Wilson, Moore hurt as Rangers sweep Mariners

The Mariners aren’t a team with a lot of depth, and the little depth the club has is being tested.

Second baseman Jack Wilson, who moved over from shortstop with the Mariners wanting to go with Brandon Ryan at shortstop this year, showed his inexperience at the new position with a couple of errors in a three-run Texas inning Wednesday.

On the second of those, Wilson didn’t get out of the way quickly enough and Rangers’ second baseman Ian Kinsler slid into him, and Wilson came out of the game moments later. It seemed at the time that he might have injured his right leg, but it turned out later the collision left him groggy.

And in the bottom of the eighth inning, catcher Adam Moore had to be assisted off the field after injuring his right knee while planting to make a throw.

Of the two, the injury to Moore appears to be the more serious. He is expected to have an MRI Thursday, leaving his status for Friday’s home opener up in the air. It’s possible that Josh Bard will be brought in to make sure the club is covered in case the Mariners find Moore is going to be out for any stretch of time at all.

Since the Mariners don’t have another catcher on the 25-man roster – Adam Kennedy has volunteered to be the emergency catcher, but he’s never caught a game – the club will have to make a move if Moore isn’t going to be ready to go Friday as a backup. The starting catcher, Miguel Olivo, just recently got back to full health after suffering a groin injury in early March, so any backup catcher is likely to get a lot of work.

For Moore, an injury would be a flashback to the 2010 season, when he suffered a left knee injury in May and didn’t return to the big leagues until August.

All in all, Wednesday wasn’t a good day for the Mariners. Wilson’s errors on consecutive plays were a dropped ball and a wild throw, and they led to three runs against starter Felix Hernandez, two of those unearned.

Seattle scratched to get back in the game, but after a Milton Bradley double and an RBI single by Jack Cust tied the game at 3-all in the sixth, the Seattle offense was cooked.

Moore doubled with two out in the seventh and Ichiro Suzuki walked, but Chone Figgins completed an 0-for-12 series with a topper back to starter C.J. Wilson for the final out, and the Texas bullpen contributed two perfecting innings of relief to close out Seattle’s first road trip of the season.

After winning the first two games in Oakland by playing crisp, defensive-minded baseball, the Mariners spent the next four games tripping over themselves in the field, and that, in combination with an ineffective offense, has the Mariners of 2011 looking entirely too much like the Mariners of 2010.

The Mariners are off on Thursday. They open their home season Friday night against the Cleveland Indians. Jason Vargas (0-0, 1.35) will face Carlos Carrasco (0-1, 9.45).

Twitter: @JHickey3