ANAHEIM – Hours before any game in which he is not pitching, Felix Hernandez is a hazard few men with the Seattle Mariners can avoid.
Messing with Jose Lopez one moment, getting a laugh and a shake of the head from coach Roger Hansen the next, Hernandez is every inch the 24-year-old wunderkind – enjoying major league life and forcing some of that joy on others.
“I love the game. I love being around my teammates,” Hernandez said. “In between starts, I’m going to be happy. I’m doing what I love. Even in a frustrating year, you can be happy.
“On the mound, I’m serious.”
That might never have been the case more than in this, a lost season for his team. The Mariners are assured of a fourth-place finish and might lose 100 games.
Hernandez is 11-10 – and an unlikely Cy Young Award candidate in the American League. A year ago, he finished second in the voting to Kansas City’s Zach Greinke, and when asked whom he’d vote for last September, Hernandez was candid.
“Greinke,” he said.
That was as Hernandez was winning 19 games, posting a 2.49 earned run average, working 238 innings and striking out 217 batters.
Fast forward a year.
“I’ve pitched better this year than last. I’ll have more innings, more strikeouts, a better earned run average. I think I’ve been more consistent than last year,” Hernandez said.
If he had a vote for Cy Young 2010 – he doesn’t; the award is voted upon by writers – who would Felix Hernandez vote for?
“Myself,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of wins, but I think I’ve pitched that well. It’s not my decision, so my vote doesn’t mean much.”
With five starts left to his season, including one Saturday night against the Angels, Hernandez has won 11 times, fashioned a 2.30 ERA, pitched 219 innings and struck out 209 batters.
Hernandez has become the pitcher the Mariners believed he would from the moment their scouts laid eyes upon him in Venezuela, from the time he joined the organization in 2002 at age 17.
On talk radio and the internet, he is known as King Felix. No one in the clubhouse uses that nickname – they have another.
“Fifi.”
How, you might wonder, does a young power pitcher end up with a moniker like that?
“In 2006, Ryan Franklin or Gil Meche started calling me ‘Fifi,’ and then everyone did. Now it’s all anyone in the clubhouse calls me,” Hernandez said.
He doesn’t mind.
In fact, Hernandez no longer lets much bother him. A man who used to be too emotional on the mound, he has seen too much as a Mariner to be easily rattled anymore.
The firing of manager Don Wakamatsu and pitching coach Rick Adair in August?
“How many managers and pitching coaches have I had? A lot,” Hernandez said. “Every year we’ve had someone new, it seems like. It’s just business. It happens every year. I know what I have to do, and no pitching coach has to tell me.
“Sometimes, I’ll ask if I’m working too fast, if I’m opening up too quick. Other than that, let me pitch. I’ve learned what I have to do.”
Does he miss the men who’ve come and gone?
“Yes – I still miss Rafael Chavez, and that was a long time ago,” he said of his 2006-07 pitching coach.
There have been too many firings, too many bad seasons during Felix’s tenure to focus on any one of them, and 2010 might rank among the most disappointing as a franchise. An offensively inept team that is last in the majors in runs scored, the Mariners have scored – total – nine runs in Hernandez’s 10 losses.
If there’s resentment, it doesn’t show.
“The season has been hard for everybody, not just me,” he said. “We’ve all had to deal with a lot of frustration. I’ve been mad, but I’ve let it go. What you have to do is your job, and all of us are trying to do that.
“It’s been hard for the pitchers, our not scoring, and hard for our offense. They try hard, they play hard. It’s just a frustration for all of us.
“We had a lot of expectations this season, but baseball is weird. This is a good team, with good players. Things just happened.”
Asked about next year, Hernandez shakes his head. He doesn’t know who will be the manager or the pitching coach for 2011, and neither does his front office.
“It’s too soon to think about 2011. Who knows who’ll be here, who’ll be back? I don’t know enough about it, and I don’t want to think about it now.
“I’ve got five starts left. I want to pitch the way I’ve been pitching, and whatever happens, happens.”
In the meantime, between starts, he will torment his teammates and coaches.
“Lopey!” he screams, sitting as his locker. Then he smiles.
“I’ve been teammates with Lopez for a long time now,” he said. “I really like messing with him.”
larry.larue@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners
TOUGH-LUCK FELIX
Thanks to a lack of run support, Felix Hernandez could become the 12th American League pitcher since 1920 – and the first since 1978 – to have more than 200 innings pitched and an ERA of less than 2.40 but fewer than 16 wins. How he compares to the other 11:
NAME, TEAMIPERAW-L
Tiny Bonham, 1943 Yankees 225.22.2715-8
Billy Pierce, 1955 White Sox205.21.9715-10
Hoyt Wilhelm, 1959 Orioles2262.1915-11
Jon Matlack, 1978 Rangers2702.2715-13
Sam McDowell, 1968 Indians2691.8115-14
Whitey Ford, 1958 Yankees219.12.0114-7
Joe Horlen, 1964 White Sox210.21.8813-9
Jim Nash, 1968 Athletics228.22.2813-13
Gary Peters, 1966 White Sox204.21.9812-10
Joe Horlen, 1968 White Sox223.22.3712-14
Felix Hernandez, 2010 Mariners219.12.30*11-10
Johnny Niggeling, 1944 Senators2062.3210-8
*Five scheduled starts remaining
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.