M’S Take Another Tumble August Skid Hits 7 Straight; Trail Rangers By Six Games

If baseball dreams come true in October, they are broken in August - the unkindest month in the history of the Seattle Mariners.

For parts of three decades, it was August that stood between the Mariners and their first winning record, and it took them 17 years to produce the first above-.500 August.

All told, the Mariners have lost more games than they’ve won in August in 18 of their first 20 seasons, though this may be the first time they’ve collapsed under the weight of their own expectations - and the cost seems dearer.

Against Kansas City, the Mariners offense sputtered and their defense collapsed, producing a 10-4 defeat that was Seattle’s seventh in a row and dropped their record this month to 2-8.

One game behind Texas in the American League West when this homestand began, the Mariners have gone 0 for 7 since and now trail the Rangers by six games.

“They left the door open for us for quite a while,” manager Lou Piniella said of the Rangers. “I think they’ve decided if nobody else wants this division, they’ll take it - and they’re playing well. We aren’t.”

In the longest home losing streak since 1989, when they lost 11 in a row, the Mariners have been beaten in the ninth inning, humbled by losing teams and done in by pitching and hitting.

This time, it was defense.

A Royals team that has had trouble scoring runs all season found it easy in the Kingdome. They sent 11 men to the plate in the sixth inning when they scored a season-high seven runs - six of them unearned.

For the night, four Mariners errors turned out to equal eight unearned runs. At the plate, they grounded into double plays in three of the first four innings to gut promising rallies.

And Seattle lost more than a game. Second baseman Joey Cora who left the game in the first inning with a bruised left knee.

“He got hit by a pitch the other day and the tendon is inflamed,” Piniella said. “It doesn’t seem to be a disabling injury, but he’ll miss a few games.”

A two-for-one family night crowd of 43,476 pushed the season attendance mark past the 2 million mark for the third time in franchise history - within easy reach of the all-time Seattle single-season record.

That mark, set in 1991, is 2,147,905. Monday’s crowd brought the ‘95 numbers to 2,028,974 with 19 home dates remaining in the Kingdome. If the Mariners maintain their season average, they’ll finish the year with 2.65 million. That’s assuming the team survives August.

A 1-0 lead Seattle took in the fourth inning, when Appier wild-pitched Jay Buhner home to snap the pitcher’s 27-inning scoreless streak, lasted until the Royals next turn at-bat.

In the fifth, a Dan Wilson throwing error on Tom Goodwin’s 53rd stolen base set up a two-run inning that put Kansas City ahead for good.

Then came the sixth, where six of seven runs were unearned.

“We had some chances early and didn’t break through and we messed up a couple bunt plays to open up a big inning for them,” Piniella said.