Silva crumbles so M’s fall

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A contrite-sounding Carlos Silva took all the questions thrown his way, but admittedly had few answers to offer up.

Silva had just been pounded for three innings by the Kansas City Royals, leaving early in what became a 9-1 loss for his reeling Mariners. He’d entered this Wednesday night affair knowing that anything like this disaster could sideline him from the rotation for at least a little while.

And when this latest beating was done, a bruised Silva, his pride reeling as badly as his numbers, still couldn’t explain it.

“At this level, in this league, what matters are results,” Silva said. “It doesn’t matter how I feel. It doesn’t matter what I do. It doesn’t matter how hard I work. If I don’t show results, I don’t show anything. That’s why it’s tough. You can be the greatest teammate. You can be the hardest worker. You can be all that stuff. But if you don’t show results, you’re always going to be on the bottom.”

And that’s where he was on this night, as 15,324 fans at newly refurbished Kauffman Stadium watched the home team score three runs in the first inning and three more in the third off Silva to essentially end this game before it began.

And that is likely why manager Don Wakamatsu, who said afterward he’s reached his threshold with these Silva outings, could replace him in the rotation with Jason Vargas for at least a start or two. It’s the last thing Wakamatsu really wants to do, given other problems facing his anemic offense and a team that has lost three in a row for the first time all season.

But there’s a growing sense in the organization that having Silva step away from the rotation for a while could free his mind from the turmoil he’s put himself through. Few Mariners are feeling the daily pressure Silva has, given his poor results last season, his desire to please his teammates and an angry fan base, and his frustration that nothing he’s tried seems to work.

Other issues will come into play, like how Chris Jakubauskas does in his next outing today. But this latest Silva loss, giving up six runs on eight hits, a hit batsman and a balk, could make him the first domino to fall.

“We’ll talk to Jack and the staff the next day or two and see where we go from here,” Wakamatsu said, in reference to general manager Jack Zduriencik.

The team’s top brass wants nothing more than for Silva to succeed, given that he’s under contract for two years and is seen as better than the other starter candidates at this stage of their careers. But they can’t have games like this, where things were pretty much done when a Mike Jacobs single made it 3-0 after one inning and Mark Teahen’s leadoff homer in the third ignited another rally for a 6-0 deficit.

Sidney Ponson cruised through 71/3 innings for the victory. Left-hander Garrett Olson, called up Wednesday, finished off the final five innings for Seattle.

Silva fell to 1-3 with an 8.48 earned-run average and figures there’s only one way out of this.

“The best thing is, trust myself,” he said. “Because there’s nothing else. I was sitting in my chair and the only thing I was thinking is that I’m having a big test right now from God. Because I’ve been doing a lot of things, working hard, listening to everybody. Whoever brings me something and says, ‘You need to do this’ – I go to the mound and try it. Nobody’s going to tell me to work harder, because they know I work very hard.”

And the Mariners will keep letting Silva work. But they’ll also likely take the self-induced heat off him a bit and pull him out of the starting rotation.

M’s recall Olson

Left-hander Garrett Olson has been recalled from Triple-A Tacoma by the Mariners, who placed right-hander Shawn Kelley on the 15-day disabled list with a strained side muscle.

The team said that Kelley has a strained left oblique. The 25-year-old rookie threw three pitches in the 10th inning Tuesday against the Texas Rangers then collapsed on the mound in pain.

He is 1-1 with a 1.54 ERA in 10 games and had become an option to finish games with closer Brandon Morrow on the disabled list.

Morrow is expected back this weekend.

Seattle acquired the 25-year-old Olson in January in a trade with the Chicago Cubs. He was 2-2 with a 3.08 ERA in five starts at Tacoma.

Notes

The only other time the Royals and Mariners faced each other while in first place was July 17-20, 2003, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. … Ken Griffey returned to the lineup and finished 1 for 3 with a walk.

The A ssociated Press contributed to this report.