DODGERS NOTEBOOK: FEELING STRONG, MARTINEZ WIPES AWAY BAD MEMORY.

Byline: Eric Noland Daily News Staff Writer

In Ramon Martinez's first career look at the Seattle Mariners, he was feeling a bit out of sorts. For a very good reason.

Nine days after he gave up five runs on six hits (including a couple of home runs) in a four-inning outing at the Kingdome in mid-June, Martinez was diagnosed with a slight tear in his right rotator cuff.

On Saturday, in his second appearance since coming off the disabled list, it was retribution time, as Martinez worked six dominant innings at Dodger Stadium in an 11-2 rout of the Mariners.

``That was one of the parts I was thinking about,'' Martinez said of the previous encounter. ``It was just an inspiration that I had, that I had to do better.''

Objective realized. He twice struck out Ken Griffey Jr. on three pitches, muscling high-and-away fastballs past the Seattle slugger. He also struck out five other Mariners and gave up only three hits, one of them a solo home run by Jay Buhner.

Afterward, Martinez declared that his recovery is beginning to pick up steam. Power? ``Yes,'' he said. ``I have more control of my pitches, better location.''

Also one unpleasant memory wiped clean.

Big draw: Consider it another indication of the success of baseball's interleague experiment: Labor Day weekend is usually a time of exodus for Southern Californians, but the presence of Griffey and the Mariners resulted in the Dodgers drawing a sellout crowd of 53,638, with another full house due today.

But Dodgers executive vice president Fred Claire, while issuing a ringing endorsement of interleague play, isn't convinced there should be a corresponding leap to realignment along regional lines.

``As much as I like the way interleague play has worked out this year, if you try to make the argument that this says you'll have the same type of response to the overall realignment, you can't get me to buy into those two concepts without more study,'' he said. ``There's a lot to look at there. You're talking about changes that go far beyond interleague play.''

Although the Dodgers drew sellouts for the Mariners and strong turnouts for the Angels and Oakland A's, much of that could be attributed to the novelty of American League teams visiting this park. There is certainly no guarantee it would continue if the Mariners and Angels, as future division rivals of the Dodgers, were to fall on hard times.