Seattle’s Wolcott Can’t Get A Break

Making his 15th start of the season, Bob Wolcott arguably took his best stuff yet to the mound Tuesday afternoon.

The 22-year-old right-hander struck out a career-high seven batters and wasn’t hit all that hard.

Problem was, the defense didn’t support him, and even when he made good pitches, balls fell in for hits.

“They (the Toronto Blue Jays) just hit balls in tough places,” said Wolcott, who lasted just 4-1/3 innings and gave up four earned runs in the Seattle Mariners’ 11-3 loss. “If any of those hits are 5 feet to the left or right, they’re easy outs.”

Alex Rodriguez made an error on the second pitch of the game, and it seemed to set the tone for the day as Toronto went on to take a 4-0 lead before Seattle had an at-bat.

“An error with the first hitter, that’s always a tough way to start a game,” Wolcott said. “And then a broken-bat hit.”

Compounding the problem for Wolcott (5-7) was the pitch that followed Domingo Cedeno’s broken-bat double to left. Carlos Delgado found the seats with a fastball, and although Wolcott probably deserved a better fate, he already was in a hole Seattle couldn’t get out of.

“I made a big mistake on that home run pitch,” Wolcott said.

He didn’t make too many others, though, as he easily passed his previous high of four strikeouts.

Buhner back today

Jay Buhner will return to right field for the first time in a week today.

“He took BP (batting practice) and hit the ball well (Tuesday), so we’ll get him in the lineup,” Seattle manager Lou Piniella said.

Buhner has missed four games since spraining his right thumb sliding into third in Minnesota last Tuesday.

Fast start

The Mariners have set a club record for consecutive games above the .500 mark to start a season. Seattle (36-31) hasn’t been under the break-even point yet after 66 games. The old record was 64 games last season. Seattle also was above .500 for the final 35 games last season, so the total streak is at 102.