Marcus Littlewood, the Mariners’ newly signed second-round draft pick, took batting practice and fielded grounders before tonight’s game, and he came away from it feeling like most any teen-ager would.

“It was awesome,” said the 18-year-old from St. George, Utah. “Hopefully in a couple of years I’ll have the same opportunity.”

Several hundred at-bats and a climb through the minor leagues will determine that, but Littlewood impressed those who saw him today with his smoothness in the field and a quick bat.

Littlewood, a 6-foot-3, 195-pound shortstop, signed with the Mariners just before the Aug. 16 deadline, passing up his previous commitment to play at the University of San Diego. He’ll get a $900,000 signing bonus.

“It was such a relief to sign and get it over with,” he said. “Every single day I was contemplating school or pro ball.”

Littlewood hasn’t spent a dime of his bonus because he hasn’t gotten it yet; that won’t happen for about 30 days. When the money does arrive, Littlewood knows exactly what he’ll buy first — and no, it’s not a car.

“Probably a phone,” he said. “I have a piece-of-crap phone right now. I might buy my mom’s car, but I haven’t really thought about it. All that money stuff is over my head right now. All I’m worried about is playing.”

Littlewood will take part in the Mariners’ fall instructional program beginning in mid-September.

Other notes on a cool August evening at Safeco Field:

Outfielder Michael Saunders was relieved to learn that the MRI on his right shoulder showed nothing more than a deep bruise. He crashed into the outfield wall Aug. 5 and, when pain persisted, feared he might have torn apart a rotator cuff that had been surgically repaired two years ago.

Saunders needs a few days to recover from the MRI because it involved injecting dye into the shoulder. Manager Daren Brown believed he would be able to play the field on Monday. Until then, he can be used as a pinch runner.

“I was really relieved to find out what was going on,” Saunders said. “Any time you have surgery on something and you’re finally healthy, then you hurt that area and it’s a constant ache that isn’t going away, there’s something in the back of your mind making you think, ‘I hope I haven’t done it again.’ Rehabbing a year and a half isn’t fun and surgery isn’t fun either. But we got good news.”

On the day Felix Hernandez recorded his 1,000th career strikeout Wednesday in Boston, Ichiro Suzuki also reached the 1,000-strikeout mark. Suzuki’s whiff against Josh Beckett in the first game of the double-header was his 667th strikeout in 7,173 plate appearances in the major leagues. In Japan, he struck out 333 times in 4,098 plate appearances.

Until the Mariners went 6-6 on their recent road trip, the last time they’d gone .500 or better on the road was July 16-23, 2009, when they were 5-2 at Cleveland and Detroit.

Russell Branyan’s 17 road home runs this season tied him for second place in the majors, going into tonight’s games, with Adrian Gonzalez, Albert Pujols and Dan Uggla. Miguel Cabrera led the majors with 19 road homers.