Both before and after Friday's 4-2 loss to Chicago put his team at an American League-worst 14-23, Seattle manager John McLaren continued to stress that his team is better than it is playing.
That wouldn't be hard, because the Mariners are playing some grim baseball these days. They have scored two or fewer runs in eight of their last nine games, and they have eight of those nine. Seattle ended a streak of 24 consecutive scoreless innings with a third-inning run Friday, but that came because of a wild pitch thrown by White Sox right-hander Jose Contreras.
"We're a good team playing terrible baseball," McLaren said. "Only we can fix it. The coaches and I have been exchanging ideas about what to do. You can only shuffle the lineup so much.
"We've got to start playing solid baseball. We need timely hitting, we need to pitch well and we need good defense."
WHITE SOX 4, MARINERS 2: The Seattle offense continued to flounder, although the Mariners snapped their scoreless streak at 24 innings Friday when Ichiro Suzuki scored on a wild pitch by Chicago's Jose Contreras in the third inning.
However the Mariners were already down 3-0 at the time, and Seattle hasn't come from more than two runs down all season to win a game. They didn't this time, either, although rookie Wladimir Balentien homered in the ninth inning.
Seattle has now scored two or fewer runs in eight of its last nine games, and the Mariners are 1-8 during that stretch.
