FanHouse UssMariner

In case you missed it on Saturday afternoon, King Felix ruined the return of Rich Harden for the Athletics by making Harden's presence an afterthought. Felix was treating the Athletics the same way a bear plays with a fish before eating it.

Hernandez lasted eight innings, giving up only two hits and no runs in Seattle's 4-0 victory.

The key is where Hernandez got his strategy. Unlike Sports Illustrated, when Felix Hernandez takes something from a blog, he gives them credit.

"Chaves gave me a report,'' Hernandez said. "On the internet, they say when I throw a lot of fastballs in the first inning, they score a lot of runs. I tried to mix all my pitches in the first inning.''

Chaves is Mariners pitching coach Rafael Chavez, who was given a letter by an unknown fan whom he'd never met before. The letter that fan gave him was a printout from this post, "Open Letter to Rafael Chaves", by the guys at USS Mariner.

"It was nothing but reinforcement of the talks we've had in the past,'' Chaves said. "I just wanted to make Felix aware that 'It's not a top secret around baseball that you have a tendency to get into patterns. We all get scouted and...unless you make your own adjustments it's going to be easy to predict what you're going to be doing out there to begin with.''

I should have known this was coming. Felix Hernandez was having too fantastic a start to the season. Mariners fans everywhere held their breath on Wednesday night as Hernandez left in the first inning of the Mariners 5-4 loss to the Twins.

The Twins led the first inning off with two singles and a Joe Mauer walk to load the bases. Mariners pitching coach Rafael Chavez came to the mound, but Felix didn't mention any problems so he remained in the game. A couple of runs later, Hernandez threw a 2-1 fastball to Justin Morneau before gesturing to the bench and walking off the mound.

The Mariners are saying that it was only a precautionary move and that Hernandez was only experiencing elbow tightness. Of course it would be hard for them to know more seeing as how Hernandez was no where to be found after the game.

The team will re-evaluate the elbow on Thursday, and until then they'll just cross their fingers that everything is all right.

As far as Mariners fans reactions, here's Jeff from Lookout Landing this morning.

I knew something was wrong when Felix started the game rough last night, but I was thinking more along the lines of off day than arm injury. I got wide-eyed when I saw Felix signal for the trainer, and as he walked off the field to one of the most uneasy ovations I've ever heard, my cold empty heart sank to the ground. I haven't been able to smile since. For the past 13 hours or so, the happiest I've felt in any given moment could be best described by an observer as "currently doesn't want to jump off a building." But those are just fleeting moments of pleasure in a suicidal existence.

As for Dave over at USS Mariner,

Felix left tonights game with "tightness in his right elbow". That's about the worst news possible. Now we just hold our breaths and hope like crazy, because without Felix, rooting for this team is about as much fun as having your eyelids ripped out.

I'm not even a Mariners fan, and even I'm getting nervous.