Opening Day 2011

Felix was not dominating tonight – not in the overwhelming, I'm-just-plain-better-than-you manner that we are used to at least. Instead he was remorselessly effective; getting contact early in the count (after the first two innings, before which he averaged 5.14 pitches per batter faced, 3.18 after), allowing his defense to get outs, walking no one, not relying on pitch count-busting strike outs.

In exhibition was the superlative pitcher Felix has become: in his first start of the season, following a spring where he was deliberately given a diminished workload, he economized his approach in a manner that allowed him to pitch a complete game without going much above a hundred pitches against a team built to get on base. A month from now, when he is stretched out, he can pitch against the A's again and strike out ten in the dominating, perennial Cy-Young contending manner we are accustomed to.

Felix has matured to the point that he can basically choose how he wants to beat you.

Offensively, the six runs look nice but are qualified by a hot-potato A's defense that committed five errors.

With that said, they did the best with what they have, which is not much. Ichiro and Figgins wracked up their hits at the top of the order and everyone after them took pitches.

That's all they did – they took pitches.

As a result, Mariner batters earned a lot of walks and a lot of strike outs, many of them backward K's. (M's batters walked seven times, struck-out looking eight.) Both results compelled Cahill to run his pitch count up and give the ball away before he could complete five innings (105 pitches in 4.2 innings, 4.38 pitches per batter faced). After that the Mariners were able to exploit porous defense and A's middle relief. They won, in other words, by not swinging, flailing, failing and losing. They did not make outs, they got on base (.349 team OBP), put pressure on the Athletics, and earned some runs.

This might be the only approach offensively that has any hope of success this year. They may not be able to punch much themselves, but at the very least M's hitters can make their opponent's pitching and defense work harder than they would like to and (hopefully) buckle against the extra leverage.

The high-strain innings force the starter out and the soft-belly of Major League middle relief in. The extra base-runners that come with the bases-on-balls enervate the pitching even more and place more pressure on the defense. Couple that with some timely hitting here and there and you have the seeds of a team that will exact a degree of attrition on their opponents and thus be able to compete most nights. A team that approaches the game this way is a very obnoxious opponent for the usually superior teams they play.

At the very least this approach worked for one night and hope for a competitive, entertaining, near-.500 season lives on.

Notes:

• Miguel Olivo will probably never walk this season. He might not ever see a ball.
  
• Other than being superlative defensively, Brendan Ryan might be the perfect bottom-of-the-order hitter. Picking his punches and wreaking havoc when he gets on base, he will at least provide a level of pugnacity to the bottom three that Jack Wilson, Josh Wilson, Rob Johnson and whoever else we had there last year never provided.
  
• There was a swagger about Figgins tonight I do not remember seeing at any point last year.
  
• Dave Niehaus had been visibly and, as he was a broadcaster, audibly aging the past few seasons. But by-God was it unnatural to watch an entire game and not hear his voice. You are missed, Dave. My, oh my, are you missed.