NAMES AND NUMBERS

NO-NO: The no-hitter that Chris Bosio threw against the Boston Red Sox on Thursday capped a strange span for the Seattle Mariner pitcher. He had been forced to leave the club late in spring training when his Sacramento house was burglarized and then returned only to have to leave again when his grandfather died.

He was 0-1 in three starts, but 16 of his 19 2/3 innings had been scoreless, and he had struck out 21 while walking only six. The Mariners signed Bosio to a four-year, $15.25-million contract after he went 16-6 with the Milwaukee Brewers last year.

“At today’s prices, he might be a bargain,” Angel Manager Buck Rodgers said.

CLOCKWORK: Scouts insist that the readings on Jack Morris’ fastball and forkball remain comparable to what they have been over the last few years and that the shellings he has absorbed in his first four starts stem strictly from bad mechanics.

“My arm is fine. The only thing that hurts is my heart,” said Morris, having given up 37 hits, 25 earned runs and five home runs in the 17 innings of a 0-3 start for Toronto.

WHO’S UP FIRST? Willie McGee, batting .254, had yet to score a run or steal a base through 63 at-bats and 17 games.

Dusty Baker, the San Francisco Giant manager who had taken some criticism for using McGee in the leadoff role because of his decreasing steal totals and consistently poor on-base percentage, said the problem rests with the struggling starts of his No. 2 and 3 hitters, Dave Martinez and Will Clark.

“He can’t score unless someone drives him in,” Baker said of a problem that hasn’t prevented the Giants from taking the lead in the National League West.

RECALL: The Baltimore Orioles are fighting the temptation to derrick their right-field triumvirate of Chito Martinez, Luis Mercedes and Sherman Obando in favor of former Stanford outfielder Jeff Hammonds, their No. 1 selection in last June’s draft.

Hammonds almost won the job in spring training before the cautious Orioles sent him to the Bowie Bay Sox of the Eastern League, where he has already been a player of the week.

Through 13 games, Martinez, Mercedes and Obando had no home runs and one RBI, and Martinez was 0 for 15, a repeat of his 1992 April, when he was 0 for 14.

SHAKY: Oriole relief ace Gregg Olson, who averaged 33 saves in his first four seasons, blew two of his first six chances and gave up 11 hits in the 8 2/3 innings of his first eight appearances. Of the first batters he faced in each of those eight games, six delivered hits and a seventh walked.

OUCH: Colorado Rockies Manager Don Baylor said he was looking for a hitter who can make contact when he elevated catcher Joe Girardi to the No. 2 spot in the batting order recently.

Why not his No. 8 hitter, Freddie Benavides, who is faster than Girardi and, on the surface, more of a typical No. 2 hitter?

“I said I’m looking for contact,” Baylor responded.

ON THE BUBBLE: A three-game winning streak that ended with David Cone’s latest failure Thursday night might have temporarily saved Hal McRae’s job as manager of the Kansas City Royals.

Cone, who received $18 million for three years, is 0-4 and bidding to become the Royals’ latest free-agent flop, following Mark Davis, Storm Davis, Kirk Gibson, Mike Boddicker and Wally Joyner.

Joyner, the former Angel first baseman, was hitting .324 on May 31 of last year but faded to .269 after getting a three-year, $13.8-million contract extension, and was batting .214 with no home runs and one RBI through the Royals’ 6-11 start this year.