SAN DIEGO — When he signed up to return to his hometown team last winter, Jeff Nelson made no secret of the idea this would be his last season.

He has changed his mind.

"I feel so good, I'd like to play one more year after this," said the 6-foot-8 reliever, one of a handful of three-time Mariners.

Ideally, he'd like to have his 2006 finale back with Seattle.

"The Mariners are at the top of my list, for all the obvious reasons," he said. "I'd like to think what they've seen of me this year might make them want to talk to me."

If not the Mariners, however, Nelson has also widened his horizons to other cities, especially on the West Coast.

"I keep myself in shape, and while I know I've lost some velocity, I think I've learned more about how to pitch and I'm as effective as ever," he said.

After missing much of last season when he was with Texas, Nelson was not used consistently in April and it showed in a rough start, a 4.50 earned-run average in only six games. At the beginning of May, manager Mike Hargrove settled on Nelson as his primary right-handed short man. Nelson's responsibility was to work the eighth, and sometimes come in during the seventh if the opposition lineup leaned to the right side.

"When you come off [knee, elbow] injuries you always wonder how it's going to be," Nelson said. "Then I got into my role, and I think it's been good."

Nelson allowed only three runs in 12 games in May and had his ERA down to 2.74, including seven more games in the first half of June, before allowing Mark Kotsay's three-run homer last week.

Take a seat, like it or not

At Hargrove's direction, Ichiro did not start for the first time this year.

"He didn't ask, I just gave it to him and he put up a mild protest," Hargrove said. "I know he wants to play, and as a manager I appreciate that, but this is an opportunity to give him two days off."

Make that two days out of the lineup, with today an off-day. But there was a chance Hargrove could find a use for Ichiro's multiple abilities as a late-game weapon.

That turned out to be the case when Ichiro pinch-hit for Mike Morse with two outs and no one on base in the ninth. Ichiro lined out to end the game.

"Not starting is the big break, and it's as much mental as physical," Hargrove noted.

It was having two days off that bothered Ichiro most.

"He didn't think he needed it. He's one of the toughest guys mentally I've ever been around," Hargrove said.

When you gotta go ...

Seattle relievers were dismayed to find out when they got here that the beautiful, still-new Petco Park does not have a bathroom in the visitors' bullpen, which is down the right-field line, on the opposite side of the field from the visitors' bench.

No one was more dismayed than lefty Matt Thornton, who had go to the bathroom during the game Friday night. To do so, he had to climb over a fence to reach a public restroom, where he had to stand in line.

"I met a guy named Stan, who invented a baseball cap with a handle so you can take it off fast to catch foul balls," Thornton said. "He said he tested it at a batting cage on pitches at 75 mph and caught five before the seams started to give out."

Closer Eddie Guardado said that the visitors' bullpen in San Francisco doesn't have a bathroom, either.

"It's not that bad there; the dugout is closer and you can run back," Guardado said. "Maybe it's just they didn't think of it, or maybe they're trying to be cute. It could be tough to pitch well if you gotta go, you know?"

Progress report

Don Baylor and Randy Winn, the Mariners' only African-Americans currently in uniform, said they did not realize the significance of wearing retro uniforms from 1938 on Saturday. Segregation in baseball would not have permitted Baylor and Winn to wear the uniforms if it really was 1938.

"I don't think there are many days that go by when we don't think of Jackie Robinson and what he did for us," Baylor said. "It's an indication of how far we've come that we didn't even think of it now, and that's a good thing."

Notes

• In addition to homering twice yesterday, the Padres' Damian Jackson worked a perfect delayed steal that put him in position to score his team's second run in their two-run third.

• Seattle's Adrian Beltre, who has been hampered by hamstring troubles, stole his second base of the season in the fourth, but was stranded on second.