Congratulations to John Rheinecker on getting his first career victory on his 27th birthday.

The conditions couldn't have been better for him.

At home on a national holiday. A warm, dry evening with temperatures hovering around 90 degrees. And staring down the hitters of the Seattle Mariners. The hitters who as a whole rank 10th in the American League in batting average. Only 2 points above the lowly Royals.

The young left hander stymied the Mariners offense for 8 1/3 shutout innings, allowing only four hits and one walk while striking out 6. He was replaced with one out in the ninth by Rick Bauer who quickly recorded the final two outs for his first save of the season.

So how did the rookie feel, making his second career a full five weeks after his first start, an outing in which he gave up 2 runs on seven hits in just four innings?

"I was a lot more confident going out there this time," Rheinecker said. "I wasn't as nervous. I had a lot of confidence in (catcher Rod) Barajas."

Of course you weren't nervous, John. You probably couldn't wait to get up on the hill against these bums.

So, should we rush out and pick up Rheinecker in our fantasy leagues. No. Even I predicted another big, fat shutout in this game. And you can go ahead and assume the same results for any other pitcher we may encounter for the first time this season. This is nothing new to the Mariners. They have been unable to take rookie pitchers to school over the past few seasons, except for perhaps the occasional reliever. Everyone who owns a rookie pitcher in a fantasy baseball league has to expect occasional meltdowns (or string of meltdowns in Felix's case) along with their successes. But don't ever expect one of those meltdowns to come at the hands of this seattle offense.

Beltre collected the first hit of the game on a high chopper to second that he beat easily by two whole steps. Great solid hitting Adrienne (you'll lose the girls name when you stop hitting like one). His 1-3 performance raised his average 2 points to .221. Bars had ought to start doing a "Beltre Beer" during games like they used to with Dave Valle.

The only bright spot I can take from this is of the other teams hitting worse than seattle, other than KC, include Anaheim and Oakland. But somethings gotta give. The mariners must start hitting before one or both of those teams get it turned around. The AL west really wont continue to be this bad will it?