Dominic Leone spoils first start for Felix Hernandez as Mariners lose, 9-3

1:00 p.m. today was a bizarre time on the Twitter front for many Mariners fans. Most likely, as a fan of Seattle sports, there is a good chance you also follow various people who are enthusiastic about the Seahawks. Usually, leading up to a Felixday, Twitter is full of people talking about how excited they are to see Felix, blah blah blah he is ours.

Today was a bit different. For starters, this spring training game wasn't broadcast on TV, so no one except for those hanging out in Arizona would get to see Felix Hernandez's first start of spring training. Second, KIRO was doing their radio broadcast a bit delayed, so no one could really even hear the game, unless you tuned in online.

Then, 1:00 p.m. hit, the moment that should be full of Felix joy, and Twitter exploded with a massive Seattle Seahawks announcement trade. The Seahawks, the darling of this town, couldn't even respect Felixday to wait until afterwards? How dare they. By the time the dust had settled, Felix had somewhat cleanly gone through his two innings and was done with his start. He said this, and it was over.

Words from the King, on what he needs to do this spring: "I need to get ready to be Felix again."

— Greg Johns (@GregJohnsMLB) March 10, 2015

Hernandez finished the game with 18 pitches, throwing nine strikes. He allowed no hits and intentionally walked one batter.

The Mariners did some fine small ball to put a run on the board in the third. Brad Miller hit a nice sharp double down the right field line and would eventually score in the fourth, and the Mariners comfortably led, 2-0. Basically, we had your standard Felixday score.

Then everything started to fall apart. There were errors, there were wild pitches, there were home runs from the Rockies and suddenly the score was 9-2. Woof. Dominic Leone got rocked around the most in the bullpen. His final line reads he gave up five hits, seven runs (five earned), one walk and one home run. Realistically, he was just having one of those days. The Rockies jumped on his first pitch four times and reached base all four times (once in thanks to a Miller error). After a wild pitch, Leone was pulled.

Sometimes it is best to forget that games even happened, and although you never want to be forced to do that on Felixday, today might be one of those days. It wasn't all completely bad, however. Miller notched two hits in his three at-bats and Dustin Ackley started to find his swing by going 3-for-3. The rest of the bullpen not named Roenis Elias or Leone also performed quite nice, combining for 3.2 scoreless innings and giving up two hits and a walk in the process.

All in all, it was just one of those forgettable spring training games. So maybe we should thank the Seahawks and the rest of the NFL for giving us more exciting news than the Mariners did today.