No matter what happens today. No matter if Brandon Morrow walks the first eight batters he faces, no matter if Russell Branyan strikes out five times in a row, no matter if the Seattle Mariners lose, 22-0, to the Boston Red Sox, they will get on the plane after the game and know this trip has been a huge success.

With Saturday’s 3-2 victory over the Red Sox, the Mariners guaranteed themselves a winning record on a nine-game trip that was thought by many media types – including this baseball writer – to be the possible undoing of this plucky and scrappy team that had already exceeded expectations this season.

Still, winning five or possibly six of the nine games against the Dodgers, Yankees and Red Sox doesn’t just go a few steps past expectations; it’s a Branyan moon-shot of a homer past what could have been ultimately hoped for at the start.

Nine games against three of the best teams in baseball, 1-8 wasn’t out the question; 2-7 was a distinct possibility; 3-6 might have been tolerable; 4-5 a minor success.

But 5-4? Or even a more improbable 6-3?

Manager Don Wakamatsu and his team will take either with a grateful smile and return to the Northwest with a well-earned level of respect from baseball’s doubters.

But it isn’t so much that the Mariners won more games than they lost on the trip. No, it was how they won those games; the players they did it with and the players they did it without.

Adrian Beltre didn’t play in the final six games, and in his place was Chris Woodward. Erik Bedard’s inflamed shoulder never allowed him to make a start. Yuniesky Betancourt was placed on the 15-day disabled list before the team left town. And Seattle started the newly acquired Ryan Langerhans, who hadn’t played in the big leagues this season, for three games in left field.

The trip didn’t exactly start the way it finished, though. The Mariners looked mediocre and flat when the Dodgers’ Andre Ethier hit three home runs off three different pitchers in an 8-2 loss in Los Angeles.

To make matters worse, the Mariners then found out that Beltre would need to have surgery on his left shoulder and would be out at least two months. Not exactly inspiring news for a team.

But as he has done so many times this season, Felix Hernandez stopped any possible listing of the good ship Mariner with an outstanding start. Hernandez capped his stellar June – a performance that would make him AL pitcher of the month – throwing eight strong innings and allowing just four hits and one run in a 5-1 win over L.A.

Realistically, the way Hernandez had been pitching coming into the stretch of road games, you would have circled his two starts as the most likely opportunities for the Mariners to win.

The Mariners won Hernandez’s second start of the trip in Boston on Friday, but he didn’t get the win. Instead, Seattle got a club record-tying three doubles – including the game winner in the 11th – from catcher Rob Johnson, who was hitting under .200 at the start of the game.

Hernandez still set the tone for the win, going seven innings and holding the dangerous Red Sox lineup to three runs.

So, Hernandez figured in two wins as expected.

But would you have penciled in Garrett Olson to help lock up series wins against the Dodgers and the Red Sox? Probably not. He was less than inspiring in his last start before the trip, when he allowed eight hits and six runs in 5 innings against the offensively challenged San Diego Padres.

Olson wasn’t exactly strong against Los Angeles. He pitched five good innings, and the bullpen picked up the rest. Against Boston, Olson didn’t get credit for the win, but he allowed just four hits in 6 innings. Meanwhile, the Mariners got a 12/3 innings of stellar relief from the previously struggling and little-used Roy Corcoran and game-winning bloop hit from Woodward to secure a second win in Fenway, where the Red Sox started the series with a 25-9 record at home – the best in baseball.

The only losing series of the trip came in New York.

The Mariners’ first trip to the new Yankee Stadium – a plush, billion-dollar hell for pitching staffs, where home runs are more prevalent than A-Rod off-the-field rumors – wasn’t a total disaster.

For the first two games it seemed as if the stadium was, indeed, a personal Hades for Mariners pitchers. Morrow didn’t give up a home run in the first game, but that would have required him to throw enough strikes to get hit. In the second game, Jarrod Washburn gave up three home runs, including a crushing two-run shot to Alex Rodriguez.

It all led into Sunday’s series finale in which the Yankees sent left-handed ace CC Sabathia to the mound. The Mariners were countering with lefty Jason Vargas. On paper it didn’t seem like an even match. Add the fact that Vargas was fighting the flu, and Seattle seemed to be staring at a sweep.

Yet baseball can be funny. Sabathia looked average with his command, giving up six runs, Vargas gutted out four innings, the bullpen was strong in relief, and Branyan hit a home run that still hasn’t landed. The result? An unlikely Mariners victory.

And that’s how the Mariners managed a winning record on this trip. They got strong contributions from their best players – Hernandez, Branyan and Ichiro Suzuki – and surprising contributions from more unlikely sources such as Olson, Johnson, Vargas and Woodward.

This was supposed to be a trip where we learned a lot about the Mariners. But in the end, it may have been a trip where they learned more about themselves.

Ryan Divish: 253-597-8483

ryan.divish@thenewstribune.com

POWER INDEX RANKINGS

2. Boston Red Sox (2): Dice-K goes on the DL for the second time this season. He should be healthy for the next World Baseball Classic.

3. New York Yankees (5): They are expected to pay big bucks for Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman, and somewhere Andy Morales giggles in delight.

4. Detroit Tigers (4): Jim Leyland isn’t impressed with Joel Zumaya throwing 104 mph since he rarely throws for strikes.

5. St. Louis Cardinals (3): At some point, teams have to stop pitching to Albert Pujols. Don’t they?

6. Tampa Bay Rays (14): Carl Crawford has 40 steals this season, which is one more than either the Orioles or Twins have stolen.

7. Los Angeles Angels (11): Maybe Vladimir Guerrero needed more than a haircut to help his struggling bat.

8. San Francisco Giants (9): Lincecum, Johnson, Cain and now Sadowski? That’s Ryan Sadowski, and he’s 2-0 since being called up.

9. Milwaukee Brewers (6): Brewers fans eagerly await the return of Dave Bush to the rotation. Things have gotten that bad.

10. Texas Rangers (8): Hank Blalock believes he should be in the lineup every day along with his .234 batting average.

11. Philadelphia Phillies (10): Their pitching is so bad they started Rodrigo Lopez, who hadn’t started in two years – and he won!

12. Toronto Blue Jays (7): Cito Gaston called the old Yankee Stadium “a dump.” Perhaps, but it was an affordable dump.

13. Colorado Rockies (13): They’ve gone 23-9 since Jim Tracy took over for Clint Hurdle. Coincidence? Not likely.

14. Chicago White Sox (21): Ozzie Guillen: “I’m not going to say 90 or 100 percent like me, but I think playing for me is fun.” Fun being a relative term.

15. Seattle Mariners (17): Russell Branyan has five homers off lefties this season; he had four in his career before this season.

16. Florida Marlins (18): Actual construction started on their new stadium. Surely there’s a Denny’s nearby.

17. Chicago Cubs (16): Milton Bradley admitted he gets treated differently – kind of the way he treats Gatorade coolers differently.

18. Minnesota Twins (15): Twins pitchers got zero hits in interleague play. They called it Delmon Young production.

19. New York Mets (12): How bad is it? They might actually be eager to see Oliver Perez return to the rotation.

20. Cincinnati Reds (20): They’ve lost two players to season-ending shoulder injuries from sliding headfirst into home plate.

21. Atlanta Braves (19): Talented pitcher Tommy Hanson is making a push for NL rookie of the year consideration.

22. Houston Astros (25): Felipe Paulino had a career-high nine strikeouts in his last start. And he also gave up nine runs.

23. Baltimore Orioles (23): The highlight of an otherwise lost season? Rallying from a 10-1 deficit to beat the Red Sox.

24. Pittsburgh Pirates (22): Zach Duke and Freddy Sanchez could make the NL All-Star team, and then get traded shortly thereafter.

25. Kansas City Royals (24): Teams show trade interest in Jose Guillen, Royals ask for bag of baseballs in return.

26. San Diego Padres (28): Manager Bud Black gets a contract extension but had to think about whether he wanted it.

27. Oakland A’s (26): After a last-minute decision, the Moneyball movie appears to be dead – kind of like the A’s season.

28. Cleveland Indians (29): Shin Soo Choo has been moved to cleanup and has 14 homers. Yet another great Bill Bavasi trade.

29. Arizona Diamondbacks (29): Manager A.J. Hinch called a team meeting to tell his players they weren’t playing well. Now that’s managing.

30. Washington Nationals (30): What are the odds Stephen Strasburg signs in the next month? About as good as the Nats moving out of 30th in our rankings.