Felix Hernandez is pitching for his 13th win of the season, and more importantly for the team, he's shooting for Seattle's 62nd victory.

That would officially push the '09 Mariners past the win total of the '08 Mariners - a team and year the franchise would like to put behind it.

The Mariners are 3-3 against Detroit, which figures. The Tigers are 62-55, the Mariners 61-57.

The biggest difference? That record has the Tigers in first place in the Ameridcan League Central. Seattle, meanwhile, is third in the AL West and fourth in the wild card run.

Anyway, it's Felix vs. rookie Rick Porcello.

Walks and steals

Outfielder Clete Thomas led off with a walk and, with two outs, easily stole second base. When Adam Everett lined a single into center field, all Franklin Gutierrez could do was field it on a hop as the run scored.

After two: Tigers 1, Mariners 0

Mariners hurry-up offense

Through four innings, Porcello has faced 12 batters - the minimum - and eliminated the only Seattle base runner with a double play ground ball.

There have been no diving catches, no fantastic plays. Porcello has five strikeouts and the other seven outs were so quiet they'd lull you to sleep.

Detroit has three hits - and at the moment, it looks like a rout!

Look! A rally!

Josh Wilson gets carded any time he's in a bar, but baby face or not he just saved Seattle with a solo home run.

Until Josh-not-Jack homered, the only other hit had been Ichiro's leading off the game.

Ichiro followed Wilson's home run with his second single, and Branyan singled him to second base. Jose Lopez flied out.

That got the inning to Ken Griffey Jr., the .223-hitting cleanup hitter who has been struggling mightily of late. Could he break the tie - even break the game open?

He didn't get the chance. Junior walked on a 3-2 pitch, and that was it for Porcello. After 93 pitches, he was pulled in favor of Ryan Perry.

With the bases loaded, Gutierrez flied out.

In the sixth: Mainers 1, Tigers 1

Felix rolls on

Detroit banged away at him the first two innings and got one whole run out of it, and now Hernandez is at full throttle.

Since the second inning, the Tigers have sent 12 men to the plate in four innings.

That works.

He needs at least one more run.

The Mariners deliver

Josh-not-Jack Wilson singled and Ichiro doubled him to third with his third hit of the night.

Branyan's deep fly produced RBI No. 70 as Wilson scored, and Ichiro took third. The Tigers intentionally walked Lopez to get to Grifffey.

Junior flied out deep enough to chase Ichiro home - Griffey's 40th RBI.

Felix has 106 pitches. The bullpen will try to finish this.

In the eighth: Mariners 3, Tigers 1

Here come the Tigers

Mark Lowe on in relief, and Alex Avila leads off with a home run that makes it 3-2.
Everett singld and, wih one out, took third on Wilson's error at shortstop that allowed Placido Polanco to reach base. Carlos Guillen walked to load 'em up.

Miguel Cabrera singled up the middle to score two runs, and Seattle was behind again.
Lowe was pulled in favor of Sean White.

White picked Cabrera off first but, in a run down, Branyan threw late to the plate and pinch-runner Rayburn scored on what was ruled a stolen base.

And in the end
Closer Fernando Rodney took care of business in the top of the ninth inning, and this one was gone - stolen from Seattle's win-column by the Mariners pitching and defense.

Seattle put runners on second and third with one out and couldn't score.

It's a final: Tigers 5, Mariners 3

OK, Ryan is in Havre with his dog and I'm in Detroit with Jim Street, who's affable but not house-broken. Ryan, clearly, made the smarter call.

As for Tigers Stadium, the Mariners have just aout finished some early work on the field, and manager Don Wakamatsu is channeling Lou Piniella.

Anyone who watched Lou for any length of time saw him go into a batting stance and begin working with one hitter or another.

Lou loved hittng, loved coaching it, preaching it, illustrating it.

For the last 10 minutes, Wakamatsu has been working with shortstop Jack Wilson - the two men facing one another in batting stances, working on balance.

In Piniella's first season managing in Seattle, the team was coming off a 98-loss season but finished 82-80.

Wakamatsu inherited a 101-loss team, and is on target to finish above .500.

That's the kind of thing that pops into your head while watching a team take early batting practice in the Motor City.

That, and missing Marvin Gaye.

We just had a brief conference call with Dustin Ackley. And while you can't completely tell over the phone a few of the things he said and the way his voice sounded, you can tell he's still finding this whole situation surreal.

For as good as he is, and all that he has achieved in baseball, and basically knowing all of this was coming, he still seemed to have that - "I can't believe this is really happening" attitude.

"I could never imagine all of this happening," he said. "It's just been so exciting, I don’t think any of it has sunk in yet."

In the hours leading up to the deadline, Ackley said he never thought something wouldn't get done.

"I had faith everything was going to work out and it did," Ackley said.

While he knew everything would work out, it also sounded as though he expected the negotiations to go down to the final minutes.

"I knew coming that this could take a while," he said.

As for details, Ackley isn't certain when he's reporting to Peoria. He figures to have that conversation some time later today. He actually did the conference call while waiting to board a plane back to North Carolina.

Once he does get back to playing, Ackley hopes to be playing the outfield. Last night GM Jack Zduriencik said he felt outfield was Ackley best position and on Tuesday Ackley concurred.

"I think my best position is outfield," he said. "I think that’s were I have greats opportunity to succeed as far as running down balls and using my athleticism," he said.

But he'll do whatever the Mariners ask.

"I feel like if I work hard at a position, I can make a living there," he said.