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PHILADELPHIA - After struggling through another start, Phillies right-hander A.J. Burnett said he might walk away from millions of dollars not to return in 2015. Hisashi Iwakuma struck out a season-high 11 batters in eight scoreless innings and Kyle Seager homered to lead the Seattle Mariners to a 5-2 victory over Philadelphia on Tuesday night. Burnett (6-14) lost his fifth straight decision and dropped to 0-6 with a 6.41 ERA in seven starts since the All-Star break. He allowed six hits with four walks and hit two batters in 7 2-3 innings. Burnett signed a one-year deal with a player option for next year in the off-season. After Tuesdays outing, he sounded as if he might decline the option. He would stand to make $10 million next season after making his 27th start on Tuesday. Asked if he would return to the Phillies in 2015, Burnett said, "Probably not. Well see." Control has been a problem all season for Burnett, who began the day leading the majors with 72 walks. He started poorly, with eight straight balls to open the game. "It took a while to get loose, much more than normal," Burnett said. The Mariners took advantage as both of those batters, Austin Jackson and Dustin Ackley, scored on RBIs by Robinson Cano and Logan Morrison. "He struggled out of the gate with early walks," Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg said. "He just couldnt find the strike zone. But then he settled down." His counterpart settled in right from the jump. Iwakuma (12-6) was masterful while allowing four hits and no walks. Since July 1, the right-hander is 7-2 with a 1.63 ERA, 65 strikeouts and four walks in 72 innings over 10 starts. "He was outstanding," Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon said. "He commanded all of his pitches. He was in and out, up and down. Did a tremendous job for us." The Phillies, who have scored three runs or less 65 times this season, got just one batter to second base against Iwakuma. They have lost six of their last eight. The Mariners needed three pitchers in the ninth to preserve the victory. The last of the trio, Fernando Rodney, came on with two outs and the tying run at the plate and struck out Cody Asche to record his 36th save in 39 opportunities. "We have a strong belief in our bullpen, so I was able to watch the TV very calmly," Iwakuma said through an interpreter. Asked if he was tempted to let Iwakuma come out for the ninth, McClendon said, "No, no." The Phillies avoided their 14th shutout when Chase Utley scored on Yoervis Medinas wild pitch. Domonic Brown followed with an RBI double to pull Philadelphia within 5-2 before Medina hit Carlos Ruiz to put runners on first and second for Asche. Mike Zunino was 0-for-17 before getting two hits and driving in two runs. The Mariners, who scored two runs in the first, have won 11 of their last 14. Seager began the sixth with a homer, his 19th, to deep right on a 3-0 pitch. Zunino hit a two-run single in the eighth to chase Burnett and put Seattle in front 5-0. TRAINERS ROOM Mariners: RF Michael Saunders, who has been on the DL since July 11 with a strained left oblique, made his 10th rehab start Tuesday night for Triple-A Tacoma. Entering Tuesday, he was batting .258 at Tacoma. Phillies: OF John Mayberry Jr. played in his first rehab game with Triple-A Lehigh Valley at Pawtucket on Tuesday night. Mayberry has been on the DL since July 21 with left wrist inflammation. UP NEXT Mariners: LHP James Paxton (3-0, 2.20) makes his sixth start of the season when the teams wrap up their three-game series on Wednesday afternoon. The 25-year-old is unbeaten in nine career starts, with his latest victory last Friday at Detroit when he allowed one run on five hits in six innings. Paxton will be facing the Phillies for the first time. Phillies: LHP Cole Hamels (6-6, 2.44) will look for some better luck. He has a 1.71 ERA in his last three starts but is 0-1 over that stretch due to a lack of run support that has plagued him all season. REVERE HITLESS Philadelphias Ben Revere went without a hit for just the second time in his last nine games, going 0-for-4 with a rare strikeout. Revere entered Tuesday second in the NL in batting at .313 and leading the league in hardest to fan (one strikeout per 11.9 plate appearances). NMD Store . Hes just beginning to get similar results. The right-hander struggled after winning the honour in 2008 and 2009, but a retooling of his game has begun to pay off and has the San Francisco Giants thinking about the Lincecum of old. NMD Cheap . The weekend at Oriole Park has been less kind, with three players suffering varying degrees of injury. The worst ailment of the three, at least optically, is the deep bone bruise suffered by Adam Lind when he fouled a pitch off the top of his right foot in the sixth inning of Saturdays game. https://www.cheapnmdoutlet.com/. A quick first step to get to the hoop for a layup. A rousing dunk on the break off a high outlet pass saved by teammate Ramon Sessions. NMD Online . Coming off a 6-0 drubbing at Chelsea on Saturday, Arsenal endured another demoralizing result after rallying for a 2-1 lead -- only to concede a fluke equalizer. NMD Clearance . Less than 24 hours after the Wolves lost at home to the Mavericks, 100-98, NBA president of basketball operations Rod Thorn announced Tuesday that Kevin Love was fouled on his right arm by Shawn Marion in the closing seconds and should have been awarded two free throws.UNIONDALE, N.Y. – Randy Carlyle could handle and might even expect some rustiness for 20 minutes or so after an 18-day Olympic break, but not for the entirety of what proved a dud for the Maple Leafs on Thursday in Long Island. "We gave them three goals," said Carlyle, still steaming after a 5-4 overtime loss to the Islanders. "You cant win in the NHL giving three goals. Gifts. Total gifts." This was not the way Carlyle imagined his team starting the final lap of a long race to the playoffs – a blistering stretch featuring 21 more games in a hectic 44 days – but thats what he got, a sloppy, uninspired performance opposite a team that had lost seven of its previous eight games and was without its best player, John Tavares. Lacking the zip of their pre-Olympic pace – which included wins in 11 of 14 games – the Leafs managed to give away two shorthanded goals in a span of 48 seconds on the same two-minute power play before dropping a pair of third period leads. They lost the undeserved extra point in overtime when James van Riemsdyk could not corral a bouncing puck in the slot, essentially handing it to incoming Islander defender Lubomir Visnovsky, who snuck one through Jonathan Bernier. "I think mentally we looked like we were going to out-skill the hockey club we played against and they had a different attitude. They tried to grind it with us," said Carlyle afterward. "We tried to out-skill a hockey club tonight." Rust was to be expected after the two-plus week Olympic break, but not to the degree that it lingered on this night against a vastly inferior opponent. Two times in the third period did the Leafs vault in front – on goals from Dion Phaneuf and Joffrey Lupul – only to be jilted twice for that lead by Anders Lee, who scored twice in his first NHL game. Lee tapped in his first on a New York power-play, evading Phaneuf and Bernier on the fourth and final game-tying goal late in regulation. "You can expect it for a period," Carlyle said of rust, "but I think when you get down to the third period and youre up in a hockey game youd expect to be able to grind it out, tighten it up and finish the team off. "We were lucky to get a point." Perhaps the effort will offer an early warning to a club itching for a second consecutive spring of playoff hockey. While still comfortable as the first wild card in the East with 71 points that comfort has the potential – however unlikely at this point – to disappear if the Leafs were to catch a fever of bad hockey down the stretch. And with rivals in Montreal and Tampa Bay still there to be caught and Detroit just a smidge behind, heavy incentive remains to lay the foot on the pedal with just over a month left to play. "We know that we left a point here," said Phaneuf. "Thats something we have to recognize and learn from." Five Points 1. Stretch Drive Mentality It was a race to the 2008-09 postseason and Tim Gleason and the Carolina Hurricanes were in a desperate hunt to claim one of the final spots in the East. Winning 13 of their final 18 games they snuck in, landed the sixth seed and proceeded to march all the way to the conference finals. "Thinking back I think thats what it was," Gleason told the Leaf Report. "You play as hard as you can because you needed those two points every night." Though his current team sits firm in a playoff position at the moment, Gleason hopes they latch onto his former clubs sense of nightly desperation. Thursday was in no way, shape or form a good start. "Its like a new season, a new beginning and you know youve got to come and play and get the wins when you can," said the 31-year-old. "...youve got to push when everyone else is pushing and you have to push harder than everybody else." The Olympic break could not have come at more inopportune time for the Leafs, who entered the stoppage on a scorching run that saw them emerge with points in 12 of 14 games (11-2-1). Gleason too was settling into a groove in Toronto after eight seasons in Carolina. "Its interesting because everybody is anxious for the break because its good to have a break, but you think in the back of your mind you dont want it to end because it was going in the right direction," he said. "Now I think its just more of a mental thing, knowing where we left off and what we have to do to keep the pace and pick up points when we can." 2. Lacking Defence In winning 11 of those 14 games before the break, the Leafs scored and scored quite a bit – averaging 3.64 goals per game, a number that would easily lead the league if somehow sustained. And yet in that same stretch, Toronto also gave up nearly three goals perr game itself and still ranks as one of the NHLs worst defensive clubs (all of this with terrific goaltending from Bernier).dddddddddddd Team defence remains a sore spot for the Leafs and a worrying concern ahead of the playoffs when the hockey tends to tighten with goals ever the harder to come by. "Weve talked so much about defence and we havent really applied ourselves as a team in that area," said Carlyle on Thursday morning, "and thats one of the things that weve stated from the beginning of the season that we wanted to be stingier on the defensive side of it." No team allows more shots nightly than do the Leafs and only five teams have yielded more goals, none of them currently in a playoff position. The Islanders managed five on this night, playing without their top centre, Tavares, and their second-best centre, Frans Nielsen. "Weve talked about it so many times about our goaltenders having to be taxed in too many situations," Carlyle said. "Wed like to be able to say that its a new season for us, were starting over. The defensive aspect of it has to be part of it. But it takes goals to score in the league too. We just dont want to give up too many of the quality scoring chances..." 3. Bernier Workload Only one goaltender in the NHL has faced more shots this season than Bernier and thats Mike Smith of the Phoenix Coyotes. Of course, Smith has also started 10 more games than the 25-year-old, who made his 39th start of the season at Nassau Coliseum on Thursday. Bernier faced 35 shots and allowed five goals, ending a run of 12 consecutive starts yielding three or fewer. "I thought my rebound control wasnt great tonight and Ive got to make more saves," he said afterward. "Five goals, its not a good night, but at the same time we got a point and weve got to move on." Shining in his first go-around as an NHL no. 1, the stretch drive will prove an interesting testing ground for Bernier. He has not played this many games in a season since 2009-10 when he was still in the American League with Manchester. 4. No Olympic Letdown? Back in 2010 and then the bench boss in Anaheim, Carlyle had a slew of players return from the Olympics in Vancouver emotionally spent and missing the gas required to carry the Ducks as per usual. But on Thursday morning, Carlyle raised the belief that Sochi Olympians Phil Kessel, James van Riemsdyk and Nik Kulemin could actually have a leg up on their teammates having played the past few weeks. And he turned out to be fairly prescient, at least for a game. van Riemsdyk had a hand in three of the four Toronto goals, matching a career-high with three assists, while Kessel chipped in with his 32nd goal of the year, also adding a helper to what has been a scorching 2014. The 26-year-old is now tied for second in league scoring with 67 points, 30 of which have come in the New Year. "Its not too hard to get back into it," van Riemsdyk said prior to the game. "Obviously we know whats at stake. All my attention is here on the Maple Leafs. The Olympics is done and over with. Its all about the rest of the season here and what we have to accomplish here." 5. Olympic Experience An Olympian with the American squad for the first time, the 24-year-old van Riemsdyk said the experience was memorable despite a disappointing finish which saw the U.S. bounced by Canada in the semifinals and then trounced in the bronze medal game by Finland. "Obviously the ending wasnt necessarily how we wanted it go which is unfortunate, but in a tournament like that where its single elimination thats how it goes sometimes unfortunately. As far as the whole Olympic experience I thought it was pretty cool. It almost reminded me of being back in college again as far as just even the dorms and being at the cafeteria with all the other athletes." Stats-Pack 1479 – Shots faced by Jonathan Bernier this season, second most in the NHL. 67 – Points this season for Phil Kessel, now tied for second in league scoring. 29 – Points for Kessel in the past 16 games. 12 – Goals for Kessel in that same 16-game stretch. 2 – Shorthanded goals scored by the Islanders in 48 seconds of the same Toronto power-play on Thursday. 3.67 – Goals per game for the Leafs since Jan. 12. 3 – Goals against per game for the Leafs this season. 3 – Assists by James van Riemsdyk against New York, matching a career-high. Special Teams Capsule PP: 0-4Season: 21.8 per cent (4th) PK: 3-4Season: 77.9 per cent (29th) Quote of the Night "Gifts. Ive got no other word to describe the goals that we gave up." -Randy Carlyle, following the overtime loss to the Islanders. Up Next The Leafs head to Montreal for a Saturday showdown with the Canadiens. ' ' '