Mariners feel like they're back in the game

When listing teams that will occupy a pressure cooker this season, the Seattle Mariners would likely top the list. Another last-place finish (they've had three straight) and you're going to see heads roll. Manager Mike Hargrove's head. General manager Bill Bavasi's head. And you'd probably see Ichiro Suzuki heading to another team as a free agent.

After watching Tuesday's 14-3 loss to the Red Sox, you had to think, "How will the Mariners ever get this right?" After watching last night's 3-0 win, with a 21-year-old phenom throwing a one-hitter with help of a very good defense, you realize this team has a chance.

Most of the Mariners would talk about the difficulty of sitting for five days because of inclement weather, as they did after their opening series with Oakland, and then playing the Red Sox in their home opener and facing a nasty Josh Beckett.

Hargrove said all of the right things after that loss, that the performance was unacceptable, but that he was going to give his team a pass. What else could he do? He could close the doors and flip over the postgame spread, but he knew in baseball there is always another day. And that day came last night, when in a tidy 2 hours 22 minutes, Felix Hernandez cured his team's ills.

The Seattle defense also did its part. It's hard to get anything past Adrian Beltre, who Mike Lowell considers the most talented third baseman in baseball. And second baseman Jose Lopez saved Hernandez's no-hit bid in the fifth with a pair of spectacular plays. Even Raul Ibañez, who is best suited to be the designated hitter, made a diving catch of Kevin Youkilis's liner to left in the seventh.

"We've done a lot of good things so far this year," said Mariners bench coach John McLaren. "We went in against an Oakland team that took us 17 out of 19 last year and we beat them two out of three and we showed them we're not the same team as last year and we're not going to be easy to beat. Throughout the bad weather we stayed indoors and worked in the cages and did our work as best we could. We've faced tough, tough pitchers like the kid tonight [Daisuke Matsuzaka] and Rich Harden and Beckett, and we've had good games pitched against us."

McLaren has always taken losses hard, but even he knew after Tuesday's blowout that there was nothing anyone could do. There was no reflection needed, though there was a sense of embarrassment.

"Things were left unsaid," McLaren said. "We put that one behind us and we knew we had our No. 1 going the next day and this kid [Hernandez] gave us a lift. There's no doubt about it. When we get that kind of pitching and we get the defense we got . . . our catcher [Kenji Johjima] called a heck of a game tonight. He was really in synch with Felix. This was nice. This was something we needed."

Now 3-2, the Mariners could face yet another postponement today with bad weather forecast. That's not what they need. The Mariners already are backed up four games after a snowstorm postponed a Friday-Monday series in Cleveland. But if Oakland is on the decline and Texas fades, as it usually does, the Mariners may be able to stay in the hunt with the Angels, especially with an ace like Hernandez.

"I would never want to make excuses," said Jose Vidro, "but we had five days off. We can do a lot of work in the cages but it's not the same as playing baseball for real. Tonight it felt like we were playing baseball again. This was a big game for us."

For a long time, the Mariners were thinking no-hitter. Hernandez brought one into the eighth before J.D. Drew ended it with a single, Chris Bosio's no-no April 22, 1993, in Seattle remaining the last one thrown against the Sox. At 21 years old and possessing a 97-mile-per-hour fastball and a 12-6 curveball that's baffling, Hernandez's chances of pitching one someday are better than most.

Johjima was right on Matsuzaka's pitches all night, while Ichiro struggled. Johjima had 122 at-bats against Dice-K in Japan. He acknowledged his familiarity with Matsuzaka after the game, "but I haven't seen a gyroball yet." Johjima struck for a pair of doubles and also drew a walk. He caught Hernandez's gem and seemed to put down all of the signs. The Mariners couldn't think of a time Hernandez shook him off.

Beltre, Vidro (who had two hits and broke out of an 0-for-11 slump), and Yuniesky Betancourt drove in the runs. When Matsuzaka left pitches up in the zone, Johjima, Beltre, Vidro, and Lopez didn't miss. As big of a downer as Tuesday was, last night was uplifting. All of the hoopla was directed at the other side of the field.

Ichiro, who had struck out three times in Japan in 1999 the first time he faced Matsuzaka, went 0 for 5 last night and is now 0 for 8 with four strikeouts in the first two games of this series. He had gone 4 for 10 with two RBIs and two runs in the first three games of the season, but he's run into his old nemesis in Matsuzaka.

Asked whether Matsuzaka was the same pitcher he remembered, Ichiro said, "We've both changed. We're both different."

Whether Ichiro was the star or not wasn't the issue. He's one player you know will put up the numbers before all is said and done. That wasn't what the Mariners were looking for. Rather, they were looking for something to hang their hat on. There were smiles in the Seattle clubhouse for the first time in a while.

This is a team that can't have many days like Tuesday. It occupies a pressure cooker and the Mariners know the only way out is to have more days like yesterday.

Nick Cafardo can be reached at cafardo@globe.com.