Crown His Rather Ample Ass

Apparently King Felix had a big day yesterday. Eight innings pitched, three hits, no runs, 12 K, pretty rosy all around.

Hargrove was excited, mouthing off about the porcine pitcher being extremely mature, "a rare breed who has grasped the concept." He also had an unusually, how to say this, homoerotic line of praise in his postgamers yesterday, speaking of how the team "busted their humps" doing "everything we asked them to do and then some," leading to seeing "the fruits of that work today," topped with whipped cream, a maraschino cherry and a dose of "we rode Felix for this win."

Okay, I'm stretching it. Art Thiel and Steve Kelley went so bonkers, however, so over the top with excitement (about baseball and something else, respectively). To wit:

Hernandez pitched as well as any pitcher in the big leagues, any pitcher on the planet -- Kelley

Hernandez is young, healthy, cheap and dominant. -- Thiel

We're also young, cheap and, if you wish, dominant.

Anyhow, we got curious about Mariners opening day starters, because when it comes to Kelley and Thiel, the only safe bet is don't believe the hype. Thiel talked about something called "Weapons-grade giddiness," presumably from the nitrates in all the Mariner Dogs he sucks down. So, we decided to look back, because those who refuse to use the Internet to shortcut their way to understanding history are doomed to read Art Thiel in hell.

Here's what we found out, thanks to the enormously helpful Baseball Almanac site:

Pitcher Date IP H R ER BB K (Final Record, ERA)
Floyd Bannister* 4/16/82 9.0 7 0 0 4 8 (12-13, 3.43)

Randy Johnson 4/6/93 8.0 7 1 1 2 14 (19-8, 3.24)

Big Unit* 4/27/95 6.0 3 0 0 2 8 (18-2, 2.48)

Jamie Moyer 4/8/03 7.0 4 0 0 1 7 (21-7, 3.27)

Jamie Moyer 4/4/05 5.2 5 1 0 0 4 (13-7, 4.28)

(* = home opener)


So, what does this mean? I think it means that maybe the Flabby Fireballer will either have an awesome season, or an okay season. But not a bad one. Gil Meche at worst. It also means that Art Thiel is a pretty creepy guy. More later.