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MARC TOPKINMARINERS 9, RAYS 3: Tampa Bay loses sixth straight to open stretch dominated by powers.
SEATTLE - Manager Lou Piniella insists that playing contending teams during most of the final five weeks will be a valuable experience for the young Devil Rays.
If Tuesday is a sample of what's to come, it also will be a trying one.
The Rays lost another lead and game, this time 9-3 to the Mariners, extending their losing streak to six, one shy of the season high.
The theory is that the young Rays will benefit from playing games that matter against good teams in front of large crowds. The reality is that it's not going to do them much good if they continue to play this badly.
Tuesday they jumped ahead on Aubrey Huff's three-run first-inning homer, only to see Victor Zambrano give away the lead and relievers Brandon Backe and Jesus Colome give away any chance of a comeback. The three combined to walk 10 (six of whom scored), increasing their major-league leading total to 532.
"Walks score. They score," Piniella said. "If you can't throw strikes you can't win at the big-league level. You can't. Make the other team put the ball in play. Nobody says anything at all when they get hits. That's part of it. But you can't defend walks.
"Walk a few, bunch of few hits, you've got a real big inning. That's been happening to us too consistently here over the past week."
Zambrano's inconsistency has been a season-long mystery, as he leads the American League in walks (91), hit batters (16) and wild pitches (15), while leading the Rays in victories (nine).
Tuesday's performance was no different: He struck out seven but walked four and couldn't get through the sixth inning because he threw 119 pitches.
"What do you want me to say?" Zambrano said. "When you don't throw strikes, a lot of different things happen in the game."
He retired the first six, then escaped a two-on, one-out jam in the third after a rare Travis Lee fielding miscue and got a ground ball to get out of a bases-loaded mess in the fourth.
But a leadoff walk to No. 9 hitter Dan Wilson in the fifth was the beginning of the end. He walked Mark McLemore with one out, then gave up a three-run homer on a 1-and-2 pitch to Carlos Guillen, bringing Piniella to the mound for a heated conversation. After striking out Bret Boone, Zambrano gave up the lead, allowing a double to John Olerud and a single to ex-Ray Randy Winn as the Mariners snapped a six-game losing streak and hung on to at least a piece of first place in the AL West. Backe got out of Zambrano's sixth-inning jam but created a huge mess in the seventh, walking the first three. Colome got his first batter to hit into a double play, but by the time he got the third out, the Mariners scored five more.
Huff hit one home run in a 21-game span, then had a power surge, hitting four in his past five games, capped by his career-high 24th Tuesday. Carl Crawford and Julio Lugo started the game with singles, then Huff crushed an 0-and-1 pitch from Jamie Moyer, the soft-throwing wizard who is 8-2, 2.40 against the Rays.
Starting Tuesday, the Rays were to play 26 of their final 33 games against the Mariners, A's, Yankees and Red Sox. Piniella can only hope it goes better.
"The experience that we're going to go through over the next five weeks, playing Seattle, Oakland, Boston and New York, that's going to be just a tremendous experience for our young baseball team," he said. "Obviously we want to play as well we can and win as many games as we can. It's going to be a great experience for our young people."