BASEBALL: Mariners fall to Tigers

RYAN DIVISH

E-Mail

Text Size:

tool goes here

SEATTLE — In the search for positives for Carlos Silva following his latest start, perhaps the best thing he could find about facing the Detroit Tigers on Thursday at Safeco Field was that it meant he wouldn’t have to face them again for the rest of the season.

In what has been a largely disappointing season for the free-agent signee — save for the first two weeks — Silva added another frustrating start to his season-long struggles, while his difficulties against the Tigers continued again in an 8-4 loss that dropped Seattle to 33-51 on the season.

For the season, Silva is now 0-3 against the Tigers (42-42), having pitched 9 2/3 innings, giving up 19 runs on 25 hits and his ERA against the Tigers is a whopping 17.70. Thursday’s loss dropped his record to 4-10 on the season with a 5.85 ERA.

| ELAINE THOMPSON ASSOCIATED PRESS

“His stuff always looks good to me,” Mariners manager Jim Riggleman said when asked about Silva’s pitching.

It must look good to Tigers’ hitters, who have raked him all season.

“That Detroit ball club is just a very aggressive, good hitting ball club,” Riggleman said.

As to what Silva thought about his struggles against the Tigers, no one is really sure.

For the first time this season, Silva uncharacteristically failed to appear to meet with the media after a start. Maybe he really was searching for positives somewhere in the Mariners clubhouse.

Three runs in the fifth were enough to chase Silva.

It was his longest outing of the season against the Tigers. The first was four innings on May 20th, and in the previous start against the Tigers on May 30th at Safeco, he never made it out of the first.

This time Silva left with his team trailing 5-2, which wasn't an insurmountable lead.

However, the Mariners never really capitalized on scoring opportunities off of Tigers' starter Justin Verlander. The lanky right-hander went six innings allowing eight hits, but allowed only two runs.

“We missed some opportunities there earlier,” Riggleman said. “It we'd finish those off, of course, it could have been a different ball game.”

After getting a run in the first and the third, the Mariners didn’t score again until the ninth scoring a pair of runs. Unfortunately during that time, the Tigers didn't stop scoring, adding a run in the sixth on Michael Holliman home run off of Mark Lowe and two in ninth on Ivan Rodriguez's two-run single off of Roy Corcoran.

“Some teams you can hold down when you’re not at your best,” Riggleman said. “But that line-up you pretty much have to be at the top of your game to shut them down.”