M’s haven’t written off season quite yet

SEATTLE – The Seattle Mariners do not believe they are dead, and therefore their clubhouse does not feel like a morgue.

Cards are played, television is watched, conversations regularly include laughter.

If the American League standings look dramatically different from 2001, clubhouse rituals do not.

“You get used to the ups and downs of baseball because it is tough,” catcher Pat Borders said, based on his 12 years of major league service. “It’s a mental battle your whole career. If you let it affect you too adversely, you might not ever reach here anyway. You’ve got to be able to cast good and bad days aside.”

If any team ever had reason to believe bad days only led to worse days, it was the 2003 Detroit Tigers, who went 43-119.

Yet, their manager says defeats did not make them defeatists.

“Last year, we were especially good about this because we were losing and losing, and every day that I came into the clubhouse, I thought that we had a chance to win,” Alan Trammell said. “That’s just the attitude that we had to take.”

Mariners manager Bob Melvin strives for the same attitude, but he admits it isn’t always easy.

“Every day that you’re out here you’ve got to put your happy face on,” he said. “You wake up in the morning, you go to bed at night, your world feels very small. It absolutely consumes you. You feel like you have the whole weight of the State of Washington on your shoulders, and it’s not a great feeling.

“But you can’t get that broad in your thoughts to where you’re putting that much pressure on yourself. You’ve got to go out there and believe with the group that we have that we can succeed. And we certainly believe that.”