CHICAGO – They are precious things in a season that stretches from April into October, the 33 or so starts by Felix Hernandez – and it’s painful if the Seattle Mariners waste any.
The 24th of the season came against the Chicago White Sox on Monday, a game where neither Felix nor the Seattle offense had much to offer, and the result was all too predictable.
The Mariners’ 100th game of the season ended in a 6-1 loss, their offense remains dormant and their ace is a .500 pitcher at 7-7.
No, life isn’t fair.
If it were, the 24-year-old Hernandez would have 12 or 13 wins by now – that’s how well he’s pitched – but the Mariners’ offense doesn’t seem to care whose pitching it wastes.
“We just don’t seem to score runs for him,” Jose Lopez said. “We’ve got good pitching from everybody in the rotation and we score one, two, three, four runs … that’s not enough.”
Hernandez may be pitching every bit as well as last year when he finished second in the American League Cy Young Award voting. No one gets through a season without a game in which nothing comes easy, and the Mariners’ right-hander had one of those.
So did his offense.
“John Danks was great tonight,” Hernandez said of the White Sox starter.
Through two innings, Hernandez and Danks breezed through opposing hitters.
Seattle scored in the third inning on a Jack Wilson RBI single – and Chicago came right back in their half of the inning with two runs. After that, Hernandez labored, and his team never got closer.
It didn’t help that the White Sox’s rally probably shouldn’t have happened.
“The ground ball to third base, that cost Felix two runs and 11 extra pitches,” manager Don Wakamatsu said.
No one argued, including the man at third base, Lopez. A one-out grounder toward the line, Lopez had it glance off his glove and away from him. Alexei Ramirez was credited with a hit.
“Lopey came up to me after the inning and said, ‘I should have had it,’ ” Hernandez said.
“I tried to play it on the short bounce, and had it go off my glove and go too far away for me to make a play on,” Lopez said. “The ball to my right, I’m still learning to make those plays. I’m more comfortable to my left.”
If Lopez makes that play, Hernandez is probably out of the third inning 1-2-3. He didn’t, Felix wasn’t and Chicago scored twice.
“Do I get frustrated? No,” Hernandez said. “It’s baseball.”
Into the sixth inning, trailing 2-1, Hernandez couldn’t keep the White Sox from getting the barrel of their bats on his pitches – something he rarely has to worry about.
Paul Konerko waited out a 3-1 count, then hit his 22nd home run of the season just inside the left-field foul pole.
Two batters later, Ichiro Suzuki took a two-run home run away from Mark Kotsay, leaping to reach over the fence in right field to make the catch.
Back-to-back doubles by A.J. Pierzynski and Ramirez, both hit hard, pushed home Chicago’s fourth run.
By the end of the inning, Felix had thrown 90 pitches, allowed nine hits.
“Weird game,” he said. “That home run? It’s a fly ball at Safeco Field.”
And Ichiro’s play?
“That was a great play,” Hernandez said. “I thought that ball was gone.”
Through it all, Hernandez has remained resolutely professional, taking the ball every fifth day, posting a 2.86 earned-run average.
Over his past 11 starts, he’s had a 2.23 ERA – and gone 5-3.
“Felix deserves better,” Wakamatsu said. “He’s pitching as well as he did last year. He’s a total professional, game after game with no run support and showing what kind of teammate he is.”
What kind is that?
“He doesn’t show frustration, and that’s good for him and good for the team,” Lopez said. “Offensively, it’s not one guy, it’s all of us. You get a man at third, you think, ‘Hit it up the middle’ and everybody pulls the ball to third base.”
The loss snapped a two-game win streak – the Mariners this year count wins as one-game streaks – and dropped them to 39-61. There are 62 games left. Felix figures to start 11, maybe 12.
“My job is to win, and I just want to do my job,” he said.
He’s doing it.
The Mariners haven’t been able to take advantage. Wakamatsu let Felix pitch the seventh, hoping to get a win for him. It almost backfired.
“The last two batters, he threw 19 pitches to, and that got him past where we wanted him to go,” Wakamatsu said. “We had him at about 107 with two outs, and the last guy kept fouling them away, pitch after pitch.”
Hernandez threw 117 pitches – and said he didn’t want to come out even then.
Like everyone else, he knows how precious each start is.
larry.larue@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners
