M’s showing signs of team on a roll

SEATTLE – Follow along with this logic, but watch out for the ess curves:

A merciless sweep of the San Francisco Giants in a three-game series this past weekend at Safeco Field is the fulcrum upon which the Seattle Mariners will swivel toward resurrection and redemption, and possibly even the unfathomable.

Hey, manager Mike Hargrove did reference October in his postgame remarks Sunday, and he didn’t appear to be under the influence of any Father’s Day fruit punch at the time.

And why was this sweep the turning point rather than, say, the sweep of the Los Angeles Angels just a week ago? Because, of course, in between the M’s managed to get themselves ingloriously mugged by Oakland.

Lost you, right?

OK, try this: It is more difficult, and therefore more meaningful, to play well after playing badly after playing well.

Better? No?

Then keep it simple: The Mariners are on a roll. It might not last. But they’d like to think it will.

Really, can you expect much else out of baseball?

“The more we can play well and play solid baseball, the closer we get to that goal of coming to the ballpark every day expecting to win no matter who’s pitching or who we’re playing,” Hargrove said. “It’s a process you have to go through to build that sort of confidence and have that sort of realistic expectation, and it’s not done overnight.

“But I think we’re headed down that road right now.”

Well, surely they are headed back on the road right now – nine games against the Dodgers, Padres and Diamondbacks. It will be worth checking back after that for a more definitive prognosis, or maybe not.

It is a happy development that the Mariners are feeling good about themselves, having won nine of their last 13 – and, truly, they couldn’t have pitched or played much better than they did against the Giants, though the point is sustaining it. Giants manager Felipe Alou, at least, thinks they will.

“They’re not going to stay where they are now,” he predicted. “They’re a lot better than where they are now. They’re going to compete well. They’ve got very good pitching and a great closer, speed and some power.”

And where are they exactly? Well, just two victories better than they were at the same point last season, which you’ll recall ended with 93 losses and teeth grinding all around Safeco loud enough to drown out the trains rumbling along beyond right field.

But they are also just five games out of first place in the American League West instead of 10, and they have somehow goosed a 16 percent increase in offensive production even with the purported biggest boppers in the lineup not bopping so very much.

“Once we figure out who’s expected to do what and who’s actually going to do what,” said Willie Bloomquist, Seattle’s Swiss Army knife, “we can be a dangerous team.”

Hey, good luck with that, but let’s stay in the now for the moment.

Though they didn’t kid themselves that the 131,578 who breached Safeco’s turnstiles over the weekend were there for any other reason than to see Barry Bonds (“It might be ‘boo, boo, boo,’ ” designated hitter Carl Everett said, “but you know why they came”), the energized atmosphere was not lost on the M’s – nor did they squander the opportunity to make an impression.

Gil Meche and Jamie Moyer pitched superbly, Felix Hernandez with toughness. Closer J.J. Putz twice overpowered Bonds for the final out. The M’s didn’t make an error in the field and hit .458 – 11 of 24 – with runners in scoring position.

And Sunday, it was almost comical how all things seemed to break in Seattle’s favor.

Giants pitcher Jamey Wright kicks – with his right, follow-through leg – a ground ball that shortstop Omar Vizquel was sure to turn into a third out, making it an RBI single. Two singles go under San Francisco gloves, another hops by left fielder Mark Sweeney for an extra base. Moyer turns a hot shot into a double play with Bonds in the on-deck circle – and then fans Bonds (for a second time) on a cut fastball that, incredibly, registered 89 mph on the Safeco scoreboard.

“Maybe it got his bat speed,” Moyer joked.

Unlikeliest of all, Adrian Beltre hits a home run.

The M’s third baseman is all too aware of his status as the resident Disappointing Big-Dollar Free Agent, and it troubles him. But though the solo homer that bumped the lead to 4-1 Sunday was only his sixth of the year, Beltre has hit .278 since Hargrove moved him to the No. 2 spot and .295 in the last three weeks.

Which just happens to coincide with Seattle’s surge, which – remarkably – wasn’t completely undone by that pratfall in Oakland. Maybe there’s a little pluck in this ballclub after all.

“When the team is doing good, your confidence is better because you don’t feel you have to do so much,” Beltre said. “There are situations when you’re trying to help the team and sometimes you put more pressure on yourself.”

To sample the very different pressure of a meaningful August or September will require the M’s to play their way into it, and that will require much more than a weekend of high times.

But at least they haven’t already played themselves out.