Rangers 5, M's 2 | M's rest shows rust

There were no sub-zero temperatures to numb the hands of Mariners hitters as they stood in the batter's box this time around.

No frosty rain coating their skin with paralyzing discomfort before every swing. Nor a flurry or wind-blasted snowflakes to blind them as they sought helplessly for the white sphere they are supposed to hit.

And yet, in so many ways, the bats of this Mariners team remained just as frozen on Friday night as they had been a week earlier in Cleveland while a foot of snow was being dumped on their heads. Seattle did manage its share of hard-hit balls, but the team's situational hitting throughout a 5-2 loss to the visiting Texas Rangers at Safeco Field looked just as cold as in the very first days of spring training.

"It's tough. We all kind of had our swings going coming out of spring training and then we had the five days [in Cleveland and Boston] where we didn't play," Mariners first baseman Richie Sexson said afterward. "We're all just trying to get our feet wet again. All in all, we swung the bats pretty good. But our situational hitting wasn't real good."

It was terrible, to be precise.

The Mariners went 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine as Rangers starter Kevin Millwood tossed six innings of one-run ball for the victory.

"We had some guys on base, we just weren't able to get them in," said Sexson, hitting .190 despite a team-leading eight runs batted in. "Typically [a layoff] is harder on the hitters ... it's a little more difficult."

A team expected to form one of the division's most feared lineups is hitting a major-league worst .211. The Mariners have also scored three runs or less in five of six games so far and are 1-3 in games not started by Felix Hernandez.

It was Jarrod Washburn getting the call this time — on a whopping nine days' rest — in front of 25,243 fans watching the team return from a week-long trip in which it got just two games in. Washburn made it through six frames while allowing four runs, three of them earned.

And the way his team is hitting, it was just enough to lose.

The difference was a two-run homer to left off Washburn by Ian Kinsler with two out in the fifth inning. Matt Kata later added a solo blast to right, his first home run in three years, off J.J. Putz in the ninth.

That gave Rangers closer Eric Gagne enough cushion to record the save with a one-hit, scoreless final frame in his first outing since last June 6 with the Dodgers.

But this game was decided long before then.

The real blow came with the Rangers up 4-0 in the fifth. Seattle opened the frame with singles by Kenji Johjima and Yuniesky Betancourt, but a potentially huge rally was snuffed as Jose Lopez grounded into a 5-4-3 double play.

Mariners manager Mike Hargrove was loathe to blame the layoff for his team falling to 3-3. The Mariners wound up outhitting the Rangers 11-8 despite the lack of runs.

"It had nothing to do with the layoff," Hargrove said. "It's just the fact that we hit a lot of balls right at people tonight."

So did the Rangers. Trouble is, the Mariners didn't always take advantage.

Adrian Beltre made a diving stop of a Kinsler smash in the third inning, but threw the ball away at first base to allow the game's first run to score. But the bigger play occurred right after that, when Washburn fielded a comebacker by Michael Young, then stumbled off the side of the mound as he threw to second in hopes of starting an inning-ending double-play.

The throw was behind covering shortstop Betancourt, who got the out at second, but couldn't throw to first in time as a second run scored.

Washburn was more upset with himself for a fifth inning, two-out single by Jerry Hairston Jr. on an 0-2 pitch. That kept the inning going for Kinsler, who launched a Washburn offering deep to left to make it a 4-0 game.

"If I could take one pitch back," Washburn said, "it would definitely be the 0-2 pitch to Hairston."

"I think we've just got to move on and move ahead," Ibanez said. "Get back into the swing of things. I think we played well tonight. We lost, but to say we did it because of this, that, or the other, that would be making an excuse and I don't think that's what this club is about.

"We're going to grind through it."

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

Read his daily blog at www.seattletimes.com/Mariners