BASEBALL PLAYOFFS : Is Destiny in Their Dugout? : AL: Seattle Mariners hope to keep their magic going when they take on the Cleveland Indians.

The Seattle Mariners have traveled 6,500 miles in the last nine days.

They have faced elimination four times, and have won four nerve-racking games to keep their season alive, coming from behind in the final three games against the New York Yankees to win a best-of-five division series they trailed, 2-0.

They won their last two playoff games in their final at-bat, including Sunday’s Kingdome thriller, in which they fell behind the Yankees in the top of the 11th but scored two in the bottom of the inning for a 6-5 victory.

So if you think the sight of the mighty Cleveland Indians, baseball’s winningest team in 1995, in the Kingdome for Game 1 of the American League championship series tonight is going to faze the Mariners . . .

“That’s how it was going into the New York series,” Seattle right fielder Jay Buhner said. “Everyone was talking about how much we had to travel, how we’d only be able to start Randy [Johnson, Mariner ace] one time. It was like they were making excuses for us. Look what happened. We’re the cardiac kids. We keep finding ways to win.”

These Mariners don’t seem to care that they’re the underdogs in this series, that Cleveland is well rested after its first-round sweep of Boston, that the Indian pitching rotation is perfectly aligned, compared to Seattle’s throw-as-we-go staff, which will feature 22-year-old rookie Bob Wolcott starting against Cleveland’s potent offense today.

“I don’t think all that stuff matters,” Mariner reliever Norm Charlton said. “If they score one run, we’ll score two. If they score seven, we’ll score eight. We’ll do whatever it takes.”

That’s the mind set of Team Resiliency, and one look at what the Mariners accomplished in the last two months is enough to explain why they believe destiny is in their dugout.

They trailed the Angels in the West Division race by 13 games on Aug. 2, then staged the third-greatest comeback in baseball history to finish in a first-place tie. They had five dramatic, comeback victories in a 12-day stretch, from Sept. 13-24.

They beat the Angels in a one-game playoff Oct. 2 and swept the Yankees in Seattle, after having lost twice in New York, to win the division series. They won Game 4 on Edgar Martinez’s eighth-inning grand slam and Game 5 on his two-run, 11th-inning double.

“I guess we’re getting used to this,” Martinez said after Game 5. “In some ways, it kind of helped for this game because we felt like we could do it again.”

That is why it may not matter that Cleveland Manager Mike Hargrove has his rotation set up to start Dennis Martinez in Game 1, Orel Hershiser in Game 2 and Charles Nagy in Game 3, whereas Seattle Manager Lou Piniella scrambled Monday to map out his pitching strategy.

Or that the Indian bullpen is far superior to Seattle’s, featuring closer Jose Mesa, who has a major league-leading 46 saves, and set-up men Julian Tavarez, who is 10-2 with a 2.44 earned-run average; Paul Assenmacher, 6-2 with a 2.82 ERA, and Eric Plunk, 6-2 with a 2.67 ERA.

Or that Cleveland led the major leagues with a .291 team batting average and 840 runs.

“I remember a young Cincinnati club that played Oakland in the 1990 World Series, and not many gave them a chance, either,” Piniella said. “And they did all right.”

Piniella was the Reds’ manager that season when Cincinnati pulled off a stunning, four-game sweep of the powerful A’s in the World Series. Cleveland is not as heavily favored against Seattle, for if anyone can keep up with the Indians offensively it’s the Mariners.

But Piniella, in his third year as Mariner manager, acknowledges that the Indians’ rested pitching staff gives them an edge. And Cleveland will have a decided advantage in Game 1 today.

Wolcott, who was added to the playoff roster Monday, has only 36 2/3 innings of major league experience, having gone 3-2 with a 4.42 ERA for the Mariners after being called up from triple-A Tacoma on Aug. 18. His three victories were against Boston (twice) and the Yankees. He hasn’t pitched since Sept. 30, but will be asked to perform in front of more than 57,000 fans and a national television audience.

A second-round pick in 1992 from North Medford High in Oregon, Wolcott pitched for Class-A Riverside in 1994. Piniella is going with the rookie so he can give Game 2 starter Tim Belcher and Game 3 starter Randy Johnson another day of rest.

Johnson, the probable 1995 Cy Young Award winner, pitched Game 3 of the first round Friday against the Yankees and came back to throw three innings of relief Sunday night.

“Cleveland players must have been smiling tonight, watching Randy Johnson working on the mound,” Yankee pitcher David Cone said Sunday.

But Yankee players were probably doing the same thing last Monday, when Johnson threw 124 pitches in his three-hitter against the Angels, and look what happened to them.

“Believe me, Cleveland doesn’t know what it’s getting itself into,” Piniella said at a downtown Seattle rally Monday. “Cleveland has a great ballclub, but I’ll tell you what, our kids are going to be ready. And when it’s all said and done, we’re going to go to the World Series.”