Dustin Ackley and the Mariners get off to a smiling start

While you were sleeping this morning, the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics played 11 innings of baseball to kick off the 2012 season. This bonus baseball resulted in a 3-1 triumph for the Seattle Mariners, which kind of sucks for the Oakland A’s seeing as how they gave up a couple of home games to go over to Japan and play the Mariners for the good of the game.

Things began mostly as they should have. Felix Hernandez went 8 innings and got one lonely run of support for striking out six and walking nobody. Ichiro went 4 for 5, and Dustin Ackley was what we like to call the whole damn show. He homered to open up scoring, stole a bag, doubled in the run to break the tie in the top of the 11th and then scored on an Ichiro single.

Cliff Pennington had two hits for the A’s and Yoenis Cespedes went 1 for 3 with a double in his big league debut.

I am so happy that we have real baseball. I can’t wait for the American soil version a week from now.