M's out of their league vs. Padres

Any hope of the Mariners avoiding another loss had already vanished a half-inning earlier on the strength of a towering home run.

But the Richie Sexson game was alive and kicking in the bottom of the eighth as ballpark jurists in the stands delivered their verdict on the team's troubled cleanup hitter. Sexson had just been frozen for his third strikeout of the night with two men on, and the floodgates holding back a tsunami's worth of boos came crashing down.

The fans let Sexson and his .162 batting average taste their venom and the debate continued in the crowd for the rest of this 8-1 defeat about just what the team should do with him. Aside from the more rabid suggestions about an old-fashioned tar-and-feathering, the more realistic conclusion is that a drop in the order is on its way.

"I don't know if that will affect my swing," Sexson said of such a move. "If you get a hotter guy in there, sure it could help. I've been leaving a lot of guys on base. There's no excuse for the ways I'm leaving guys on base."

In other words, Sexson knew the hefty crowd of 39,531 at Safeco Field was about to unload on him as he took strike three in the eighth. He'd already been caught looking at a 1-2 pitch with Ichiro on third base to end the first, then went down swinging at 1-2 to end the third.

By the time his third strikeout occurred, a three-run homer by Russell Branyan had capped a four-run eighth off relief pitcher Chris Reitsma to break the game open. Up until the seventh, when Kevin Kouzmanoff doubled home Jose Cruz Jr. to make it 4-1, the Padres hadn't even managed an earned run against Mariners starter Miguel Batista.

So this game was already done once Sexson pulled his latest whiff job after two inning-opening singles in the eighth. But when you're 0 for 15 and the batting average isn't even within sight of the Mendoza line, the boos are never be far behind.

"You can't shut it out," Sexson said of the crowd's reaction. "I deserve it. I've played horribly. All I can do is continue to work hard. It's their right. They pay money to come to these games and watch us do well and watch us succeed. And I'm not playing well. They deserve to do whatever they want to me."

Maybe not that much. But clearly, manager Mike Hargrove will face pressure to drop Sexson to a less pressure-packed role in the lineup.

Sexson will never ask Hargrove to do that, figuring it "makes you look weak." And Hargrove is well aware of what's on everyone's mind, likely the reason he refused to meet with the media after the game. In fact, Sexson was one of the few Mariners to venture out from hidden clubhouse lounges to answer questions about the team's performance.

What hurt most about this third straight loss was that the Mariners had their chances against Padres starter Chris Young for most of his 6-2/3 innings of one-run ball. But they scored only once, when shortstop Kouzmanoff failed to squeeze a soft liner by Jose Vidro with Ichiro on third after consecutive stolen bases. That gave Seattle a 1-0 lead until an error by third baseman Adrian Beltre the very next frame opened the door to three unearned runs.

At that point, where the Mariners and their offense was concerned, the door slammed tight.

"We're a family here and you love everybody," Vidro said of Sexson's struggles. "It's like having your son out there struggling. You want him to come up big and do good things out there to help you. We care about him a lot. He's probably the heart and soul here with some of the other guys."

And when that heart and soul is missing, the team resembles an empty shell. The Mariners went just 2 for 14 with runners in scoring position and are 3 for 29 in that department in their three straight losses.

"That's been probably the big reason for our losses," Vidro said. "We haven't done our job with guys on base, created big rallies. Chip in a little bit here and there and all of a sudden at the end, it's going to be a much closer game."

A much closer division race as well. The Mariners fell to a game under .500 and sit four behind the Los Angeles Angels.

"We've got to start playing better baseball," Vidro said. "[Thursday] night was really ugly and tonight, we ran into a guy throwing the ball pretty good and couldn't put much offense out there."

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

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