Baseball Thoughts on the Day Before Opening Day (Delayed Posting)

So, for everyone but the White Sox and the Indians, tomorrow is opening day for the 2006 MLB Season. Like about 45,000 other people in Seattle, I'm taking some PTO to plop myself in a seat at the Safe and try to figure out if this year will be better (PLEASE) or worse than last year for the Mariners.
Matt Hasselbeck and a few of his Seahawks teammates will be throwing out the first pitch of the game against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Azusa, Cucamonga, Victorville and all points north, south, east and west. Maybe a little bit of the Hawks' improving fortunes will rub off on the M's.
Bartolo "I don't believe in offseason conditioning regimens" Colon will be pitching for the Angels versus the Ancient Mariner himself, Jamie Moyer (do you all realize that, with the departure--however temporary or permanent it may be--of Roger Clemens, Moyer is the oldest active pitcher in the major leagues? Physically, he seems to have dodged the injury bullet, and his mental attitude is as good as ever, but his never very fast fastball has slowed down even more. What new crafty lefty tricks is he going to be able to come up with this year if he expects to "survive" the season?
Kenji Johjima shows every sign of being worth the money the team spent on him in the offseason--calls a pretty good game; communicates well with the pitchers in English and Spanish, given the amount of time that he has been here; and shows signs of being able to hit for some power (though just the fact that he will play half of his games in the Safe means that he is not likely to hit the 29 homers that he did in Japan last year).
As for the rest of the lineup, it is pretty much the same as last year, with the exception of the addition of Carl Everett as DH over Raul Ibanez (who will be the full time left fielder this year), and the addition of Roberto Petagine and Matt Lawton to the bench. For a 35 year old, Petagine had a monster spring--here's hoping some of it carries over. A 12 pounds lighter Beltre is starting to look better than last year, but still chases a few too many fastballs out of the zone.
Baseball players are notoriously superstitious, so they should be deliriously happy with the fact that the team finished with an 11-17 spring training record because, historically, when the M's have a winning spring training record they usually do poorly in the regular season and vice versa (NOTE: the only two teams in the AL who had a worse ST were----drumroll, please--the White Sox and the Red Sox--and who had the best spring training--the Royals, who had the worst regular season in 2005).
As for me, I will pull out my scorecard; pull up a comfortable seat in the Club; and watch the goings on to see how soon I might be expected to have to pull out the voodoo paraphrenalia THIS year (last two years it was before the middle of May).
More to follow after tomorrow........