It took the New York Yankees the better part of three seasons to get a little payback, so they could be excused if they seemed to enjoy pounding Felix Hernandez on Monday night.
It wasn’t personal.
Hernandez, who had gone 5-0 with a 1.29 earned-run average against the Yankees since the start of the ’09 season, had that streak ended when New York score six times against him to beat the Seattle Mariners, 9-3.
“He had good stuff today, that one inning he was out and over the plate, and that’s what they were getting to,” manager Eric Wedge said. “His stuff was good, they just got it rolling. It happened in a hurry.”
This was a three-game series that the looked to be a Yankees barn-storming tour except for this start by Mr. Hernandez. They arrived with the American League’s best record to face a team that’s 3-9 in September.
The Mariners and a Safeco Field crowd of 22,029 watched Felix work two shutout innings, then give up a run on Derek Jeter’s third inning ground-ball out.
A one-run deficit? The Mariners scored in their half of the inning, when Ichiro Suzuki’s two-out single chased Brendan Ryan home – Ichiro’s 169th hit of the season with 15 games left.
That, however, ended the competition for the night.
When Felix took the mound in the fourth inning, he left a changeup over the heart of the plate for Mark Teixeira – who hammered it deep into the seats beyond right field for his 37th home run of the year.
The Yankees followed up with a flurry of body blows, a double, single, sac fly and another double made it 4-1, and everything seemed to be hit squarely.
“He got in a bad groove and they were all over it,” Wedge said.
Hernandez centered a pitch with a man on to outfielder Chris Dickerson, whose home run almost banged off the facing of the second deck in right field.
New York 6, Seattle 1.
From that point on, there was no joy in Mudville. Not in the golden T-shirted “King Felix” section, not anywhere in Safeco Field.
Oh, Felix soldiered on, working six innings, throwing 94 pitches. And if Wedge had asked, Hernandez would have kept going. There simply was no reason.
The intensity was there, and the effort. On this night, however, Felix’s pitches were mortal – and Yankees eat mortal pitching.
The Mariners had one shot to get back into the game after that – the bottom of the sixth inning, when they used Kyle Seager’s double, Dustin Ackley’s single and a walk to Justin Smoak to load ’em up with one out.
Miguel Olivo popped out. Trayvon Robinson flied out.
Then rookie reliever Dan Cortes came on in the seventh inning, allowed three runs on Robinson Cano’s double, and the Yankees were gone – out to a 9-1 lead the Mariners had no chance of matching.
“Dan had trouble with command of his fastball, against a very good-hitting team,” Wedge said.
The closest thing to a Seattle rally the rest of the night came in the eighth inning, when Olivo hit his 18th homer with Smoak aboard to make it 9-3.
No, New York didn’t seem all that bothered.
For Hernandez, the game prevented him from winning his 15th, costing him his 12th loss instead. No, it wasn’t his worst start of the year – he’d allowed six runs to Boston on July 22.
And, back in April, the Toronto Blue Jays rolled out seven runs against him without laying a loss on him. The Mariners rallied to win that game, 8-7.
On Monday, he opened the night with a 3.15 ERA, and New York banged at him enough to make it 3.30 by night’s end.
Now, Felix is done for the series and the Mariners will send out Charlie Furbush and Jason Vargas and see what the Yankees can do with them.
It probably won’t be personal. And it might not be pretty.
The heart of New York’s lineup – even without Alex Rodriguez – is an imposing force. Curtis Granderson, Teixeira, Cano and Nick Swisher, combined, have hit 123 home runs this season.
The entire Seattle roster has 97 for all of 2011.
It may help explain why the Mariners have not yet won enough games to guarantee they won’t lose 100 games, remaining stuck on 61 victories.
With 15 left, they probably will win two more.
They just may not come against the Yankees.
larry.larue@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners
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