‘Stunned’ Jack Wilson debuts as Mariners’ latest answer at shortstop

Jack Wilson ’stunned’ to be a Mariner

SEATTLE — Jack Wilson was stunned.

Stunned to be waking up in Texas with the Seattle Mariners on Thursday. Stunned to not be back in Pittsburgh with his wife, their three kids and the woebegone Pirates, for whom he’s played for all nine of his years in the major leagues.

“A shock. I really don’t know what to feel,” Wilson said after the defensive whiz and native of Southern California went from the oldest-tenured Pirate of nine years to newest Mariners shortstop in a trade on Wednesday.

The deal sent shortstop Ronny Cedeno, catcher Jeff Clement and three minor-league pitchers to Pittsburgh and brought right-hander starter Ian Snell to Seattle. The Mariners optioned Snell to Triple-A Tacoma for now, and a team spokesman said Thursday that Snell may stop by the major league team in Texas for a workout before joining the Rainiers.

The 31-year-old Wilson was an All-Star with the Pirates in 2004. He and his wife Julie have raised their three children, ages 2-7, in the city.

They are so ingrained in Pittsburgh, Julie returned from a wives’ road trip to San Francisco on the Pirates’ team charter Wednesday while her husband hurriedly flew to Seattle. While Wilson was introduced in Seattle on Wednesday, he even thanked the NFL-champion Steelers and NHL-champion Penguins for easing the doldrums of Pirates fans in Pittsburgh.

“I’m definitely going to miss it. I definitely loved it there — aside from the record,” Wilson said. “The city of Pittsburgh is a perfect place to raise my family.”

Make that, was.

While Julie was back scooping up the kids to take them to their home in the Northwest on Thursday, Wilson was in Arlington, Texas, for the Mariners’ series opener against the Rangers.

Wilson went 0 for 3 in his Mariners’ debut Thursday, and his only play in the field was a grounder that ended the eighth inning of a 7-1 loss at Texas.

In Seattle, Mariners’ executives were hunkered down pondering whether to trade starting pitcher Jarrod Washburn or others before Friday’s non-waiver trading deadline.

Before he went into bunker mode, general manager Jack Zduriencik gave Wilson a reason to get over his Pittsburgh homesickness. The GM said the Mariners’ third shortstop in four weeks is going to be in Seattle for a while.

“We answered a question at shortstop for the next few years,” Zduriencik said, after trading Cedeno, and the erratic Yuniesky Betancourt three weeks before that.

The Pirates reportedly gave the Mariners $3.3 million toward the contracts of Wilson and Snell for the rest of this season and left 2010 as Seattle’s responsibility. The Mariners inherit a club option for next season on Wilson worth $8.4 million, with a $600,000 buyout.

Zduriencik, who grew up near Pittsburgh, said the Mariners will “entertain” picking up that option or signing Wilson to a new, long-term contract.

“Obviously, we’ll see how Jack likes it here. I’d like to think he’ll be here for a lengthy period of time,” Zduriencik said. “This certainly answers questions for us as we move forward.”

One thing Wilson likes right away: being on a team with a winning record, for a change.

“I’m just excited for the opportunity to play some meaningful games this point in the season,” he said, considering Seattle’s six-game deficit in the AL wild-card standings and 7½-game hole in the AL West entering Thursday to be on the fringe of a playoff race.

“The last time I was on a winning team was in junior college, my sophomore year in Oxnard (Calif.)”

When asked if he’d like to pursue a contract extension in Seattle, Wilson laughed and said, “Yeah, from what I know about it here. I’ve only been here a few hours.”

Yet he’s been with Seattle long enough to know its rebuilding plan is far more developed than the one in Pittsburgh. The Pirates have shed seven stars in the last 12 months, with little to show for the deals yet. They are careening toward what would be a major league-record 17th consecutive losing season.

“It’s tough. It’s tough for the fans. It’s tough for the players,” Wilson said. “I could give you an All-Star team of guys who left the Pittsburgh Pirates in the nine years I was there. You took it personally. You’d bust your butt, then two months into the season it’s pretty much lost.

“The fans in Pittsburgh, they’ve been there the whole time. … They’re going to get it there — eventually. And they deserve it.”