MLB

Yankees blow lead, fall in 12th to Mariners

SEATTLE — Timothy Leary’s worst acid trip didn’t begin as poorly as the Yankees’ recent West Coast adventure.

Facing two of the best pitchers in the AL, the Yankees flushed early leads to the worst hitting team in the league Friday and Saturday.

Friday the Yankees scored three runs in five innings against Mariners stud rookie Michael Pineda and lost. Last night at Safeco Field, defending AL Cy Young winner Felix Hernandez gave up three runs in the first three frames and four in seven. Yet, Ivan Nova spit the lead out and Mariano Rivera gave up the winning run in a 5-4 defeat that took 12 innings and was witnessed by 37,354.

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“We had leads in both games, that’s what’s frustrating,” said manager Joe Girardi, whose club slipped 1½ games behind the AL East-leading Red Sox. “We weren’t able to hold them.”

Losing two in a row to the Mariners was bad. Watching Rivera surrender the winning-run added to the bummer of an evening, even if two of three hits he gave up were bloopers.

Rivera loaded the bases via a single, double and intentional walk for Adam Kennedy. With the infield in, Kennedy blooped the game-winning single into center field.

“I made good pitches and the ball found places,” Rivera said. “Things are going to happen. What can you do? Nothing, come back tomorrow.”

So, at the beginning of a nine-game, 10-day West Coast swing the Yankees are tripping over themselves on the mound and struggling at the plate.

It was a long game and an odd night as four idiot customers ran onto the field and the third one did it naked while Joba Chamberlain threw warm-up pitches in the home eighth.

Today, the Yankees send ace CC Sabathia against a lineup in which Jack Cust, who doubled off Rivera in the 12th, has hit fourth for all year long. Lefty Jason Vargas tries to pitch the Mariners to a three-game sweep.

From there it’s on to Oakland where the A’s will throw Trevor Cahill (6-2; 2.02 ERA), Brett Anderson (3-4; 2.84) and Gio Gonzalez (5-2; 2.17).

After scoring three runs in the first three innings off Hernandez, the Yankees didn’t dent the plate in the fourth, fifth and sixth. And with two outs and Derek Jeter on first in the seventh it didn’t appear the Yankees would score the tying run.

Yet, Curtis Granderson tripled off the right-field wall inches away from Ichiro Suzuki’s glove and plated Jeter to tie the score, 4-4. Alex Rodriguez was next and much to the delight of Mariners fans who have never forgiven him for leaving, he fanned to end the inning.

Hernandez, who threw a season-high 128 pitches, was 4-0 with a 0.51 ERA in his last four starts against the Yankees but in seven innings he allowed four runs, six hits (two homers) and five walks.

Though the Yankees have dusted Pineda and Hernandez they have struggled with Mariners relievers who have fired nine innings of blanks at them.

“They have thrown a lot of strikes, give them credit,” Robinson Cano said of the Mariners bullpen.

Cano and Mark Teixeira homered off Hernandez, but the Yankees went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position after going 1-for-6 Friday night.

george.king@nypost.com