M's lose Bedard — again — and an early opportunity over the Angels

The Mariners got Erik Bedard for just this kind of afternoon. They traded away a heavy chunk of their future so they would have a pitcher of his quality to throw at a team as good as the Los Angeles Angels.

Sunday in the park with Erik.

It could have been a marketing campaign.

The M's traded for Bedard to send a message to the West, a message to the entire American League, that they were players again.

He was their missing link.

If Bedard had been on the mound Sunday, the Mariners had a chance at an early-season, message-sending, three-game sweep of the Angels, their chief threat in the AL West.

The Angels are vulnerable now. Their two best starters, John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar, are on the disabled list. Escobar might be gone for the season.

The AL West game plan should be to beat up the Angels, while they're beaten up. For the Mariners, this is winning time.

But for the second time in two weeks, the pain in Bedard's left hip flared. And for the second time in two weeks, he was scratched from his start.

Sunday in the park without Erik.

"We don't think it's a serious thing," Mariners' manager John McLaren said before Sunday's 10-5 loss to the Angels. "But we don't want it to lead into anything. We're trying to be patient with our pitchers."

It's April. There is no need to push through the pain and risk a major injury that changes the course of the season.

But, because of his talent and the promise he brought from Baltimore, every Bedard start will be an event this season and every start he misses will be cause for disappointment, anger and even panic.

Bedard wasn't available to the media on Sunday. If he had been, he probably would have answered: "No." "Yes." "I don't know" and "Maybe" to questions about his condition.

In other words, he doesn't like talking about himself.

But Bedard doesn't have to be a bard. He can be as mute as Marceau if he throws his diabolical breaking ball every fifth day.

Steve Carlton never spoke to Philadelphia writers, but he won Cy Youngs and a World Series with the Phillies. Bedard can be the 21st century Carlton and nobody will care as long as he wins big games and takes the Mariners deep into the postseason.

He doesn't have to talk, but he has to pitch. He's the $9 million key to this season. He has to be as dependable as daybreak, which makes today's medical report the most anticipated piece of news in the early season.

The Mariners need Bedard healthy in a hurry.

And he isn't the only pitcher causing the Mariners concern. After starter Cha Seung Baek struggled through 4-1/3 innings, (suggestion: recall knuckleballer R.A. Dickey and send down Baek), Eric O'Flaherty, who was supposed to be the lights-out set up man, was lit up.

The Mariners trailed 2-0 when O'Flaherty entered in the fifth. They were down 10-4 when he left after seven. He allowed six runs and eight hits in 2-2/3 innings. After going 7-1 last season, O'Flaherty is 0-1 and has a 20.25 earned-run average this season.

"He was a valuable part of our bullpen last year," McLaren said, "but it isn't happening for him right now. Some of it is bad location. And some of it has to do with not being relaxed. We're trying to let him pitch his way through it. "

With lefty Arthur Rhodes almost ready to return, and Cesar Jimenez pitching well in Tacoma, the Mariners have options. O'Flaherty needs a trip to Tacoma to rediscover the swagger that carried him through 2007.

"We have some decisions to make," McLaren said.

Two weeks into the year, with closer J.J. Putz on the DL, the Mariners have won three of their four series and still are one game under .500. That's the good news-bad news of this season's first fortnight.

But today's medical report on Bedard could determine how good or bad the next 24 weeks in Seattle will be.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.