Felix Hernandez hangs on after rough 1st inning in Mariners return
Jul 20, 2016, 5:40 PM | Updated: 6:13 pm
Felix Hernandez’s first inning back from an extended stay on the disabled list could have gone better.
After striking out White Sox leadoff hitter Adam Eaton, Chicago used a double by Melky Cabrera and a Justin Morneau walk to put two on with two out for slugger Todd Frazier. Hernandez was noticeably annoyed that Morneau was given a bases on balls on what he thought was strike three, and not much later he hung a changeup that Frazier deposited into the upper deck in left field.
Lucky for the Mariners, Hernandez made sure that wouldn’t be the story of his first start for the team since May 27.
The King kept his pitch count down, and though he allowed five runs on 10 hits and two walks, he was able to go 6 2/3 innings, keeping the Mariners in a game they eventually won 6-5 in 11 innings on Leonys Martin’s second homer of the day.
One person who was clearly happy about Hernandez’s outing was Mariners manager Scott Servais.
“First time out, it was probably better than I thought he would be,” Servais said. “To Felix’s credit, he hung in there. Really the key to the game for us was how deep he went in the game. We’ve talked a lot about our starting pitchers, just give us a chance even when you don’t have your best stuff. (Hernandez) gave us a chance.”
Servais was especially pleased considering how rough the first inning was. He wasn’t particularly concerned by Frazier’s moonshot, either.
“He made a mistake to the guy who leads the league in home runs,” Servais said matter-of-factly. “I thought his stuff was good, thought he was pretty crisp. But after the first inning, at that point if you’d have told me he was gonna get as deep as he did in the game, I probably wouldn’t have believed it. I was really happy he was able to do that.”
Hernandez himself wasn’t shy to admit he was bothered about not getting the third-strike call against Morneau and that it had an impact when he faced Frazier.
“I was (distracted). It was my fault,” he said before quickly changing course. “It wasn’t my fault. It was a strike, though. … You know what happened. You watched the game. It was a strike.”
The important thing was that Hernandez felt no lingering effects from the calf strain that landed him on the DL, and he said he’ll be ready to go again when his next turn in the rotation is up.
“I had a good sinker, got a lot of ground-ball outs. They were swinging, they were swinging at every pitch. I mean, that’s why my pitch count was pretty low,” said Hernandez, who threw 68 of his 94 pitches for strikes.
“Feels good, man. Feels good to finally be back out there. Trying to do my job here and help my team to win.”
