Can M’s figure out how to win?

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, April 2, 2006

SEATTLE – High above Safeco Field’s right-field foul pole hang the banners. One lists the years in which the Mariners participated in the American League Championship Series, in 1995, 2000 and 2001. Three others hail them as AL West champions in 1995, 1997 and 2001.

The glory years seem so much longer ago than that.

That’s what losing does. It permeates. It extends time. It hides the good times and makes them appear unreachable again.

The Mariners have gone through two straight years of 90-plus defeats.

Inside the home clubhouse, new catcher Kenji Johjima, through an interpreter, told reporters how special a year this is for him, to have joined this new team and play the game at its highest level.

Then he was asked what he expects, starting today, Opening Day of the 2006 season.

“First of all, the most important thing is to win,” he said. “Then I want to catch the last pitch, hide it in my back pocket and go home after that.”

He appears genuinely excited, the Mariners’ new catcher does. But you wonder whether he knows what he’s in for: whether he fully anticipated what was ahead when he signed his three-year, $16.5 million contract and moved across the Pacific from his native Japan.

The Mariners aren’t what they were. Gone is the fence-bashing crew we associated with the names “Edgar” and “A-Rod” and “Boonie”. Pitching – starting and relief – has been spotty, expected of a team that’s lost more than 180 games in two seasons.

“The losing gets old,” said Jamie Moyer, 43, the M’s Opening Day starter. “We need to learn how to win. We have guys here who are learning the big-league situation. At the same time, they’ve got to learn how to win. We have to learn that as an individual and as a team and as a coaching staff.”

Is it realistic, though? The major off-season additions are Johjima, starting pitcher Jarrod Washburn and designated hitter Carl Everett. The M’s are gambling that Gil Meche will work out his puzzling ineffectiveness. They’re also gambling that Joel Pineiro will regain his form of 2002 and 2003, when he piled up 30 victories.

Spring training produced no steady left-handed relief. Right-hander Rafael Soriano enters his first full season in the bigs after having undergone Tommy John surgery in 2004. He is a question mark.

Aside from Moyer and Everett, it is a team of youngsters, most of whom are unproven and have little experience at this level. Yet, Moyer says he sees signs that this could be the year the M’s turn it around.

“This is a team that could possibly have the ability to surprise somebody, depending on his we get out of the gates and if we continue to play the way we showed signs of playing in spring training,” he said. “There are a few guys here who haven’t played a full season at the major league level. There’s a number of guys who have.”

If it does, it will surprise more than a few. The media overwhelmingly predicts the team will again occupy the division’s basement. If the Mariners have improved, the reasoning goes, so has the rest of the division.

And so you wonder about the future of general manager Bill Bavasi and of second-year manager Mike Hargrove. How much longer will upper management stay with them if the team is out of the pennant race by Memorial Day?

It’s Opening Day, when virtually every team brims with optimism.

Two straight years of losing have given this team optimism that can be termed as guarded. “Could and “might” replace “will.”

Losing does that, too.