Bedard one tough cookie M’s fans can savor

SEATTLE – Another Opening Day first.

SnowDo Mojo.

Not to worry, of course, since there is a roof on Safeco Field that rolls back and forth like a giant Mason jar lid on casters. Maybe technology will be available in the future to make it look cooler – like a ragtop on a ‘63 Lincoln – but on Monday any kind of cover was a blessing.

Not the only one the Seattle Mariners counted – starting with the 5-2 victory over the Texas Rangers that leaves the M’s in sole possession of first place in the American League West.

Can they hang on for 161 more games?

If some of the elements – and we’re not talking meteorology – that were evident Monday can be sustained, manager John McLaren’s charming and forthright optimism may yet be fulfilled.

Not that the notion jumped right out and grabbed the hearts and minds of the 46,334 who showed up for the Opening Day dirt opera.

They were there to give the once-over to the M’s latest savior, pitching ace Erik Bedard, acquired from the Baltimore Orioles in the off-season at the daunting price of that most coveted of baseball coins – the Can’t-Miss Prospect, more familiarly known in this case as Adam Jones.

As it happened, he didn’t wow, but he didn’t wilt, either.

After striking out leadoff batter Ian Kinsler, Bedard surrendered a line drive home run to Michael Young and proceeded to labor through a 30-pitch first inning. And a 22-pitch second inning. And a 25-pitch third inning. And …

“Reminded me of Felix (Hernandez) last year,” chuckled McLaren.

“We’d look up and he’d have 30 pitches in the first inning. Makes you wonder, ‘How far can he go?’ “

And whether it’s worth the trip.

Bedard is known as a dreadfully poor interview – and nothing he said in the postgame scrum belied that – but it can’t be any more aggravating than the rain-delay tempo he brings to his work on the mound. A run to the snack bar between pitches is not out of the question. It took him longer to finish an inning Monday than it did to complete the trade that brought him here.

Some of that was his erratic command. His fastball was alive, hitting 93 mph with regularity, but he was having trouble spotting both it and his curve. He faced 22 batters and eight went to a full count.

But he wouldn’t give in, either. After the Young homer, he survived four walks, an error and two singles before leaving after the fifth inning with Seattle trailing 1-0.

“He’s a bulldog,” McLaren said. “He hung in there and kept us in the game, gave us a chance to win.”

The Mariners wouldn’t mind if Bedard dazzled in a few outings, too, but they covet toughness even more. The losing streaks they endured in 2007 – nine games, seven, and six twice – were largely the result of having no one besides Hernandez in the rotation with a buck-stops-here approach. The off-season retooling makes them better equipped not to have those slides again.

“We got a No. 1 and a No. 3 (starter),” McLaren pointed out. “That’s not like getting a 4 and a 5.”

The M’s other off-season adjustment paid some dividends, too.

No American League team accrued fewer walks in 2007 than the Mariners – 389. By comparison, the world champions in Boston walked 300 more times and if you can’t match the payroll, patience at the plate seems a worthy trait to imitate. Six walks – plus an intentional – spoke to a better approach, but there was another positive indicator, too: Jose Lopez’s production in the No. 2 spot in the lineup.

Starting with the ugliest hit-and-run in baseball history.

That happened in the sixth inning and led to two runs that made a tough-luck loser out of Texas starter Kevin Millwood – Lopez barely getting the ball past the infield grass, but to the perfect spot where Kinsler no longer was, covering second with Ichiro Suzuki on the move.

“I heard Mac say it wasn’t pretty,” said Raul Ibanez, who followed with the game-tying single, “but that was a tough pitch – a running fastball up and in, 90-plus mph – and he got on top of it and hit it to the right side and something great happened.”

The next inning, after reliever Kazuo Fukumori had loaded the bases – and allowed another run on a wild pitch – Lopez worked the count to 2-2 before delivering a sharp double past the third-base bag.

“It’s hard to outslug people every night,” McLaren said. “You lose games 9-7, it takes something out of you. Whatever it takes to add on runs – hit-and-run, steal and bunt – we want to do it.”

And the addition is easier if you don’t have to subtract due to the starting pitching.

“That’s something you could recognize before this game,” said center fielder Ichiro, speaking through an interpreter.

“If you look at the players on this team, you can see we can calculate a certain amount of wins. Last year, we had a team where we had to sort of win some games by accident. This team is different.”

As different as snow on Opening Day? We’ll see.

Oh, and Adam Jones? He was 0 for 3 in Baltimore on Monday. But there are 161 more to go.