Mariners fall into hole and can't recover in 10-4 loss to Tampa Bay Rays

His head told him to slow down, but the further Ian Snell's Safeco Field debut deteriorated, walk by walk, his adrenaline pushed him to rush even more.

"It was just too much energy in my body," Snell said.

Only four outs into Snell's first home start, many of the 28,239 at Safeco Field rose for a standing ovation as Don Wakamatsu ambled toward the mound to put an end to one of the Mariners' most disappointing starts of the season. After a promising debut on the road, Snell showed the poor command that doomed him in Pittsburgh and left the long night to an overworked bullpen in a 10-4 loss to Tampa Bay.

"Unfortunately, I dug ourselves into a big hole we couldn't get out of, and it sucks," Snell said.

In the experiment to harness the potential of Snell's live arm, Saturday night provided the first glimpse into the enigmatic past of the pitcher the Mariners hope to convert into a fixture of their rotation. But only two starts after he came from the Pirates in a July 29 trade, the Mariners are willing to treat Saturday's short start, in which he walked six of 13 hitters, as an isolated incident.

"I think this kid has tremendous stuff, but we have to be able to throw the ball over the plate," manager Don Wakamatsu said.

When Snell can throw his mid-90s fastball and mean slider for strikes, as he did last Sunday in Texas, he shows the promise of a top-end starter that has been apparent since he debuted as a 22-year-old for Pittsburgh in 2004. But the control issues on display Saturday night plagued Snell this season in Pittsburgh, where, before the July 29 trade to Seattle, his average of 17.5 pitches per innings was the worst in the majors and he averaged more than one walk every two innings.

"The thing you can't deal with is a pitcher that doesn't have quality stuff, and he has it, and he's proved that he has had success in the past," Wakamatsu said.

Snell's first four pitches, all low, provided a preview of his brief night. For sixty pitches, Snell tussled with home-plate umpire Tim Tschida's strike zone, and far more often than not, he lost. Of his first 25 pitches, 16 were balls, and he quickly put himself in a first-inning jam. His fourth walk of the inning, to Pat Burrell, brought home a run that put Tampa Bay ahead 2-0.

By the time Snell escaped the inning with a pair of bases-loaded outs, he was already at 41 pitches. And the second inning was no better.

Snell walked two more in the second and allowed a double to Carl Crawford, and with the Mariners trailing 3-0 with just one out and the bases loaded, Wakamatsu had seen enough. Chris Jakubauskas came on to force Pena into an inning-ending double play.

In 1-1/3 innings, Snell walked six and allowed three runs on two hits. Too often, Wakamatsu said, Snell relied on his fastball, even when it was clear he couldn't throw it reliably for strikes.

"Me being dumbheaded, I should have went with other pitches but I didn't," Snell said. "I really wasn't focused; I was just too energized, too excited."

Worse yet, Snell gave no rest to a weary bullpen that had worked five innings in Friday night's 11-inning win. Yet Jakubauskas helped reduce the damage by getting the next eight outs in only 23 pitches until the top of the fifth, when Longoria broke a 3-3 tie with a 411-foot home run to center field. After a walk, Carlos Pena pulled a full-count pitch from Jakubauskas into the right-field seats.

The Mariners, who had forced a 3-3 tie behind Franklin Gutierrez's two-run homer in the second, missed out on an opportunity to pull even in the sixth.

After an RBI double by rookie Michael Saunders, who had his second three-hit night in five days, Seattle had two runners in scoring position with one out. But weak ground outs by Ichiro and Russell Branyan, who were a combined 0 for 9, ended the threat, and Tampa Bay scored four runs in the eighth to open its lead to 10-4.

"The sixth inning was where this game was lost, when we didn't capitalize and tie it back up," Wakamatsu said.