To be honest, I don't know if I was happier to see a win, or to see a win that didn't involve extra innings.

If you would have told me the Mariners would take 2 of 3 from the Red Sox while starting to Jakubauskas, Olson and Vargas against Lester, Beckett and Masterson, I would have laughed in your face then called Western State hospital to get you a psych consult.

But the Mariners did it. It wasn't pretty and it took "a gift" as David Aardsma called it from Nick Green (pictured left) to help get the win. To be fair though, Green only gave them a chance the Mariners had to do the rest.

“You have two outs and he airmails it, you can’t mess that up,” Aardsma said. “He gave us the winning run and you have to capitalize on it. Those are things that when we were losing we weren’t capitalizing on, but now we are.”

Green may have airmailed the throw but the official scorer went back and decided to rule it a hit after at first ruling it an error. An error was still charged to Green for allowing the runner to advance to second. Cedeno thought it was hit too (of course he would, but for the record so did I).

“Yeah, I would’ve beaten it out,” he said.

Cedeno was 3-for-4 with a one run scored, an RBI triple and two infield hits, manager Don Wakamatsu said he liked the at-bats he saw from Cedeno. Did you hear that Yuni?

On the negative side, the Mariners still stranded nine runners and Adrian Beltre is really struggling. Before Ken Griffey Jr.'s single in the eighth, Mariners hitters in the No. 3 and 4 spot were hitless on the weekend. That still needs to be addressed.

Still, the mood was pretty positive in the clubhouse after winning the series. The Angels come in tomorrow.

A scheduling note, because John Lackey was tossed after just two pitches on Saturday. He's been moved up in the rotation and will start Monday against Jarrod Washburn.

Here's the pitching match-ups with the Angels.
Monday -- Washburn (3-2, 3.11 ERA) vs. Lackey (0-0, 0.00)
Tuesday -- Felix Hernandez (4-2, 2.53 ERA) vs. Matt Palmer (4-0, 3.38 ERA)
Wednesday -- Chris Jakubauskas (2-4, 7.13 ERA) vs. Ervin Santana (0-0, 5.40 ERA)
Thursday -- TBA for Seattle vs. Joe Saunders (5-2, 3.59 ERA)

Photos from AP

RED SOX NOTES:
• Justin Masterson tied his season-high with 6.1 IP (last: May 6 vs. CLE) and left with the game tied 2-2…Masterson also tied a season-high with 6 strikeouts while not allowing a walk.
• Jacoby Ellsbury extended his hitting streak to 13 games with a single in the 5th…he is batting .344 (21x61) with 3 doubles, one triple, 4 RBI, 6 stolen bases and 8 runs scored over the 13 game span…marks his longest hitting streak on the season and the longest active in the American League.
• J.D. Drew had his 2nd multi-hit game of the series (7th overall) going 2x3 while tying the game in the 4th with a solo home run…his 6th on the year…in his last 9 games against the Mariners Drew is batting .419 (13x31) with 10 runs, a double, triple, 5 home runs, and 8 RBI.
• Reliever Ramon Ramirez took the loss and allowed only his 2nd run of the season...came in to the game with an 0.44 ERA (1 ER, 20.1 IP).
• Boston has lost 4 of their last 5 road games…lost 5 of 7 series on the road this season.
MARINERS NOTES:
• Mariners recorded their 4th walk-off victory of the year (last: May 3 vs. Oakland).
• Seattle's series win was their 6th of the season, but their first since taking 2 of 3 from Oakland, May 1-3.
• Franklin Gutierrez recorded his first career walk-off hit…finished the series 4-for-8 vs. the Red Sox.
• Jason Vargas allowed one earned run in his 2nd consecutive start...as a starter this season has a 1.74 ERA (2 ER,
10.1 IP) and overall is 1-0 with a 1.29 ERA (2 ER, 14.0 IP) in 3 games (2 GS, 2 relief).
• Ichiro extended his hitting streak to 11 games going 2-for-4…his 14th multi-hit game of the season…during his current streak, Ichiro is batting .375 (18x48)…has hit in 17 of his last 18 games (.329/27x82).
• Russell Branyan hit his team-leading 9th home run of the year…extended his hitting streak at Safeco Field to 9 games and has hit safely in 10 of 11 home games this year (.341/15x44) with 6 doubles, 4 Home Runs and 7 RBI.
• Ronny Cedeño tripled in the 2nd, scoring Betancourt on the play…was his first triple since Oct. 1, 2006 (w/CHI vs.
COL)…the triple was his 3rd XBH overall on the year (2B, HR)…first multi-hit game of the year, going 3-for-4.
• Seattle relievers (Sean White, Mark Lowe, David Aardsma) combined to toss 3.2 shutout innings today…bullpen did not allow a run in the series vs. the Red Sox (9.2 IP).
• Sean White pitched 1.2 scoreless IP and has 4 consecutive appearances without allowing a run (4.2 IP, 4 SO, 4 BB).
• Today’s game marked the 29th time in 38 games for the M’s this season that have been decided by 3 runs or less…improved to 9-7 in one-run games (tied for AL lead in one-run wins with Texas).
• Rob Johnson left the game after the bottom of the 6th after he was hit by a pitch during a bunt attempt...he was replaced by Kenji Johjima to start the 7th.

Well, it's a beautiful day at Safeco. As I said before, I'm a huge proponent of day baseball.

Jason Vargas gets the start today, I would venture to guess he's on a pitch-limit of 90 pitches or so. Justin Masterson gets the start for Boston. He's a righty who throws a sinker/slider from the 3/4 to nearly sidearm slot. This as you know is not a good combo for the Mariners and their right-handed hitting heavy line-up. Such luminaries as Vicente Padilla, Nick Blackburn, Edwin Jackson, Scott Baker, Brian Bannister have shut down the M's offense.

Top of 1st
Vargas rolls 1-2-3 ...

Bottom of 1st
Ichiro extends his hitting streak to 11 games with a single in the first. Gutierrez moves him to second with a sac bunt, but he's stranded. Masterson made Beltre look completely overmatched.

Top of 2nd
Vargas gets into some trouble with a few singles and a booted lead throw on a double play from Yuniesky Betancourt. But somehow he escapes with only giving up one run. Big credit to Jose Lopez who laid out and knocked down Nick Green's single up the middle. By keeping it on the dirt, it prevented a run from scoring.

Bottom of 2nd
Russell Branyan leads off with a moonshot to right for his ninth homer of the season. Yuni later doubles and scores on Ronny Cendeno's triple to left --- M's 2, Sox 1.

Top of 3rd
I know Beltre isn't hitting and I know he's made some errors, but the 5-4-3 double play off the diving stop is just ridiculous.

Bottom of 3rd
not much going for the M's as Beltre strikes out again.

Top of 4th
The often emotionless and engimatic JD Drew rips a deep homer to right off of Vargas on an 88 mph fastball that was left belt high and over the middle of the plate. Tie game at 2-2.

Bottom of 4th
Rob Johnson gets a much-needed hit - even it was a broken bat bloop, and Yuni follows with an infield hit, but not much else.

Top of 5th
Apparently, Jason Vargas is comfortable pitching with bases loaded and no outs, since he works out of the jam by getting Jason Bay to pop up and Mike Lowell to hit in a 6-4-3 DP

Bottom of 5th
Runners on first and second and no outs and the Mariners get 0 runs out of it. Griffey flies out and Beltre hits into a double play.

Top of 6th
A pair of walks sandwiching a strikeout ultimately knocks Vargas from the game, but Sean White comes in and gets Varitek to ground into a 4-6-3 DP.

Bottom of 6th
WEll that was interesting, Rob Johnson bunts the ball off his hand, and Wlad Balentien not seeing any signal from the first base as an out or Johnson run the play all the way out, thinks its a foul ball. So he gets to second starts heading back and realizes what's going on, but by then, it's too late and Jeff Bailey throws to Nick Green who tags Wlad out.

Top of 7th
Other than walk, Sean White looked strong, striking out Jason Bay looking.

Bottom of 7th
Well, it started promising with a hustling infield single from Ronny Cedeno, but Dustin Pedroia makes a nice play to barely get Ichiro and Gutierrrez strikes out.

* Just a random thought here but if Johnson's hand turns out to be bad (Johjima replaced him after the bunt), I don't know that they would call up Clement because of his knee issues. As of 3:27 p.m., he's still in the game in OKC with the Rainiers as the DH. Adam Moore is still catching. I'm guessing they would bring up Jamie Burke again.

UPDATE: 3:31 -- Well, I guess we don't have to worry about that, they just announced that Johnson suffered bruised hand and index finger, and x-rays were negative.

A Sunday morning meeting with the manager can be at times uneventful unless there is a roster move being made or some other pressing news. Today was really no different. Roy Corcoran was throwing a bullpen session and Ryan Rowland-Smith felt good after throwing yesterday.

So what do you talk about? Well, Yuni of course. To be clear, I'm tired of beating the horse on this but if other people throw the first swing, who am I not to get a few cheap shots in it.

It's now been two games since Yuni was sat down in Texas for two straight games. And obviously it's too early to tell if manager Don Wakamatsu's message was delivered. But there are some hints.

In his first game back, Yuni tied a career high (yes a career high) with two walks in a game. He also took 10 straight pitches at one point. He's also hit a home run and a few other balls hard. Let's be clear, did he look like Kevin Youkilis working the count? No. But it was an improvement - not that it was hard to do after his recent run.

So what does Wakamatsu think? Well, he's not exactly ready to call the change permanent.

"I think you have to look at the match-ups too," he said. "Lester's command wasn't as good the day before yesterday which helped in that. But what has impressed me is that yesterday, he did some lay off some pitches in his at-bats."

Wakamatsu knows it a process and it won't happen overnight

"It's just getting him to understand what on-base percentage really means and getting him to put it above batting average," he said. "So I don't know. Obviously he got the message, so we'll see how me moves forward. The fact that he realizes that he has to change because of lack of playing time sends a message."

If Yuni needs an example, he only needs to look across the field. Though Youkilis - dubbed "the Greek God of Walks" in Moneyball - isn't playing, the Red Sox as a team have an approach that Wakamatsu would like to see from his team.

"How much of it is physical and how much is it mental?" Wakamatsu said. "We've talked about that from the beginning of spring training about playing the game with more intelligence. When you have guys like Youkilis and Pedroia it does set the tone."

So since we talked about Yuni with Wak, a few reporters were able to corral him and translator Fernando Alcala to ask him a few questions.

The first was to ask about trying to be more patient.

"I'm giving it a try and seeing how it works out," Betancourt said. "It's still to early tell, but up until now I've been seeing better pitches."

He's giving it a try? Hmm. And the two-day break?

"You just take them as off days and get a chance to recharge and come back stronger," he said.

I asked him if he thought it was a punishment for his approach and he said, "I don't know."

As for seeing better results from the new approach, he seemed to be indifferent.

"I'm going to try it for now, but it's still early," he said. "I don't know how long it's going to take. But it is what's best for the team."

When asked if having Ronny Cedeno on the team, and being a viable option to push him out of playing time, influenced his thinking, Betancourt downplayed it.

"You just have to focus on what you can control and help the team win," he said. "You can't worry about what the other things are, you have to take care of your own business."

As for the conversation with Wakamatsu about his approach, Yuni said it was simple.

"It wasn't a matter of them telling me not to swing, it was them telling me to be more selective in the zone," he said.

I wonder how may times he's heard that before.

And finally the best, question from Gregg Bell of the AP, who asked Yuni if he ever took 10 pitches in a row like he did on Friday?

Yuni smiled, chuckled, shook his head and said, "No, nunca."

Mariners (17-20)
Ichiro RF
Gutierrez CF
Griffey DH
Beltre 3B
Branyan 1B
Balentien LF
Johnson C
Betancourt SS
Cedeno 2B
-----
Vargas, P

Red Sox (22-15)
Jacoby Ellsbury CF
Dustin Pedroia 2B
Jason Bay LF
Mike Lowell 3B
JD Drew RF
Rocco Baldelli DH
Jeff Bailey 1B
Jason Varitek C
Nick Green SS
--------
Justin Masterson P