Mike Morse stood next to his locker in the Mariners clubhouse last night, watching his game-winning hit replayed on television.

Young enough to stare wide-eyed and say, "It's cool." Professional enough to try not to get caught up in the moment.

That's where the hot-hitting rookie shortstop resides these days.

Morse, a 23-year-old with a .345 batting average, added to his big-league resume résumé last night. His single to right field in the bottom of the ninth inning scored Adrian Beltre from third base and beat the Baltimore Orioles 3-2 in front of 39,282 fans at Safeco Field.

"This is a first at this level," Morse said. "This is awesome. Guys run out and congratulate you."

Morse is emerging as an inquisitive and perhaps even cerebral personality. He talked at length to reporters about the sliders that fooled him earlier in the game for two strikeouts — and how he wanted to make sure he didn't get burned again by the same pitch.

Appropriately enough, he took an 0-2 slider from Baltimore reliever Chris Ray (0-1) and dropped it neatly into the opposite field.

Beltre had squeezed a single between first and second base to open the ninth. He advanced to second after Willie Bloomquist chopped a bunt single to the third-base side of the mound, pushing his hitting streak to 11 games.

Ray fielded the hit cleanly but threw the ball over first baseman Rafael Palmeiro's head, into the stands. Beltre scooted to third.

Enter Morse.

"For a young kid," said Mariners manager Mike Hargrove, "he asks a lot of questions."

Morse will often talk strategy with Hargrove or hitting coach Don Baylor in the dugout before his at-bats, Hargrove said.

"He reminds me a lot of me when I was younger," Hargrove said. "I came up from A ball to the big leagues and really learned the game at the big-league level. I'm sure I was a pest to [his former manager] Jim Fregosi. I asked him 40,000 questions a day.

"Mike's doing the same thing. It's a good way to learn."

Before the late drama, the game had proved to be a rather unconventional pitching duel between Seattle's Jamie Moyer and Baltimore's Bruce Chen. The two soft-tossing left-handers, both armed with control and guile, threw tantalizing truckloads of 75-mph Charmin.

The matchup proved compelling for the pitchers' stubborn refusal to digress from in-the-dirt junk balls and down-and-away changeups.

Moyer teetered between success and disaster all evening. He gave up at least one hit in all but one of his eight innings — 10 hits for the game.

He also left nine men on base, five of them at second or third.

Still, in eight innings and 120 pitches, he gave up only two runs, walked one, struck out five and escaped from several big jams.

He left the game with the scored tied 2-2. And it was up to the bullpens to settle the outcome.

Equally important to the Mariners' victory was winning pitcher J.J. Putz (2-3), who relieved Moyer in the ninth.

With one out in the top of the inning, Orioles All-Star Brian Roberts doubled just over the head of Beltre at third base.

But Putz struck out Baltimore slugger Sammy Sosa and induced a fly ball to right from Melvin Mora to end the threat.

It appeared the Mariners would abuse Chen early. Randy Winn doubled in the first, and advanced to third on a throwing error by Chen on a pickoff attempt.

Raul Ibanez promptly drove him in with a sacrifice fly. Richie Sexson followed with a majestic home run to left-center field, his 20th of the year. Sexson has now homered in three of the past four games.

But Chen settled down and gave up only three hits the rest of the way.

The Orioles tied the score in the top of the fourth. Miguel Tejada walked to open the inning, and Palmeiro moved him to third with a sharp single to right, the 3,002nd hit of his career.

B.J. Surhoff scored Tejada with a sacrifice fly to deep right field, and Luis Matos doubled down the third-base line to move Palmeiro to third.

Larry Bigbie grounded out to second as Palmeiro ran home.

It appeared Palmeiro's 3,003rd hit also might cause serious damage to the Mariners. In the eighth, he singled crisply to right and advanced to third on a Matos single.

But this proved to be Moyer's most memorable escape. On a full count, with the crowd apprehensive and loud, Bigbie grounded out to Sexson for the final out of the inning.

Michael Ko: 206-515-5653 or mko@seattletimes.com