M’S Primed To Make Run First Half Has Been Second To None

“You think it’s easy?”

- former Mariners coach Sam Perlozzo

In professional sports, the easy part is getting there. The hard part starts once you’re there.

For the Seattle Mariners, getting to respectability, never mind the promised land of the postseason, was a 19-year slog through the wilderness - a series of hopeless, hapless teams bewitched, bewildered, and almost always, beaten.

Once there, the whimsical words third-base coach Perlozzo uttered constantly have lingered like a legacy since he went to the Baltimore Orioles last winter. The Mariners Way is never easy.

They captured the country’s fancy, as they captured the A.L. West and their divisional series against the Yankees. Yet instead of gentling, Seattle’s slope steepened.

For success begets salary hikes. Salary hikes beget goodbyes.

Tino Martinez, Jeff Nelson, Tim Belcher, Bill Risley, Andy Benes, Vince Coleman.

Gone.

Was Mariners Magic gone with them? “What we had to do - move some players and replace them with players that fit our salary structure - is part of small-market reality,” Seattle general manager Woody Woodward said. “We think we did a good job. To this point we have good results.”

With the citizenry watching, Seattle regrouped. Energized by manager Lou Piniella, whose restless creativity and forceful personality have made as much of the M’s as Ken Griffey Jr.’s play, Randy Johnson’s pitching, Jay Buhner’s leadership and Edgar Martinez’s line drives, Seattle spent the winter making moves.

There was a theme to the trades and acquisitions. “In virtually every one, we went out and got winners,” Buhner said. “We learned about winning on this club last year, but when we had holes to fill, this organization went out and brought back players who had helped their previous teams win.”

Sterling Hitchcock and Russ Davis. Paul Sorrento and Mike Jackson. Ricky Jordan and Brian Hunter.

They came, fit, and helped re-establish the clubhouse kinship that plays such a large part in team triumph. It is this, this ephemeral thing called chemistry, that has carried the Mariners through a first half that would have depressed Norman Vincent Peale.

“It’s been a struggle,” Piniella said. “But this club learned something about winning last year, a lesson that proved invaluable this year.”

Added Buhner: “I don’t think we’d have been as successful getting by without our horses if we hadn’t been successful last year, if we hadn’t gotten by without Junior for three months then. We know now we can do it, whatever it takes… .

“We scrape and scramble and deal with it. You don’t whine or moan about not having this guy or that, you just focus on what you’ve got and what we’ve got is a lot of good men.”

To have Johnson, whose glowering presence pulled his team through the last pennant race, go down with a disk problem was near tragic to the team whose margin for error is as small as the A.L. strike zone.

Losing Chris Bosio after that only intensified the heat on a pitching staff that, like two dozen others in the majors, is Rusty Meacham-thin.

But to lose Griffey for a second straight season - to a broken bone in the hand - was unimaginable.

This series of injuries was a knockdown pitch from the baseball gods, a beanball from the Ghost of Mariners Past.

But typical of this team on which toughness is as private as it is constant, the Mariners got up, dusted off, dug back in and have been hacking ever since. They are 26-21 since losing the best pitcher in the American League, 10-6 since losing the best player in the game.

Smoke? Mirrors?

“Gamers,” Piniella said. “We’ve got guys going to the All-Star Game and a number who aren’t going, who are tired, in need of rest. But because of the injuries we’ve taken, an unbelievable series … like I’ve never seen before in the game, I’ve had no chance to rest many of them.”

There has been no break for Buhner, Martinez, Alex Rodriguez, little for Dan Wilson. Yet not once has any of them begged out of the lineup. When Piniella told Rodriguez two weeks ago he was going to give him a day off, the shortstop said no. “If you don’t mind,” Rodriguez replied, “if I need a day, maybe I can let you know … if that’s OK?”

“OK?” Piniella asked. “That’s better than OK. That’s what every manager dreams of. I’m blessed with kids that play well and play hard. Our All-Stars are all gamers. They show the young players the way.”

The records prove out the gamer factor - which includes an effective coaching staff and the manager himself. Winning 10 of their past 16 games away from home, Seattle has the fourth best road record in the majors, 23-18. Only eight of 28 teams have winning records on the road.

Seattle has hit better on the road, too, 309, compared to .276 at the Kingdome, averaging 7.2 runs vs. 5.7.

In addition to the injuries, Seattle has come through a half season of failure to settle on five starting pitchers. The original group was Johnson, Bob Wolcott, Hitchcock, Edwin Hurtado and Bosio. Before long, Paul Menhart was in. Other failed experiments were Salomon Torres and Bob Milacki.

“We gave opportunities to kids with major-league experience and it didn’t work out,” Piniella said. “We had to get creative. It was like filling an inside straight.”

It’s been something of a winning hand. Matt Wagner was brought up from the minors, Wagner from Seattle’s system and Meacham from Kansas City’s. Bob Wells was brought in from the bullpen. “All of a sudden, there’s our rotation,” Piniella said.

The rotation: Hitchcock, Wolcott, Wagner, Wells and Meacham, a handful that would warm the cockles of George Argyros’ heart - cheap. With Johnson and Bosio and their $9.75 million combined on the disabled list, the current starters add up to $670,000 plus possible bonuses to Wolcott and Wells.

While the pitching has improved marginally - the staff earned-run average is 5.14 in the 12 games since Meacham arrived compared to 5.54 before - it is the offense that has provided survival. Seattle has hit better each month, from .270 March 31 through April, to .297 in May, to .306 in June to .317 in July. Through May, the offense had 92 homers in 52 games, a pace that would emulsify by 47 the record of 240 by the 1961 New York Yankees. The rate slowed through June and with Griffey out did not pick up until the team hit five homers Saturday night in Texas. Seattle is still on a pace to hit 255 homers, just ahead of Oakland’s projected 252.

Via home run or one of Edgar Martinez’s 42 doubles - he is on course for 80, which would wipe out Earl Webb’s 65-year old mark of 67 - the scoring has been phenomenal, a major-league best 6.3 runs a game.

Seattle has bludgeoned the enemy into submission for most of its victories. The Mariners are 41-25 when they score more than four runs.

“Our goal as the first half developed, injuries or not, was to come to this All-Star break staying in two races, the wild card and the division,” Piniella said. “Basically, we’ve done both.”

Seattle has never been in better shape at the break. While the M’s were closer, just two games behind Oakland in 1993 at 44-44, they’ve never had more victories or been in second place at this point in a season.

“We should be getting our disabled guys back throughout the month of July,” Piniella said. “By the end of the month, I’d like to see us in position to make a run in August and September.”