Game 1 Summary: MARINERS 5, ATHLETICS 3

Without further ado, the 2010 season started off with a rather paradoxical offensive attack from the M's. At the plate, the Mariners waited out the good pitches, walked 8 times, and managed to get A's starter Ben Sheets out of the game before the 6th inning by forcing him to throw 94 pitches that early. On the basepaths though, Figgins was running, Ichiro was running, and even Bradley ran. Though, the running escapades were not all successful, (Bradley and Ichiro were each caught stealing once), they caused so much anixtey for Oakland, that Figgins stole second twice only to get all the way to third on a throwing error from A's catcher Kurt Suzuki and catching error from shortstop Cliff Pennington. Whith the score tied in the ninth, Figgins beat a throw to first in order to setup Casey Kotchman for a game winning 2 run single. Another neat offensive note: The Mariner's first homer was clocked by Rob Johnson in the 3rd. He only hit 2 all of last season.

Pitching wise, the night was as magical. King Felix almost made it 7 full innings, but was yanked 1 out short of that mark when he walked 2 batters consecutively, his 5th & 6th walks of the night. He did strike out 4 and pitch scoreless ball through the first 5 innings. Also, some of the control issues can be contributed to it being his first outing of the year and the fact that the umpire Tschida wasn't calling strikes any lower than 2 inches above the batters' knees. This led to a combined 15 walks betweeen both clubs. Luckily, Brandon League threw a scoreless 8th inning to pickup the win and Aardsma put the worries of his disastrous spring training behind by throwing a perfect 9th with 2 ks for his first save of the year.

Fielding wise, the duo of Figgins and Wilson completed a double play, Figgins managed to set up another one when the A's' Daric Barton laid down in the basepath, and Lopez showed flashes of Beltre when he tagged first band rocketed one over to Kotchman for another, and then when he went to Figgins at second. Wilson did give up a rather costly error, but the M's came away a lot better than the A's, who committed a total of 4.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: I'm gonna go with Casey Kotchman. A lot of analysts have been throwing up their arms asking, "who will bring in the runs?" Kotchman answered this by driving in 4 runs. While he may not have clubbed them out of the park, Kotchman has the patience at the plate to draw hitter's pitches out of the pitchers. Of course, Chone Figgins comes in a close second as he managed to score 2 runs without getting a single hit and make amazing defensive plays.