SEATTLE - The Kansas City Royals are trying their best to stay positive during their long losing streak. That's no easy task when you've lost 17 straight games.

"When you're real young, you're really competitive," 21-year-old pitcher Zack Greinke said. "This is getting old."

The Royals' losing streak reached 17 Tuesday night when they lost 4-3 to the Seattle Mariners on Yuniesky Betancourt's go-ahead infield single in the eighth inning.

"I think it's gotten past the point of frustration for us," veteran outfielder Matt Stairs said.

The Royals will try to break their losing skid - and avoid their 18th defeat in a row - at Safeco Field tonight, with D.J. Carrasco (5-6) scheduled to start against Jamie Moyer (9-4).

"I want the young guys to sit by their lockers with their heads up," said Stairs, the Royals' elder statesman at 37. "The only thing I can do is try to be positive."

But that's got to be hard when the AL record of 21 consecutive defeats - set by Baltimore at the start of the 1888 season - is fast approaching. The Royals' club-record skid is the longest in the major leagues since the Orioles' slump.

The 1961 Philadelphia Phillies dropped 23 straight from July 29 to Aug. 20, according to the Elias Sports Bureau - the longest losing streak in the big leagues since 1900.

"You don't wish something like that on anybody," Seattle manager Mike Hargrove said. "What they're going through, you don't wish that on your worst enemy. Buddy Bell is a real close personal friend of mine. I hope they go on a winning streak when they leave here."

On May 31, Bell became the third Royals manager of the season following Tony Pena, who resigned on May 10, and interim manager Bob Schaefer, but he was missing for the second night in a row.

Bell had been expected back from Arlington National Cemetery, where he attended services Monday for his nephew, a Marine killed in Iraq. Lance Cpl. Tim Bell Jr. was killed by a roadside bomb this month.

Schaefer, the team's bench coach who filled in, said Bell would definitely be at Wednesday's game.

"He just got hung up tonight," Schaefer said.

The Royals lost by one run for the fourth time during their skid, and for the third time in three days. They dropped a pair of one-run games in a doubleheader Sunday in Detroit.

With the score tied at 3, Jeremy Affeldt (0-2) gave up a two-out single to Jeremy Reed in the eighth and walked Mike Morse. Reed stole third on the first pitch to Betancourt, then scored when the rookie hit a grounder deep in the hole at shortstop.

Angel Berroa fielded the ball and threw to second base, but Morse beat the play.

The Royals said Reed's stolen base was the key for the loss, and Affeldt blamed himself for not holding Reed close.

"With two outs, I probably should have looked him back a couple of times, but I didn't," the pitcher said. "All these losses are tough. But this is how it's going for us."

Reed had two stolen bases in the game, his fifth and sixth of the season. He's been thrown out eight times.

Joel Pineiro (5-7) won his second straight decision, pitching eight innings and giving up three runs and six hits. Eddie Guardado worked the ninth for his 29th save in 31 opportunities.

Kansas City finished with six hits, two by Stairs.

The Royals' skid started July 28 with a 10-5 loss at Tampa Bay. Four of the defeats have been by one run, including two losses in a doubleheader Sunday at Detroit.

Kansas City took a 3-2 lead in the second on David DeJesus' sacrifice fly. The Mariners tied it on Adrian Beltre's sacrifice fly in the third.

In the first, the Royals went ahead 2-0 on an RBI single by Stairs and a sacrifice fly by Emil Brown. The Mariners came back to tie it in the bottom half on RBI singles by Raul Ibanez and Beltre.

Greinke pitched the first six innings for Kansas City, allowing three runs and eight hits with seven strikeouts.

Greinke said things are going so badly for the Royals that he momentarily quit talking to his girlfriend on Sunday night.

"I told her I just didn't feel like talking," he said. "That's how bad things are going."