Edgar Has Webb In Sight

Mention the word “chase” to Edgar Martinez, he will politely refer you to the American League West standings, which this morning find Seattle lingering five lengths behind the Texas Rangers.

During an eagerly anticipated showdown weekend with Texas in which 51 runners crossed the plate and more than 100,000 fans passed through the Kingdome turnstiles, the Mariners picked up a grand total of one game.

This is baseball, where the gentle ebbs and soft flows of the long summer are disrupted only by the occasional Albert Belle tirade. But on another front, the chase scene is quite more frantic. By slapping a pair of doubles in his first two trips to the plate Sunday, Martinez fattened his league-leading total of two-base hits to 39 - and made his assault on Earl Webb’s major-league record of 67 less a matter of If than When.

When Martinez finally closes in on the Webb Site, it’s quite possible the designated hitter will lose entire clumps of hair, as the tormented Roger Maris did upon mounting his successful challenge to Babe Ruth’s single-season homer record of 60 in 1961. But if Martinez goes bald and cranky on us, it won’t be because he was consumed by the legacy of William Earl Webb, whose ownership of a 65-year-old mark has given him an anonymity the quiet Martinez craves.

A slow-footed outfielder, Earl Webb played for five different clubs over seven seasons. In 1933, two years after he set the doubles standard with the Red Sox, Webb produced five two-base hits in 64 games, then retired to Tennessee. Alas, as he died in 1965, Webb’s reflections on the tenuous state of his record remain a mystery best probed by Hillary Clinton.

Webb’s mark is not as familiar to fans as, say, the .424 Roger Hornsby hit in 1921, or the 190 RBI Hack Wilson produced in 1930, or Maris’ homer record. And yet, 65 years old and still standing, it is right there among the record-book redwoods.

Consider this: Over the past four decades, only eight men have hit as many as 50 doubles in a season. Among relatively modern players, nobody has gotten closer to Webb than Hal McRae and John Olerud, each of whom hit 54.

Now comes Martinez, on an 80-doubles pace that not only would pass Webb but lap the whole field. The possibility awes Piniella, who in 1972 led the league with 33 doubles.

“Edgar,” said Piniella, “is a doubles machine.”

A machine, we might add, that is more inclined to whir softly than make a lot of noise.

“I’m driving the ball more in the air,” Martinez said Sunday. “Before, I used to hit the ball on the ground. But I like it this way, because I’m in scoring position a lot.”

Piniella offered another theory.

“He uses all parts of the field. Outfielders don’t know where to defense him. He hits the ball to left-center, to right-center, down the left-field line, down the right-field line. You can’t play him in one special area.”

As Piniella also realizes, you can’t not play Martinez, even when he is in the throes of an inevitable slump. Watching the defending A.L. hitting champ struggle recently, Piniella and batting coach Lee Elia pondered the idea of sitting their most productive offensive player down.

Were the Mariners blessed with good health, Martinez would have gotten a day off from the mental grind. But with Ken Griffey Jr. already on the shelf and his team’s beleaguered pitching staff giving up runs in clusters, Piniella simply didn’t have that luxury.

When you’re forced to go the slugfest route, you need every slugger at the fest. No, Martinez would have to play himself out of the slump.

Which is what he did against the Rangers. Saturday, he culminated an exquisite at-bat sequence with a home run, Then, in the series’ finale, he put the Mariners on the board in the first inning by slamming a Bobby Witt pitch down the left-field line. It was Martinez’s first two-base hit since June 21.

In the World According to Edgar, that’s a slump.

“When you’ve played every inning of every game - and you know the All-Star game is coming up, with a chance to rest for a couple days - this is one of the toughest weeks of the season to hit,” said Piniella. “But it was impossible getting him out of there. He’s such an experienced ballplayer, such a professional hitter.”