To begin with, I'm going to share a little story that exhibits the twists and travails of playing fantasy basbeall.

As I set my fantasy baseball line-up for this week, I decided to sit Felix Hernandez (who I snatched from the waiver while after a fellow owner foolishly dropped him) for today's start against the Devil Rays. My rationale? Well, he's had an over-all small sample size career-wise, has had an erratic start to 2006, was coming off a lousy start against the White Sox, and had never faced the Devil Rays. So I placed Felix on the bench.

"Just watch," I said to a fellow league owner. "Felix will reward my benching with eight innings of two-hit shutout ball."

Not quite that, but Felix's 7.2 innings of one-run and eight strikeouts was a huge reason why the Mariners triumphed over the D-Rays 8-1 to take the first two games of the three game series.

So, while I'm glad the Mariners won, I had to slam my fist into my computer desk and yell with frustration regardless. Fantasy players will understand.

Anyways, how did our boy Beltre do? Would you believe another two hits? For the second game in a row? Beltre's hitting a sick .333 since the beginning of May, with a quasi-decent OPS of .813. Maybe somebody told him that he's garnered his own blog reveling in his putrid season, and decided to take his vengeance out on baseballs. Specifically, baseballs thrown by pitchers. From opposing teams. No complaints here.

Of course, it would be nice if some of those hits would actually make it over the fence. Oh, that's right. Beltre's next home run won't be until May 25th, against the Orioles. Just another 16 days before Beltre's next dinger.

(On a side note- thanks for jacking one today, Everett! I was beginning to forget what these things called "home runs" were, spending all my time following the Mariners!)

Tomorrow, the M's attempt to complete the sweep while facing the fireballing Scott Kazmir, who's having an excellent year, a 4-2 record with 39 Ks in 42 innings, making that trade with the Mets for Victor Zambrano looking better and better. Kazmir has pitched the M's tough- 2.38 ERa in 11 innings, and Beltre has only faced Scott twice- hitless both times- so there is no telling what he'll do against Scott's heat.

Of course, Jamie Moyer has an 8-3 record with an 2.75 ERA in his career versus the D-Rays, so I'm saying the Mariners will complete the sweep, even if Beltre goes 0-for-4 and only 5,000 fans show up.