Series-Ous Business At Dome Mariners Lift Up A Prayer For Some Offense As They Send Johnson’s Tired Wing Against Tribe

They will try to breathe new life into the best and brightest year in franchise history tonight, knowing that when the magic ends so will their season.

One loss away from a four-month sabbatical, the Seattle Mariners are two victories from a World Series matchup against Atlanta.

They have courted vacation earlier in October - four times - and on the brink of postseason elimination again, Seattle will turn to the heart and tired arm of the pitcher who has consistently pulled them back from the edge, Randy Johnson.

After a 144-game season, a one-game playoff for a division title, a momentous division series against New York, the year comes down to a wing and a prayer for Seattle tonight.

The wing belongs to Johnson. The prayer comes from the Mariners faithful, who will pack a sold-out Kingdome tonight: “Oh Lord, release our bats from bondage.”

If that wing - or those bats - fail, the Cleveland Indians will win the American League Championship Series tonight and earn their first World Series berth in 41 years.

“This series isn’t over,” Seattle manager Lou Piniella said. “The Indians haven’t won four games.”

They have won three, and what stands between Cleveland and the Fall Classic is a pitching staff held together by duct tape and an offense that has batted .193 this series - .091 with men in scoring position.

“We haven’t hit like we’re capable of hitting,” Tino Martinez said. “We know we can, but that doesn’t mean we will. We’re just about out of time.”

Underdogs from the outset against a Cleveland team that won 100 regular-season games - then swept Boston in a three-game Division Series - Seattle has held the Indians to 19 runs in five games.

Over the same span, the Mariners have scored just 12 times. Simply put, no matter how well Johnson pitches tonight, if Seattle’s bats don’t come to life, the Mariners are on sabbatical.

Piniella has scrambled his lineup, shuffled his hitters from one spot to another and known all along he could not hide key players fighting deep slumps. Before the series began, Piniella noted the Indians had held Red Sox hitters Jose Canseco and Mo Vaughn hitless in their division series.

“If (Ken Griffey) Junior and Edgar (Martinez) go 0-for-27, we can’t win, either,” Piniella said.

Griffey is batting .389, but the Martinez boys - Edgar and Tino - are a combined 4-for-39. Vince Coleman is 1-for-16, Dan Wilson 0-for-15.

“What you have to remember is that the Indians’ staff led the American League in earned-run average,” Joey Cora said. “They’ve pitched well this series, so have we. No one figured it would be a low-scoring series, but it has been - because we’ve pitched well, too.”

The failure to score has been laid principally at the feet of Edgar Martinez, who won his second batting championship this season. But the Mariners have all had opportunities to break games open and missed them.

Tonight, they will face their fifth win-or-be-eliminated game of the month. Each of the first four was played in the Kingdome - and Johnson won three, one in relief.

“We don’t roll over for anyone,” Johnson said. “I have a big heart and a lot of desire, and so does everyone on this team. We wouldn’t have made it this far without it. Everyone relishes the chance to pitch the big games, but no one relishes the idea that if we lose, we go home.”

They are home, of course, and if the Mariners have any edge tonight it might be the Kingdome and another noisy crowd. At home, they are 5-1 this month, and players believe the fans have something to do with that.

“There’s nothing in this league you can compare the noise to,” Cora said. “Infielders can’t communicate with each other, and when we get behind they have been so supportive they keep us going.”

The Indians come in confident but cautious. The Johnson they faced Friday wasn’t able to sustain his high90s fastball for eight innings, and though they did not beat him, he did not beat them, either.

They don’t figure him to be stronger on three days rest.

“He’s human,” Cleveland’s Kenny Lofton said. “He’s good, but like I said last week, he’s just a pitcher. I like our position.”

“We come in needing to win one, not two, and that’s a big edge,” Indians manager Mike Hargrove said. “But we’re playing a good team that is a better team at home than on the road. We can’t just show up. We’re going to have to beat them.”

Johnson is the first roadblock.

“No one projected we’d be here,” he said. “So being the underdog is no surprise. Lofton is right. I’m human. I can be beaten. But so can they.”

Seattle has tied the major league postseason record for home runs - hitting 16 in 10 playoff games - and will try to augment Johnson’s pitching with an offense Cleveland has frustrated throughout the series.

“Nobody said it was going to be easy,” Griffey said.