No Riggle room

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Jim Riggleman wants to manage, hungers to win and is in no position to do either with the Seattle Mariners.

Instead, he talks about the work in progress that is his pitching staff, the great learning experience September is for a handful of young position players who slide in and out of Riggleman’s lineup and only rarely hit.

“You want to win, it’s what drives all of us in this game,” Riggleman said. “But we have to look to the future.”

The future took another jab to the nose Thursday, when Ryan Feierabend got knocked around and the Kansas City Royals won 12-0 – extending Seattle’s losing streak to eight.

Riggleman, who hadn’t managed since 1999 until replacing John McLaren on June 20, knows he could do more to snap that streak, but doing so would hold back players the franchise must count on in 2009.

“The pitching staff is a work in progress,” Riggleman said. “Young pitchers like Feierabend, Brandon Morrow, Ryan Rowland-Smith all realize this is great experience for them, and a time of evaluation for us.”

Riggleman and his staff are consummate professionals who know the game, a group of coaches thought in spring training to be perhaps the best group in Mariners history.

In less than 10 days, every one of them – along with Riggleman – could be unemployed.

They have known it since June, when the Mariners fired their general manager and manager and said a GM search would take place beginning in October. It makes sense, if there’s a new GM, that he’s going to want to hire his own manager. If there’s a new manager, he’s going to want to hire his own staff.

Losses like this one have frustrated Riggleman – games in which a young pitcher is hit early, games in which his offense, beyond Ichiro Suzuki, Raul Ibaez and Jose Lopez, seems like a lineup of outs.

The 12-0 loss was the most lopsided by shutout for Seattle since 2003, and it was worse than the final score indicated. The Mariners had three hits.

When the Mariners left home last week, their record under Riggleman was 32-40. Not great, but an improvement on John McLaren’s record. Now the team has lost eight in a row and Riggleman’s record is 32-48.

Beltre’s surgery goes well

Mariners Gold Glove third baseman Adrian Beltre has undergone successful surgery to repair a ligament in his left thumb and also had bone spurs removed from his left – or non-throwing – shoulder.

Mariners medical director Dr. Edward Khalfayan performed the shoulder surgery Thursday and then assisted in the thumb procedure.

Beltre finished his season hitting .266 with 29 doubles, 25 homers and 77 RBIs.