On Felix and the Season Finale

As you’ve probably heard by now, Felix will not take the mound in the Mariners’ season finale on Sunday.  After having one of the best seasons, as a pitcher, in Mariner history management has decided to shut him down a start early because of the amount of innings he’s already thrown this season.  I have two thoughts on this and I’ll keep it short.

My first thought is that our management gets it.  They see that downside of Felix making this final start outweighs the upside.  They get that Felix is more important to next season and the future than he is right now.  They understand that they have the best young pitcher in baseball and they are willing to lose a game in this lost season to decrease the chance that their best player gets hurt.  Would Felix have gotten hurt if he started?  No, probably not.  He was just as likely to get hurt last start against Texas as he would be this one, but still it’s not worth risking your ace.  You might think that this is common sense but I wonder if our prior GM’s would have got this.

On the other hand, I think it’s a shame.  Obviously, Felix wants to go out there and pitch one more game.  I think he’s earned the right to do that.  The King has just put up the two best consecutive years of pitching in organizational history, and if he wants to go out there, gosh, dang it, he should go out there.  Something tells me we’d see the best Felix possible on Sunday.  Our ace pitches his best when he’s on a big stage, unfortunately, the M’s are never on a big stage because they suck.  But Sunday, Felix would have been amped.  When Felix is amped it’s scary for the opponents.  I would have gone to the game on Sunday if Hernandez had been pitching just to give him a standing ovation, now I’ll probably just watch an inning or two from Matthew’s couch.  That’s the kind of pitcher Felix is.  The kind where you plan your schedule around seeing.  That’s the downside of him not pitching Sunday.

So, we’ll see you in February, Felix, when you report to Spring Training.  Then I’ll see you in April on opening day when you accept your Cy Young in front of 45,000 people at Safeco who don’t appreciate you enough.  I hope you get a standing ovation sometime on Sunday, somehow.  You deserve that.  I’ll be sure to give you a proper thank you sometime soon on here but, for now, this will do. See you in a couple months, King.