Game 1: A’s at Mariners
King Felix vs Dan Haren, 3:35 pm
A bunch of interesting subplots in tonight’s game – Travis Buck makes his major league debut, Shannon Stewart tries to prove he’s alive, Jose Guillen may or may not play due to an ankle injury (which will probably lead to an Ignitor sighting), and of course, Felix becomes the 8th youngest pitcher in major league history to take the hill on opening day.
We’re generally ones who wave away gut feelings and fate, but to me, today’s game just feels like one of those that we’re going to remember where we we when it happened. Felix’s last start as a 20-year-old, on opening day, against the team that handed us our lunch last year. This is one of those games that the organization could really use, because no one wants to start talking about 2-17 against Oakland against.
So, my guess? Felix throws a complete game, allows one run on four hits, walks one, and strikes out 11. He walks off the field to a standing ovation, and we all remember April 2nd, 2007 as the day that King Felix told the world that he was here to stay.
Go Mariners.
Churchill says that Felix is on a 110 pitch count, so he’s got a shot to finish the 8th.
246: Last year there was over 500 in an extra-inning game against the Angels.
apparently its the night of the Living shortstops horrorfest at safeco tonight..
You’re right Dave, King Felix is here to stay.
So, who should pitch the 9th?
Save JJ for tomorrow?
Dave, try to be a little more optimistic with your predictions from now on ok?
It’s Putz time!
Hey ya need 4 runs to win right?
Nah … I’d consider giving JJ some work seeing how he only pitched 2 innings or so all spring.
Hey, check out that stud #1 guy for the Royals… outduels Curt Schilling and all.
238:
agree about Simms..
How is our commentator rotation going to work now??
heh
Vidro should have made about 6 outs today.
I’d use JJ today. Might as well give him a “soft landing” appearance since he’s coming off some injury issues.
This game has been awesome, but I hate that my MLB Game Day Audio is behind the ESPN MLB GameCast page I’m watching at the same time.
This game may not predict the entire season (if we just didn’t have the closed roof we could pray for Felix and four days of rain), but it’s a great start, and I like having the breaks go our way for once.
I’ve been working a lot on global warming of late, which is real and urgent and may be larger than anything we’ve dealt with as humans. [See stepitupSeattle for our great local event April 14]
So it’s particularly nice for Felix to give us some of the sweet things in life to savor
this game feels like a first date for me.
So upset I’ve been at work during this. Felix sounded otherworldly.
Nice way to open the season guys.
Hey Dave, I have some money to bet… what’s your take on tomorrow’s game? heheh
Very very sweet. Feels good to be a Mariner fan today.
Have I mentioned that I love opening day? 🙂
gotta add my kudo’s to daves prediction. nice.
good job guys. way to make them pay for that error.
incredible outing, long live the King!
-nate
So JJ has a sore elbow yet gets thrown into this game. This teams management is a freakin joke.
So, what do the league ERA and Strikeout leaderboards look like?
Now if they can hold Oakland scoreless for all the other games this season….
Hey, check out that stud #1 guy for the Royals… outduels Curt Schilling and all.
Schilling was nothing close to the best version of himself. But here’s an amazing fact: Meche’s 7 1/3 innings was the longest outing by a Kansas City starter on opening day since 1988.
(Also, not to be Mr. Downer, or anything, but I assume everybody remembers Opening Day of 2005, when Sexson also went long; the season, on the other hand, I assume everybody is trying to forget).
But Felix was fantastic, and I hope we see a lot more of that this season. If it’s true that they’ve taken the reins off Felix, letting him throw the pitches he (and Joh) thinks he should, we may indeed see more of it. Less Hargrove, more Felix = more wins.
Also, regarding that KC-BOS game: there was a Joel Pineiro sighting there too (he gave up an RBI triple). It was like some kind of crazy vortex of ex-M’s pitchig. Now we just need a Moyer/Garcia-RJ matchup….
I was checking the game via Gameday, Gamecast, etc… but now that I’ve read what all y’all posted, today’s performance sounds even cooler.
Still, I’m going to attempt to not spend money on tickets to a game all season. I suppose I should write a letter accompanying that decision or something.
That was nice. Sadly, he won’t pitch EVERY game though. Is there something I should be looking forward to in the next 4 starts? I just can’t feel excited about those other guys.
I agree what was the point in throwing J.J. out there?
the non-stop mouth behind me today informed Sexson as he came up to bat with a runner on third and Vidro on 1st: “c’mon Sexson, a double gets two runs in!!!!”
um, his elbow feels fine. That would be why he is pitching.
You were off by only one on each guess. 8 innings not 9,0 runs not 1, 3 hits not 4, 2 walks not 1, 12 strikeouts not 11. I’d consider that very accurate and odd that each was exatcly one off.
Dave,
Your line wasn’t too far off from mine:
complete game shut out, 2 hits, one walk, 11 stikeouts, and one pop fly for an out.
But (fortuntely) he did better than that!