It was just like old times for Felix Hernandez -- strong outing on the mound and next to no run support. Hernandez took a shutout into the eighth inning Thursday night and Adam Kennedy's home run was all the Seattle Mariners needed to beat the Oakland Athletics 1-0. "I was making great pitches. I was on it all night," Hernandez said. "I make good pitches, they give me one run, we win." Hernandez (2-2) allowed four singles, two by Cliff Pennington and one by David DeJesus and Josh Willingham. He struck out eight and walked three before leaving after a season-high 126 pitches. Read more: http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=310421112&teams=oakland-athletics-vs-seattle-mariners
It was funny to hear the quotes from the opposing pitcher. (On giving up the homer) Only when Felix is pitching does your night change b/c you gave up a solo homer in the 4th to the backup first baseman.
Watched the whole game. Jesus his placement is as good as it gets with pitchers, the same way Doc Halladay uses technique slightly over stuff. We really need more bats.
Peeing into the wind, I'm going with the observation (not mine) that Figgins and Olivo are hitting a ton of line drives, just getting unlucky in their placement (usually into the glove of someone). They're batting somewhere around .150-.200 lower on "line drives" than their career average...that's just bad luck. OTOH, Jack Cust looks to be done. He's not hitting line drives, his fly balls aren't carrying, and his OPS is .511...and that's including the large # of walks he's drawn. Yikes. Smoak looks to be the real deal this year. And I noticed somewhere that the M's lead the league in at-bats against lefty pitching....that'll eventually normalize out and that, coupled with no longer playing in cold, large parks we might have a shot. Felix, Pineda and pray for rain? Bedard's not looking bad, either. He might be a prime candidate for either a) a longish-term deal as the #3 in the rotation, or trade bait for some decent prospects in July. I'm already thinking that Aardsma's going to make a decent consolation prize to the loser of the Heath Bell Sweepstakes.
