Tonight.

Daisuke Matsuzaka vs, Felix Hernandez and Ichiro. Boston vs. Seattle. Two young, possibly brilliant pitchers. Two Japanese superstars. Two American League powerhou-- oh, wait. Ok, so one good team and one possibly really bad team. Although it's hard to tell anything about the Mariners at this point after the long layoff and the abomination 14-3 whipping they took yesterday.

Doesn't matter. Tonight's game (on ESPN2 no less!) has the potential to be very interesting. If only because Felix and Ichiro.

And as much as I want our two key guys to go out there and impress in their little matchups--more than that, I want the Mariners to win. And I don't really care how they do it. 1-0 with an Ichiro homer and nothing but terrible hitting from the rest of the guys? Felix blows it but somehow the offense rallies? Those would be ugly wins, but I'll take 'em.

If I can't have a win, I at least hope that Felix can be impressive on the national stage. If the entire team can avoid looking like fools, that would be nice too. I have this hope--and it may be ridiculous--that the Mariners will come out fired up because of the matchup, because of yesterday's terrible game, because of a weekend of sitting around not being able to play.

We'll see what happens tonight.