Seattle’s bats remain hollow

BALTIMORE – The strain of trying to make a game of it when their team scores three runs or fewer is beginning to wear on Seattle Mariners pitchers – who are getting way too much practice at it.

For the 20th time in 44 games Tuesday, Seattle’s offense failed to score four runs or more, and for the 19th time that meant a loss, this time to the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2.

Joel Piñeiro returned and threw far too many pitches – 107 in 5 1/3 innings – to get deep into the game, but was effective enough to turn a 2-1 lead over to his bullpen.

What the Mariners could not do, after the third inning, was score.

Oh, they had chances, but as Seattle’s misses piled up, the Orioles rallied to tie it in the seventh inning, went ahead in the eighth inning on another home run off J.J. Putz, then put the Mariners to bed with a 1-2-3 ninth.

“When you don’t execute offensively, it hurts you,” manager Mike Hargrove said. “We didn’t tonight, and it hurt us.”

Three times the Mariners ended innings with double play ground balls.

In what could have been another rally, Wilson Valdez failed to lay down a bunt in the seventh inning after Jeremy Reed walked – and then Reed was picked off.

Not surprisingly, the next batter, Ichiro Suzuki, singled for the third time.

“If we get the bunt down, we score there and we’re ahead, 3-1, and maybe it’s a different game,” Hargrove said.

The problem is, the Mariners have played this same game at least 20 times.

“Maybe half those games we haven’t scored three or more runs, you tip your hat to a pitcher,” first baseman Richie Sexson said. “But 20 times in 44 games? That’s way too many games not to be scoring runs.

“We know about it. We talk about it. No one on this team shows up to fail.

“We take extra batting practice, we watch videos, we work on it all the time. It’s just not happening, and if we knew why, we’d change it.”

Early on, it appeared the Mariners were going to do enough little things well to win.

Suzuki led off the game with a single, took second base on a ground ball by Randy Winn and then – with two outs – scored on a single by Sexson. Two innings later, Suzuki walked, stole second base and scored on a two-out single by Sexson.

For Seattle, the scoring stopped there.

Piñeiro gave up one run, and when Ron Villone hit Brian Roberts in the knee – forcing him out of the game – Roberts’ pinch-runner, Chris Gomez, worked his way around to tie the game in the seventh inning.

Putz came on in the eighth, got a quick out and then threw a first-pitch fastball to outfielder Jay Gibbons, and Gibbons hit his eighth home run for a 3-2 lead.

It was the fourth time in six appearances that Putz has given up a long ball.

“J.J. will be fine,” Hargrove said. “The pitch Gibbons hit was down and middle-in, not a terrible pitch. If I change his role, he thinks I’ve lost confidence in him and then he loses confidence in himself.”

Still, in the clubhouse, the veteran hitters were talking about hitting – or the lack of it.

“You can’t explain what’s going on,” second baseman Bret Boone said. “It’s mid-May and I have four home runs? Adrian (Beltre) has five? You think either of us thinks we’ve done a good job so far?

“I guarantee you we’re trying.”