Carlos Silva
After his latest poor outing, Carlos Silva's days as a starter could be numbered.
Faced with the very real possibility of losing his spot in the rotation, Silva had perhaps his worst outing as a Mariner in Wednesday's 9-1 loss to the Kansas City Royals.
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Silva's first inning wasn't exactly what one would expect from someone pitching for his job. He allowed three runs on four hits and a hit batter.
The third inning wasn't much better. Silva (1-3) gave up a leadoff home run to Mark Teahen followed by three singles. A run scored on a double play then an inexplicable balk by Silva plated another.
Silva's line: 3 innings, 8 hits, 6 earned runs, 1 walk, 0 strikeouts, 70 pitches.
It didn't help that the offense fell silent for the second day in a row. The Mariners squandered three big scoring opportunities, the first of which came in the fifth inning when they failed to score with the bases loaded and one out.
The only run came on Adrian Beltre's sacrifice fly in the sixth. Then Russell Branyan, attempting to score on Ken Griffey Jr.'s fly ball, was thrown out easily at home plate to end the inning.
So what's next for Silva?
A move to the bullpen seems likely at this point. It's just a matter of who his replacement in the rotation will be. Left-hander Garrett Olson was called up to replace Shawn Kelley, who had to leave Tuesday's game with a strained oblique.
Olson worked five innings of mop-up duty releif of Silva, so with the left-handed, long-relief role occupied, Jason Vargas becomes the likely candidate to move into the rotation.
Of course, that is assuming Silva's short rope has reached its end and Don Wakamatsu won't give him one more start.
Silva certainly didn't show any signs of life in this one.
Reach Brady Henderson at nextseasonsports@gmail.com
