Daisuke, Meet King Felix

Felix sure does have the goods. I still like Santana for this years' Cy Young in the AL. Yeah I know I'm really going out on a limb there (read sarcasm), but I'm not sure he can get the 17 or 18 wins plus you usually need to win it with the current Mariners lineup.

At his age though, he's showing all the signs of a future Cy Young award winner.

Daisuke had a nice game. It is just that the Boston players did not give him a chance to win the game. 1 hit and 2 walks by the position players will not help Matsuzaka.

Yeah, I'm really glad Felix pitched so well today. I was at Opening Day here in Seattle, and he was on fire then too. But after the All-Snow Break that kept the Mariners out of action for almost a week, I was sort of worried about tonight's game.

Even the local broadcasts in Seattle were making a huge deal out of Matsuzaka vs. Ichiro. I was thinking "Johjima faced him tons more, and a lot more recently. Why doesn't anyone talk about that? How about that huge home run in the PL playoffs a few years ago?"

(Actually, I suppose of all the batters Matsuzaka is likely to face this year, the two who have faced him the most in Japan were former Hawks Johjima and Iguchi. Kazuo Matsui was on his team and is in the NL anyway. So Taguchi's got the same 6-year delay Ichiro does and is in the NL. And Iwamura and Hideki Matsui were in the CL in Japan anyway, and mostly pre-inter-league at that. So, it's funny that they make such a big deal over Ichiro, but hey, what else is new?)

I knew Ichiro was going to be at a huge disadvantage and would probably stink against Daisuke. Just like in spring training, the pitchers have the edge at first. I had no idea Johjima would clobber his pitches so easily, though.

BTW, one of the reasons why I'm so high on King Felix right now is because I was also at opening day. I think he saw his numbers last year and got scared of becoming some mediocre pitcher. The hype at the end of 2005 probably got to him a little and he came into 2006 chubby with blond streaks in the hair. He looks a lot more like late 2005 Felix to me now. I think, like Johan has been doing the past few years in Minnesota, Felix will have just enough offense to get a bunch of wins.