damon smoked into the upper deck in right field for a two-run homer in the sixth.

"When you don't hit your spots with those guys," he said of some of the Yankees veterans, "they're going to hit you."

McLaren closes off

Mariners manager John McLaren says the reason he remained behind closed doors after Friday's loss — avoiding his postgame media briefing — was that he was afraid of what he might say.

McLaren was perturbed after watching his team commit four errors in the first three innings, handing the Yankees a pair of unearned runs. The manager made the point that a team struggling to score, like Seattle has, cannot afford to allow opponents four- and five-out innings.

It was just the sixth time this decade that the team has committed four miscues in a game.

Second baseman Jose Lopez, who dropped a throw from catcher Jamie Burke that would have nabbed a base-stealer, was out of Saturday's lineup. He was replaced by Miguel Cairo, making just his second start of the season.

McLaren said the move was strictly based on how the hitters matched up against Yankees starter Mike Mussina, even though the numbers do not point to an obvious advantage in using Cairo over Lopez. Cairo had been 7 for 28 (.250) lifetime off Mussina and hadn't faced him since 2003.

Lopez was 1 for 2 with a double.

Cairo went 0 for 4 in Saturday's game and still is looking for his first hit of the season after nine at-bats. He got upset with plate umpire Paul Schreiber on a strike-two call in the first inning, then jawed at him again moments later after striking out.

Notes

• Derek Jeter knocked Joe DiMaggio down a notch in the Yankees record book for a second straight day, swatting his 390th career double in the third inning to move into sole possession of fifth place on the team's all-time list. On Friday, Jeter passed DiMaggio for fourth on the team's list in runs scored.

• Seattle dropped its fourth straight game and is 1-7 in road games when the game-time temperature is below 61 degrees.

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com

For the record

Streak: L4

Home: 7-7

Road: 6-11

vs. AL West: 8-6

vs. L.A.: 3-3

vs. Oakland: 3-2

vs. Texas: 2-1

vs. AL East: 3-9

vs. AL Central: 2-3

vs. NL: 0-0

vs. LHP: 2-6

vs. RHP: 11-12

Day: 3-6

Night: 10-12

One-run: 1-8

Extra innings: 0-1