It’s early, but…

SEATTLE – There is only one reminder needed about how early it is in the baseball season: The Tigers, Brewers AND Mariners were all in first place as of Friday.

That’s before-Katie-and-Matt, not-yet-coherent early.

Still, Seattle’s hot opening week has revealed some of what the Mariners wondered about themselves since they finished their second straight 90-loss season last October and all through spring training.

First, and most fundamentally, they can win. Three straight times inside the tough A.L. West. Last season, they were 21-34 against the Los Angeles Angels, Oakland and Texas on their second consecutive trip to the division basement.

“It’s a good start. But it’s a long year,” new starter Jarrod Washburn said after holding his former Angels to two runs in seven innings Wednesday. “This shows people what kind of team we may have. We have high hopes for ourselves.”

Notice Washburn said “may.”

Those high hopes – which almost nobody outside the clubhouse shares – hinge on so many ifs, there may not be enough whens in this season to determine them.

The offense has been hot, scoring in bunches behind Richie Sexson’s American League-leading eight RBIs entering Saturday. And previously dormant Jose Lopez has been a bunting, opposite-field hitting revelation as the new No. 2 hitter.

But the key to the lineup – the resurfacing of Adrian Beltre to more like his 2004, MVP-like season with the Dodgers and less like his underwhelming Mariners debut last season – hasn’t unlocked anything yet. Beltre had three singles in 19 at-bats and had drawn just one walk through Friday.

He had, however, demonstrated Seattle’s only bedrock: outstanding defense. People are still talking about the play he made on Tuesday night, when he turned his back to home plate and ran deep in the left-field foul area to make a basket catch of an Orlando Cabrera pop-up with two men on base.

Mike Hargrove said Wednesday this is the best infield defense he’s had in 15 years of managing – better even than the Cleveland infields anchored by incomparable shortstop Omar Vizquel.

The Mariners have carried out Hargrove’s promise to be aggressive on the bases. They continually challenged the bazooka arm of Angels right fielder Vladimir Guerrero while advancing from first to third base on hits.

In Thursday’s series-opening win against Oakland, Raul Ibanez stretched a double to right field into a triple – but only because the umpire appeared to miss A’s third baseman Eric Chavez’s grazing tag.

“We are going to run into some ugly plays on the bases,” Hargrove said. “But for every ugly one, we’re going to have five really good ones. I’ll take that trade.”

The biggest Seattle “if,” the shaky bullpen, offered some clues.

The starting pitching might need to pitch into the eighth inning more times than they are built to do. Hargrove had a telling comment after Washburn ground through a seventh inning even though he admitted afterward he “was running on fumes.”

“The name of the game is to keep pitch counts low, so we can keep starting pitchers in the game,” Hargrove said.

Then Gil Meche started the next night and threw 101 pitches in 51/3, tedious innings that were like watching the Safeco Field grass grow.

Hargrove knows – and anyone who watches a Mariners game this season will likely find out – that Seattle’s bullpen is a nightly thrill ride. Nine of the Angels’ 17 runs in the opening series came against the relievers.

“The key to our year is going to be our bullpen,” new designated hitter Carl Everett said Thursday.

Opening day, George Sherrill and J.J. Putz lost a 3-3 tie in the ninth inning of a 5-4 loss. Putz entered and immediately allowed a single and a two-run, game-winning single. Tuesday, closer Eddie Guardado entered in the ninth to get work in a 10-5 game. Forty-one harrowing pitches later, the Mariners escaped with a 10-8 win.

He couldn’t be “Everyday Eddie” the next afternoon. The 35-year old sat and watched Sherrill allowed a walk and a hit in the ninth before stranding the tying runs for his first save in 52 career appearances.

Sherrill, who had such a poor spring training his roster place was briefly in doubt, acknowledged this wild bullpen is seeking a Plan B closer in case Guardado has more adventures like Tuesday’s.

“We’ve got a lot of young guys,” Sherrill said. “But we’ve got a lot of quality arms.”

But why cool this hot time? No one has to remind the Mariners how 2005 ended up. Or tell them the last time they were even two games over .500 was at the end of the 2003 season.

So don’t bother reminding.

“We’re having fun,” Everett said. “This team is believing in itself. And we want to stay flying under the radar.”