Undoubtedly, it sucks to have the M's drop from two games above .500 to one game below, but that's what the first sweep in over a decade at home against the Twins will do. Of course, who didn't know that a sweep by Minnesota was all but guaranteed the moment Felix took himself out of the game Wedensday evening? On the flip side, Felix's strained elbow will only require him to miss up to 20 games- or four starts- rather than forcing him to missing the entire season due to the dreaded Tommy John surgery. After getting smoked out in three straight games, you'll take any good news as you can get it. The bad news is somebody will have to replace Felix in the rotation. So far Hargrove has been mum on who that individual will be. He might as well just say "Nobody's replacing Felix, because nobody can. That won't prevent us from having five starters, however."

The last two games had some memorable moments, to be sure. Besides Felix leaving Safeco Field in shock and horror in the first inning of the second game, there was also some late-inning three-run bombs by Richie Sexson and Raul Ibanez in both games to get the M's within sniffing distance, as well as Beltre getting thrown out at home for the final out in Wednesday's game. While it's hard to fault the guy for showing any kind of aggressiveness or determination to win, or at least tie, the game perhaps if he hadn't committed to such a weak slide any had convinced himself to actually take Redmond out then the game could've gone into extra innings. Sigh...

I'd do a more in-depth re-cap of yesterday's game, but why bother? The M's faced Johann, Johann dominated by allowing five base-runners in seven innings, Johann won, pushing his career won-loss record against the M's to 8-1. No real new story here.

The Mariners get a chance to right their ship by facing the Angels for a weekend series. The Angels have been in a free-fall, with my pick to win the division having lost six in a row and eight of their last ten. It's quite clear that the Angels miss their catalyst, lead-off man who's absence coupled with the absence of Juan Rivera has reduced the Angels' offense to nothing. They have averaged 1.9 runs over those last ten games, getting shut-out twice in the process.

Miguel Batista and his career 2-2 record and 6.17 ERA versus the Angels is the first M's starter to hopefully find success versus the woeful Angels. Orlando Cabrera and Vladimir Guerrero have combined to hit .432 off Batista in 32 combined at-bats, with a .656 slugging percentage. On the other hand, Batista has held Gary Matthews Jr.- who's been the Angels' catalyst at the beginning of the season in Figgins' stead- to one hit in nine at-bats. Let's hope that Batista can duplicate his last start versus Texas, and throw six innings of three-run ball.

Joe Saunders takes the hill for the Angels, the other rookie phenom for Los Angeles last season- the one without the last name Weaver. Though Saunders may have finished the year with a 7-3 record, in his only start against the Mariners he allowed six runs in two innings, with both Ibanez and Sexson touching young Saunders for home runs.

I can't say confidently that the M's will rough up Saunders again, but I feel that they will continue to Angels losing slide. You have to pick against the Angels until they do, indeed, get out of their funk. FInal score: 5-4, M's.