Felix pitches, Ackley homers, Ichiro hits

I wasn't planning to watch the M's open their season at 3:00 AM this morning.  However I am a bit of an insomniac, and even though I didn't make it to bed until almost 11:00 Tuesday because of deadline, I knew it was a possibility I'd be awake while the M's and A's flailed away at each other in the Tokyo Dome.  When our 16 year old crybaby cat Daphne came squalling into our bedroom, melatonin or no melatonin, I figured I'd go out and turn on the game. 

I was hoping to doze a bit through the rough and tumble, but no such luck.  I turned the game on as the game headed to bottom of the fourth, the M's up by a run.  Unfortunately that didn't last long, as my eyes focused just in time to see Kurt Suzuki rocket a double off Felix and drive in Cliff Pennington.  Score tied 1-1.  Fortunately the M's came back to win it, but it took 11 innings and a lot of very good pitching by Hernandez, Tom Wilhelmson and Brandon League to keep the A's away from further damage.  M's win 3-1. 

This had an eerily familiar feeling.  The M's had nine hits.  Of those four were by Ichiro, who looked like 2011 whas simply a blip on the radar.  Two tradmark Ichiro infield hits, but two nice line drives up the middle too.  Ackley had a couple of hits, including a fourth inning homer (maybe earlier, but it was before my moments of wakefulness.)  Not a lot of encouraging news on the hitting front as the middle third of the lineup-Smoak, Montero, and Carp-were a collective 0-17. 

On a more positive note, the M's are currently the winningest team in baseball.  Dustin Ackley is on a pace to hit 162 home runs.  Ichiro is firmly thrusting out his middle finger to all the Ichiro haters and is on a pace for 628 hits. Take that.