Bedard excellent in 1-0 Mariners win

One could taste the nostalgia building up in the stadium as strike after strike was fired by the home team.

Those watching the Mariners dismantle the defending World Series champion Boston Red Sox from the mound could reflect back to a simpler time. Back when Erik Bedard was still a savior, destined to bridge a gap to late-inning relievers Brandon Morrow and J.J. Putz. Not to mention a long-awaited playoff berth.

Bedard finally delivered all that and more in this 1-0 win over the Red Sox on Wednesday night. But the taste of victory was tempered by the realization of just how long in coming this night truly was.

"As a pitcher, you always try to get the most rhythm you can," said Bedard, who stymied the Red Sox on two hits through seven innings while striking out eight. "Inning by inning, you try to get the most you can."

Bedard finally found a rhythm his team could ride to victory over an opponent with a winning record. In a sense, this entire Seattle starting rotation has shown a rhythm the past four days not seen since the month of May began.

That month has coincided with the team's slide to oblivion. Which makes it that much tougher for a fan to digest what has transpired since Sunday in New York. That much tougher to dream about what might have been.

"The starting pitching has really picked it up," Mariners manager John McLaren said afterward. "And it's been huge for us."

So huge that the Mariners are now only 14 wins away from getting back to .500. Within continental radar distance of the Los Angeles Angels -- now just 11 ½ games ahead -- instead of space telescope range.

But the reality of the team's plight is only now sinking in for some, including those among the 30,752 fans at Safeco Field who gave the Mariners a rousing cheer as they left the field. That as good as the Mariners are playing right now, they needed to do so a whole lot sooner.

Needed Bedard to bridge the gap to Morrow to end the eighth with a 98-mph pitch and Putz to get through the ninth for the save.

What the team has received from Bedard, Miguel Batista before him, Felix Hernandez before that and Jarrod Washburn last Sunday was the way this team was supposed to look from the mound.

It was supposed to be able to ride a lone, third-inning home run by Yuniesky Betancourt off Red Sox starter Tim Wakefield to victory if that was all the offense could generate.

But it hasn't happened nearly enough. And Bedard, good as he has looked on some nights, has been as culpable as his fellow starters when it mattered most.

He beat up on the hapless San Diego Padres 12 days ago. But before that, he was finished just two-plus innings into a start at Texas. And after making mincemeat of the Padres, the New York Yankees stole his lunch, pulled the paper bag it came in over his head and beat him like a bongo drum for 4-1/3 gruesome innings at Yankee Stadium.

Bedard had a 6.35 earned-run average in May heading into this start.

"We've seen him over the years, we know what he's all about," McLaren said when asked whether he'd been wondering when the "real" Bedard was going to show up. "It takes time sometimes to get used to a new team, a new city, you name it."

Bedard caught the first two batters looking at third strikes. Despite throwing 25 pitches in the first inning, walking David Ortiz and getting Manny Ramirez to ground out in an epic at-bat, he served notice that he meant business in this one.

"It's real hard, them and the Yankees, they take a lot of pitches," Bedard said. "You've got to pound the strike zone early."

That he did all night. He averaged 14 pitches per frame the rest of the way -- using a sharp double play started by Jose Lopez with two on in the fourth to escape his only serious jam -- and never looked back. With Wakefield on his game for eight strong innings, Bedard couldn't afford even a glance over his shoulder.

"He would get strike one on them and then we could play with them a little bit," Mariners catcher Jamie Burke said.

It was Burke who told Bedard before the game that he had to use his changeup more often. The starter did that early on, confounding the Red Sox in that first inning.

"I told him we have to start throwing that pitch a little more and we've got to get it going," Burke said. "You can't go out there with two or three pitches. You've got to have that other pitch. And that's a great pitch."

And Bedard got that pitch going. He got a whole lot of pitches going, as did his fellow starters the past four days.

Now, all the team needs is a calendar. It's almost the end of May, yet the Mariners season appears to finally have begun.

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com.