Youngsters Lift Mariners Bragg, Rodriguez Break Loose, Helping Johnson Improve To 5-0

The Seattle Mariners have a history of producing great young players with regularity - every 10 years or so they get one, keep him and build a franchise around him.

Ken Griffey Jr. might have been the last, and he came up in 1989.

Awaiting the next class of kids has been a spectator sport in the years since. They show up. They go down. They get traded. They don’t pan out.

Unfortunately for Kansas City, two keepers - outfielder Darren Bragg and shortstop Alex Rodriguez - chose Sunday to remind anyone watching that the future is arriving daily.

Bragg had three more hits, including a pair of doubles, and Rodriguez went 3 for 3 with a pair of home runs and five RBIs as Seattle ended its homestand with an 8-5 victory that sent a Kingdome crowd of 27,470 home happy.

What that crowd had seen was the future. And the present. And Randy Johnson, to boot.

“He’s the anchor to this team,” Bragg said of the “Big Unit.” “We need him. It’s like we never lose when he pitches.”

For a kid who hasn’t been around that much, Bragg knows his anchors. After an 11-game stretch where he couldn’t run, couldn’t ride a bike - couldn’t do much of anything - Johnson’s return to the Mariners rotation seemed like old times.

Though he lasted only five innings, Johnson got the victory that was his 12th in a row, and by winning a game he started, the Mariners merely continued one of the more astounding streaks in baseball. In Johnson’s last 40 starts, Seattle has won 36 times.

Backed by another landslide of extra-base hits, Johnson survived four first-inning stolen bases by the Royals, who swiped a run to go up 1-0 and then couldn’t score again until the eighth inning.

“My hamstring tightened up, I was out of gas and hurting a little at the end,” Johnson said. “But I did what I could as long as I could do it.”

It was enough Sunday in large part because half of Seattle’s 12-hit attack came from two players - Rodriguez and Bragg. And though it’s only May, don’t try telling the Mariners these two guys aren’t for real.

“We all knew the first time we laid eyes on Alex that his talent would take him a long, long way,” Jay Buhner said. “I think this is going to be a steppingstone season for him, the start of an amazing career.”

And Bragg? Buhner laughed.

“Darren is a grappler, he’s resilient. He’s been screwed a couple of times - sent down because of roster moves that had nothing to do with whether he was doing his job. He never said a word,” Buhner said. “It’s nice to see him get the chance to show he belongs here.”

Bragg, a 26-year-old fire-hydrant-shaped outfielder, is platooning as the Seattle leadoff hitter, and since being recalled from Tacoma on May 7, he’s batted .464. When he leads off, the Mariners’ record is 7-4.

“What he’s doing now is what he’s always done in the minors,” Rodriguez said.

“This is where he belongs,” added reliever Tim Davis, another minor league teammate now in the big leagues. “He can hit for power, for average, he can play defense, steal bases. He’s a scrapper, the kind of guy you love playing with.”

Sunday against the Royals, Bragg singled, doubled twice, stole a base and scored three times.

“I did my job,” he said.

And then there was Rodriguez. On a day when the Mariners tied the club record with eight doubles in a game - for the second time in less than 24 hours - the Mariners shortstop stood out.

His two-run home run in the third put the Mariners ahead, 2-1. And after the team had wobbled in the eighth inning, giving up four Kansas City runs that helped the Royals close to one run at 6-5, Rodriguez hit another two-run home run in the eighth.

“He hit a nasty pitch,” manager Lou Piniella said. “He was behind in the count. That was a nice piece of hitting.”

Johnson (5-0) got the victory. Norm Charlton got the save. The Mariners (20-17) got out of town with two consecutive victories. And a couple of hot young players.

Rodriguez, at 20 the youngest player in the big leagues, now is hitting .312 with five home runs and 23 RBI in just 22 games. Bragg is hitting .366, with eight runs scored and five RBI in 12 games.

“Alex’s talent has always been impressive, but the one thing he was missing was patience at the plate,” Piniella said.