Mike Wilson just hit his fifth homer of the spring, a solo blast to left with one out in the seventh inning, to cut Chicago's lead to 4-2. The homer was a rocket into a gusting wind that helped carry the ball a long way. You could hear the crowd gasp when he hit it. The ball nearly took out the top of the scoreboard in the bleachers before carrying over a back fence.

But the M's still trail after the Cubs scored once in the fifth and three more times in the sixth. Mark Lowe gave up the tying run on a sacrifice fly after taking over for Erik Bedard and getting the final out of the third inning. Lowe went 2 1/3 innings, yielding the run on two hits.

Bedard was glad to get his pitch count up to 45 today. But that's about it.

"I felt like I had nothing today,'' he said. "It was all about the defense today.''

Bedard figures if he can get his pitch count up to 80 or 90 these next two weeks, he'll be fine.

"I've got to get more innings under my belt and get my pitch count up,'' he said. "As long as I feel fine, I'll be fine for the season.''

Had a nice chat with manager Don Wakamatsu today as he looked ahead to the final two weeks.

As we told you already, the Venezuelan players from the WBC are due back here tomorrow. Wakamatsu told me that Felix Hernandez is slated to start on March 26. He'd previously told the media it would be March 31, but that's since been clarified. Hernandez would have had to wait 15 days since his last start if that were the case, so, obviously, it isn't.

Somebody mentioned that the top-four hitters in today's Seattle lineup are hitting over .300. That's true, since Ronny Cedeno, Franklin Gutierrez, Wladimir Balentien and Russell Branyan entered the day hitting .311, .350, .364, and .356 apiece. Balentien added a fist-inning single the opposite way to right field off Carlos Zambrano to up that average even higher.

One guy hitting better than all of them is in the photo above. Chris Shelton didn't start today's game, but will come in later on. He enters today hitting .514 with a .595 on-base and .829 slugging percentage. The M's have really been impressed by what he's done this spring. But he's still going to have a hard time making the team. The big reason for that is that Mike Sweeney has done everything asked of him since getting here. Sweeney has also become a harmonizing focal point in the clubhouse. He's provided that vocal leadership the Mariners had been seeking out the past few years. And he's producing with the bat now that he's playing more regularly.

Sweeney is considered a better first-base glove than Shelton. The big question marks coming into camp were whether Sweeney could hit and whether he could still run. He's running better, as Wakamatsu told us yesterday, than he did last season when the manager had him in Oakland. So, that's one check mark. And he's hitting for both average and power. That's two check marks.

Unless Sweeney's knees blow out on him these final two weeks, it's going to be very difficult for Shelton to make the squad. Not when the M's are taking 12 pitchers north with them. There just aren't enough position spots, as we discussed last week, to keep both Shelton and Sweeney unless it's an 11-man staff.

And yes, 12 pitchers will be a must. Brandon Morrow is not going to start the year in the M's rotation. That's a given. He'll barely be able to throw an inning at a time when he gets back into games this week.