Silva gets battered as Mariners, now tied for last place, drop fifth in a row

NEW YORK — Calling this "the most important game of the year" before his team stepped on the field Sunday afternoon might not have been John McLaren's wisest move.

If that's truly what the Mariners manager believed, then fans of his free-falling team must be asking themselves what the nine innings that followed were all about. Without a quality outing from a starting pitcher to keep them in the game, the Mariners were effectively out of an 8-2 loss to the New York Yankees before the contest was three innings old.

Afterward, having played his "yell-at-the-players" hand the previous day, a disappointed McLaren scrounged for some optimism amid the ruins of a six-game trip that dropped Seattle into a tie for last place in the American League West.

"The positive thing is that we're getting off the road trip and out of New York," said McLaren, whose team has dropped five straight. "We need some good home cooking."

The question now is whether the Mariners will be the main course. Things certainly promise to cook up in a hurry at Safeco Field if the Mariners play as badly as they did here.

A crowd of 53,542 at Yankee Stadium watched the Mariners make spot-starter Darrell Rasner look like an all-star after yielding a two-run homer to Adrian Beltre in the first inning. Seattle managed just three singles against Rasner after that.

It didn't take long for the Yankees to erase that 2-0 deficit, with Mariners starter Carlos Silva getting brought down to earth with a jolt in the process. New York, which sent nine batters to the plate in the third inning, got a two-run homer from Melky Cabrera and a solo blast by Robinson Cano on the way to taking a 6-2 lead before Silva even knew what hit him.

Silva had entered the game with a 3-0 record and 2.79 earned-run average. But his bid to become the first Seattle starter to go 4-0 since Jamie Moyer in 2006 ended with that six-run third.

New York scored two more runs off Silva in the fourth, when he was pulled before he got an out. In all, he gave up 11 hits in his three-plus innings and saw his ERA jump to 4.20.

"I know I made a couple of mistakes," he said. "I made a lot of good pitches, too, but they hit it."

Silva insisted he didn't pitch as poorly as his final line, even though left-handed hitters went 7 for 12 off him with the two homers, a double and a sacrifice fly. He had worked hard to contain lefties — previously his Achilles' heel — this season, keeping them off-balance with a sinker inside and a changeup that floats away.

"I pitched the same way I've been pitching," he said. "I left some pitches up. But I'm telling you, there are some very good hitters there, very smart hitters. You make a mistake, they make you pay."

The Mariners have already reached a crossroads in a 13-19 season now getting out of hand. In fact, the four-game set against Texas that starts tonight could ultimately shape the rest of the year.

Seattle could find itself in sole possession of last place if it drops three of four. Or, it could pull out of this spiral by going the opposite route.

A series split would be just another lost opportunity. Kind of like the lost weekend here, when the Mariners had their three best starting pitchers taking on a Yankees lineup missing injured Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada.

"It's a team thing," said Beltre, whose first-inning homer had the Mariners up and cheering in their dugout. "For a little while, it was the offense [struggling]. Then it was the defense. The last two games, it's been the pitching. Hopefully, we can bounce back sooner or later and win some ballgames."

Beltre is right about the offense, defense and pitching taking turns being awful. Thing is, the offense has remained consistently bad even while other aspects of the team alternated in their ugliness.

Seattle has gone into the ninth inning of its last four games having scored two runs or less. It has gone into the ninth having scored three runs or less in its last seven games.

The M's are 0-14 in games in which an opponent leads by two runs or more at any point.

"We dug ourselves a hole and we need to get ourselves out," McLaren said. "It doesn't make a difference where we hit them. We need to hit collectively as a group."

If not, they'll be buried as one in that same hole.

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