OAKLAND -- Gil Meche had trouble sticking his landing on Wednesday, although he need not have worried much. His teammates have had similar troubles against the A's in 2006.

Indeed, equal footing has been hard to come by for the Mariners this season when facing the A's, as again was the case in the 4-0 setback to the A's at McAfee Coliseum.

The numbers are starting to stack up against Seattle, and they're all bad. Though the A's are not entirely to blame for the Mariners' malaise, they've been primary contributors.

The Mariners (56-64) have now lost their last 15 games to the A's this season, which ties a Major League record set by the 1974 Atlanta Braves for the most consecutive victories over a divisional foe (San Diego).

Want more? Seattle has now dropped 12 games back of the A's (68-52) in the American League West as the Mariners are now 0-7 on their road trip with four games left in Los Angeles.

"I don't know what to say," Seattle left fielder Raul Ibanez said. "It's baffling."

Ibanez could well have been referring another lost series in Oakland or that Seattle was shut out for the 13th time this season -- the most in the Major Leagues. At this point, it's hard to differentiate Seattle's maladies.

"It's hard to find anything encouraging in streaks like this," Mariners manager Mike Hargrove said.

If anyone was going to beat the A's on Wednesday, it probably would have been Meche (9-8), who is the only Mariners pitcher to defeat Oakland this season and that was back on April 6 at Safeco Field.

But Meche had trouble with the mound at McAfee Coliseum -- namely with getting his spikes stuck during delivery. It happened for the first time in the first inning and again in the fourth when he balked in a run.

It wasn't just a distraction for the right-hander, but it actually messed with his mechanics, which were already on shaky grounds after his last start when he didn't make it out of the second inning in Texas.

Meche lasted 5 1/3 innings against the A's, though his lack of command (four walks) set him up in a bad way during Oakland's three-run second inning when, after walking Nick Swisher, he tried to challenge No. 9 hitter Mark Ellis two batters later.

With Swisher on base along with Eric Chavez -- who singled to start the inning -- Meche fell behind Ellis, 2-0, and tried to hurl a fastball past the Oakland second baseman.

"I tried to groove one and let him hit it," Meche said.

Ellis did just that, turning on the belt-high fastball and sending it into the seats in left field for all the runs the A's would need with Dan Haren (11-9) on the mound.

Haren scattered seven hits over six innings, striking out eight and walking none. He got a lot of mileage out of his split-finger fastball that the Mariners either couldn't do too much with or catch up to.

That's not to say the Mariners didn't have their chances.

Seattle had two hits in the first inning, consecutive singles by Adrian Beltre and Ibanez, but was unable to score. In the second inning, the Mariners had two more hits, this time by Kenji Johjima and Willie Bloomquist. But again, no runs.

The Mariners loaded the bases in the fourth inning and seemed poised to get back into the game as Eduardo Perez singled, Johjima reached on an error and Yuniesky Betancourt singled.

But Haren struck out Bloomquist and did the same to Ichiro Suzuki to end the threat and preserve the lead. The Mariners had just four hits after the fourth inning as Haren, Justin Duchscherer, Joe Kennedy and Huston Street closed things out.

And so went another loss to the A's.

"We didn't do what we were supposed to do," Ibanez said. "We can analyze it all we want, but we didn't get it done. You look at the scoreboard, and we had some hits, but it doesn't mean much if you don't score."

One of the few highlights of the game for the Mariners came in the seventh inning, when rookie left-hander Eric O'Flaherty made his Major League debut.

O'Flaherty, selected earlier in the day from Triple-A Tacoma, allowed a leadoff double to Mark Kotsay, got Milton Bradley on a ground ball, intentionally walked Frank Thomas and struck out Chavez before Hargrove brought in Julio Mateo to get the final out of the inning.

"The first pitch was out over the middle, and [Kotsay] hit it pretty well," O'Flaherty said. "But I felt pretty good. I had a lot of adrenaline. I needed to make a few better pitches and keep the ball down."