By Thomas Boswell

Tuesday, April 3, 2001; Page D01

BALTIMORE

In spring training, Jerry Hairston sensed veteran Pat Hentgen's anger every time somebody mentioned how lousy the Orioles were going to be this season.

Maybe it was because Hentgen -- a Cy Young winner, a 20-game winner and a World Series winner -- was viewed as a bargain-basement replacement for Mike Mussina, who never won a Cy Young, 20 games or a World Series.

Or maybe it was just Hentgen's old-school competitiveness, his hatred of being removed from tight games in the late innings and his sense of team loyalty. Like Rick Sutcliffe, an Orioles free agent of a decade ago, Hentgen saw those preseason predictions of incompetence as a personal affront.

"You could see it made Pat mad. He'd get frustrated," said Hairston of all the predictions that the Mussina-less Orioles wouldn't be worth bird feathers. "He'd say, 'We are a lot better than that. Just watch.' Well, he ran with it today, didn't he? Man, did we steal him."

The odds of the much-mocked Orioles being a winning team this season are about the same as their chances of beating the Red Sox with Pedro Martinez on the mound on Opening Day. (So, call Las Vegas before it's too late.)

Thanks mostly to Hentgen, but with a large assist from Hairston, the Orioles won, 2-1 in 11 innings. Hentgen, who cost the Orioles less than 4 percent of what the Rangers paid for Alex Rodriguez, neutralized the Great Pedro completely at Camden Yards.

Maximum Pat, who gives hitters that life-sentence stare from under his low-pulled cap, allowed only one run on four hits in 8 2/3 innings. Martinez, whose 2000 season is widely regarded as the most statistically sublime in history, punched out after a mere seven innings, allowing one run on four hits.

"I think what I said to Jerry was, 'How many people picked Oakland and Chicago [to go to the playoffs] last year?' " Hentgen said. "We'll battle. We'll grind. . . . This is an electric ballpark in a great baseball town. . . . We're going to surprise some people."

The Orioles certainly surprised the Red Sox, aka Team Turmoil. Boston is heaped high with injuries (Nomar Garciaparra's surgery), feuds (Manager Jimy Williams and outfielder Carl Everett), irate benched stars (Dante Bichette) and monstrous expectations (Manny Ramirez's $160 million contract).

For whatever it's worth, the Orioles are the exact opposite. Kids such as Hairston, who scored both runs after leadoff doubles, and reliever Ryan Kohlmeier, who got the win, are meshed with oldsters such as Brady Anderson, who got the walk-off single against Derek Lowe, and Cal Ripken, who made two brilliant plays behind the third-base bag. Nobody is burdened with expectations, except those they put on themselves. Yet many, such as Hentgen, seem to demand a great deal of themselves.

"I guarantee you that 99.9 percent of the people in America who saw that matchup in the paper [Martinez vs. Hentgen] wrote us off," Orioles Manager Mike Hargrove said. "But there's no back down in Pat Hentgen. To do what he did, ignore all that, shows what a mentally tough individual he is. You can't call him a 'warrior' because, in baseball, nobody dies. But he sure relishes competition. He's a player."

Usually, former players such as Hargrove seldom call pitchers "players." It's a compliment they reserve for an outfielder who runs into walls, a catcher who plays hurt, an infielder who doesn't miss a game for 17 years. Pitchers are a vaguely suspect sub-set of the baseball universe -- strange beings who know how to throw a baseball but who often aren't really viewed as genuine hell-for-leather ballplayers.

For a pitcher to be called a player, he has to transcend his genre. Among the Orioles, Hentgen has this status already. He is not Mussina's equal as a pitcher. Hentgen's 28-25 record the last three years speaks for itself. But, like Sutcliffe, Hentgen has intangibles. The Orioles wanted a pitcher who would bring fire, hard work and team-first unselfishness to their young half-formed team. Abe Lincoln wasn't available. But for two years at $9.6 million, Hentgen came cheap and with character references.

Of course, when Hentgen gave up 12 runs on 18 hits in 11 innings in his last two spring training starts, hearts were in front-office throats. Now, the pulse rate in the warehouse has diminished considerably. At least for one day.

"I watched Hentgen all those years he was in Toronto," said Anderson, whose sudden-death single off Lowe scored Hairston, who had a single, two doubles, and a steal of third base off Martinez. "I never sensed frustration in him. It was like, 'Home run? Fine. Gimme a new ball. Next hitter. Let's go.' I thought, 'Wow, the other pitchers should watch that.'

"After seeing him stare at me from the mound with his hat down for so long, I was interested to see what he'd be like. He's a pure competitor. Sutcliffe was, too. But he gave you the impression he was goofin' around out there. Hentgen just goes right after every hitter."

So, there you have it -- perfection for a day, a blend of role-model veterans and bumptious kids. Who says the Orioles don't have a plan? Something akin to this inspirational opener happened once before. (So it probably won't happen again.) The '89 Orioles were supposed to be atrocious, yet they beat Roger Clemens on the first day of the season, then stayed in the pennant race all season.

One strong similarity exists between the '89 and '01 clubs. Both have such a good clubhouse feeling that players can't stop talking about it. Of course, anything would seem like an improvement after 107 loses in '88 or the gloom of the tense, overpaid Orioles teams of the last three gruesome years.

This was a day for the Orioles to defy the odds. Only 161 more lucky spins of the wheel and they'll be home free.