M's Weaver takes another pounding

A frustrated Jeff Weaver shook his head in a near-empty clubhouse as he discussed the one time on the mound he should not have been afraid of contact.

The struggling Mariners starter has already seen a month's work of contact made against him by opposing hitters in the first two games. Two home runs, a triple and eight doubles, not to mention six singles over a span covering just eight innings.

But some things had finally gone right for Weaver on Tuesday night when he made an ill-fated, fifth-inning decision to avoid a different type of contact. He'd thought about throwing a ground-ball-inducing sinker to Minnesota Twins slugger Torii Hunter with the bases loaded and two out, but instead served up a 78-mph meatball slider right down the middle.

Hunter delivered a golf shot into the left-field seats for his seventh career grand slam, sending the Mariners toward an 11-2 loss and leaving Weaver ensconced in the bad books of an increasingly impatient Seattle fan base.

"I just figured that at that time he was set up for the slider," Weaver said. "And he made me pay."

It's not the first time the Twins center fielder had done that. Hunter entered the game with 10 hits in 22 career at-bats against Weaver, including a home run and a dozen runs batted in.

But Weaver had just sent a fastball in the 90s ripping past Hunter on the previous, 0-2 offering, barely missing the zone for a strikeout call from home-plate umpire Joe West. He'd already fanned the dangerous Michael Cuddyer that frame and figured he could notch a second strikeout by getting Hunter to bite on a slider and end the inning down only a pair of runs at 3-1.

To hear Weaver tell it afterward, fresh from being booed heartily by the 19,015 fans at Safeco Field, he would have been better off "trusting my sinker" and letting Hunter put the ball in play.

"I've had success throwing my slider to him," Weaver said. "I figured that, after throwing some sinkers to get ahead, he may have changed his approach to look for that sinker. But he never changed. He sat on the slider each and every time and hit them good."

Hunter had the home run and one of eight doubles by the Twins, tying a decade-old team record, before leaving the game late with a shoulder injury. Minnesota scored four more runs off reliever Sean White, but the game was long over by then, with Hunter's slam having put the Twins up 7-1 on a night starter Ramon Ortiz tossed another seven strong frames.

Ortiz yielded a solo homer in the first inning to Ichiro and another to Jose Lopez in the sixth. But he also notched 11 of his first 12 outs via grounders, launching third baseman Luis Rodriguez toward a career-high nine assists, to improve to a surprising 3-0 with a 2.05 earned-run average.

"He's a sinker guy, basically a sinker-slider pitcher," said Mariners designated hitter Jose Vidro, who notched a pair of hits off his former Washington Nationals teammate from last season. "When you've got your sinker going, you're going to get a lot of ground balls."

Weaver has had the opposite start to his season, one made more difficult by snow and rain delays that have thrown him off his regular routine. He gave up another six extra-base hits over six frames in this one, three in a two-run first inning by the Twins, and will no doubt spur more talk by fans that his fifth spot in the rotation should be skipped the next time there's a chance.

But Mariners manager Mike Hargrove, like Weaver, saw enough of a difference between this outing and the pitcher's debut in Boston last week to make any such debate a moot point for now.

"There were things that Jeff did in this outing that he hadn't done in the past," said Hargrove, whose team saw its two-game winning streak ended. "Especially in that fifth inning. He got aggressive, went after hitters, struck out Cuddyer, had them on the ropes and then hung a slider."

Hargrove admitted that the seven runs allowed by Weaver in a second straight outing "is not the way you want to do it."

But he wants to see more the next time around, especially since Weaver worked on nine days' rest in his season debut and six this time rather than the normal four that starters are used to. So does Weaver, who insists he has turned a corner despite another lopsided pasting.

"This was a little bit more frustrating than the first time," Weaver said. "I felt that I was out there with some good stuff, started getting some ground balls I was looking for. I wasn't falling behind, I was getting ahead of hitters.

"Just one too many sliders."

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com. Read his daily blog at www.seattletimes.com/Mariners