He Has Returned

One of the major benefits of working in a sports department of a newspaper is that your superiors will generally tolerate sports-related distractions. The reason everyone in this office is in this business is that we can't get enough sports, to the point that we're all pretty meniachal about our teams. We all have our moments when we have to stop and watch the next pitch, possession, down, power play, etc.

Tonight is my night to be distracted, for the King has returned! Felix Hernandez toes the rubber tonight for the first time since April 18th, when he left a start against Minnesota in the first inning with tightness in his pitchin elbow.

Ever since he came up in the summer of 2005, Felix has gererated a buzz for his games, a buzz that not only dwarfs anything his mates in the staring rotation can conjur up, but dwarfs everthing else in that particular game. If you saw his one-hit gem against Boston earlier this year, you know what I'm talking about. Since he got hurt, the M's have played hard and stayed in the hunt, but the games don't have the same feeling when you don't have a sure-fire, shutdown performace every fifth day.

After watching the big fella take his warm ups, that feeling that's been missing for the past four weeks returned. He's only going to throw 70-80 pitches tonight, which will only get him through about five innings, but I'm expecting five of the best innings I'll watch all year. (Then again, with Orlando Cabrera hitting third and Gary Matthews, Jr. hitting clean-up, why can't Felix go 7-8 innings?)

Felix Hernandez is back and the AL is back on notice.

Long live the King.