Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners pitched tonight, and because he’s the quietest star pitcher I can think of, I will take this opportunity to write up his performance. I’m going to watch the game through the lens of Felix, talk about his pitch selection and his “stuff” as they say, and do what I can to capture in words his ability and his appeal.
I think that this is a useful exercise, especially when I consider all of the really great players that I don’t have the chance to watch on a regular basis. Jose Bautista is the player that comes to mind at the moment. While Blue Jays fans obviously can appreciate his run, he carries on with his unusual greatness while most of us simply hear about him after the fact.
Now, to Felix Hernandez. First off, King Felix’s motion is one that I haven’t heard expounded upon at much length in the time I’ve been paying attention. It’s fairly standard until he goes into the leg kick. Instead of just raising up his knees and then tipping forward into the throw, Felix works in a twist, rotating his hips towards center field like Luis Tiant. Before 2010, I had no idea that King Felix had a such a hitch in his motion, the likes of which you tend to see more with junkball deception artists rather than power pitchers with very hard sinkers like Felix has.
Just recently, I was watching a Mariners game, and a broadcaster–I wish I could remember which one–mentioned that King Felix didn’t really stabilize as a great pitcher until he incorporated that hitch. It was, said the expert, the rhythmic touch that he needed to reach his true potential.
Felix throws:
- A sinking fastball in the 91-94 range.
- A hard vertical curveball.
- A straight change-up.
- A straight fastball.
On to the game. Felix faces the Twins, who aren’t much on offense. I will comment by the inning.
1st Inning. Felix started out throwing four fastballs out of the strike zone. Pacing the mound early in the game, the fourth was a 90 mph get me over pitch that wasn’t close. Felix isn’t necessarily a control pitcher, though he doesn’t walk hitters. He’s more the type to hammer the strike zone with pitches whose movement and speed makes them hard to hit, rather than relying on pinpoint control to make them hard to hit.
Felix threw his first bender of the game to Matt Tolbert on a 1-2 count. Tolbert grounded it weakly to second, flailing to keep the straight up-and-down hook from nicking the bottom of the strike zone for a third one. The Felix curve drops, like all of his best pitches, with a sense of profound gravity, like the earth wants them back.
On this night, Felix walked two out of his first three. His fastballs are straight, and rising away from the strike zone. They lack, so far, the gravity mentioned above. This is hardly the typical Felix Hernandez start, but it does highlight Felix’s ability to work out of trouble. A minute after walking Kubel, he goaded a very weak grounder back to himself to finish off Morneau. The force of his pitches may leave him for a batter or two, but there’s a well that he can always draw from, no matter what the situation is.
That said, Felix gave up a single to Michael Cuddyer that scores two runs. When Felix throws poorly, it becomes more apparent how great his “on” stuff is. When the movement is absent is when it’s the most obvious.
2nd Inning. “He gives himself a stern talking to,” noted Dave Sims after Felix returned to the mound in the second. King Felix reasserted himself in the second inning, re-proving that if he doesn’t walk anybody and lets his pitches dictate the game rather than his location, then he’ll do okay. (It doesn’t hurt to face the back end of a light lineup). It was over as quick as it started, this inning, as no Twin managed to square up a ball like Cuddyer did the inning before.
3rd Inning. The themes established in the first two inning show themselves in the third: the Twins can’t hit the strikes and they don’t need to hit the balls. Against Denard Span, he threw his first great pitch of the night, a sinking fastball that crossed the plate low and away at around 90 mph. Slower than King Felix’s normal sinker, but darting like it can. Felix took out another hitter, then faced Kubel, and he’s picking up steam. Kubel dribbled another one to Felix, a sinker that rose up to around 94.
Felix is in the school of great pitchers, which Mike Blowers and Dave Sims in the booth noted, who really settle in through the course of a start. Already, the third inning ended with the sense that King Felix was warm. It’s a cliche, to use that metaphor of rising temperature, but it feels accurate, that sensation most of recognize from personal experience, the feeling of muscles loosening and holding heat, of remembering muscle memory and working with the tools at our disposal rather than against them. As Felix’s game progresses, he throws harder, his pitches get more slippery.
4th Inning. I don’t mind being right about the King’s sense of flow. The first pitch he threw to Justin Morneau to start off the fourth was a rain-making curveball, a classic (if any of King Felix’s pitches have a precedent) six-to-twelve hook. Morneau swung at it like it was dark out. Morneau skied a feeble fly ball to center. Michael Cuddyer parlayed a sinker away into a single up the middle. Follow that with a walk, then a fielder’s choice and you’ve got a complicated inning. Cue the back end of the lineup, and Felix ended the inning with a hard sinker to strike out the hitter and end the inning in an uncomplicated manner.
5th Inning. A strange night for Felix. A hard curveball, the first pitch of the inning, hooked down straight into the foot of Alexi Casilla, who was at the time trying to lay down a drag bunt. It appeared that the bunt was still on offer, making it a strike, but the hitter was granted the base. The hard Felix fastball is still there, however, as he popped the mitt to get Span for the first out.
A weak ground ball should have produced the final two outs of the inning, but some weak defense reveals the issue of bad defense for pitchers. Felix, as he is wont to on a team as bad as these have been, takes matters into his own hands, spinning a hard curveball that produces a grounder to himself, him turning and throwing it to second to start the double play.
He has not given up a run since the first inning, but it doesn’t seem that way. That’s one characteristic of the Felix Experience: make sure you check the scoreboard. On a night that could feel like a flounder for Felix, you realize he’s flexed his way out of all of the tight spots.
6th Inning. After a couple of balls, Felix broke Morneau’s bat on an outside fastball, which the Bunyan-esque big fellow grounded weakly to shortstop. That is the power of the pure Felix fastball. A super slow-mo of the play showed Morneau hitting the pitch out on the end of his bat. The bat broke and shook in his hands like it was goosed with an electrical charge. A crazy change-up in the dirt struck out Cuddyer, tonight’s villain, and another fastball dispatches the final hitter of the inning on a fly to center.
In this inning, Felix let his fastball get hit in the area of the zone, with positive results, and he showed a killer change-up, which he hasn’t featured heavily tonight after he missed the zone with it a few times early on.
7th Inning. Felix rarely looks out of place on the mound. He is often dominant. Not so on the first pitch of the seventh, which he left up to Ben Revere, who sent it screaming back to whence it came, narrowly missing Felix’s forehead. Felix is an expert at pitching for himself, regardless of run support. His Cy Young Award with a 13-12 record speaks volumes. Tonight is a perfect example, as his team has put up just a run in support of his 2-run effort, and yet he sustains, he holds the line, he battles.
After the liner across his bow, to wit, he struck out the next two batters looking, with sinkers on the outside corner.
8th Inning. The company of pitchers whom one expects to pitch deep into every game is exclusive, with members like Halladay, Cliff Lee, Lincecum, Verlander, Price, Weaver. King Felix stepped out for the 8th inning. He has struck out 7 in the game, and locked the game down after the first inning. A smattering of fastballs to start the frame, before striking out Tolbert with Thor’s Hammer. A 95 mph fastball greeted Jason Kubel on a full count, and a pitch later he flied to left.
Justin Morneau was the last barrier between King Felix and 8 strong innings of work. The first pitch, Thor’s Hammer, for a called strike. The second, a high fastball that Morneau flailed at. The final pitch of the inning, and perhaps of King Felix’s night, was a heater on the corner, a called strike for the 9th strike out of the night.
THE DAY IN ICHIRO, just for the heck of it
1. 1-2 to Ichiro against the no-hit pitching master Liriano. He got a fastball inside, and rather than swinging at it, he held his bat at an angle and let the ball glance off of it, foul. Then he grounded out to second.
2. Ichiro ran away from the first pitch as it passed through the zone. He topped the second pitch right off of home plate and hit a high infield parabola to first baseman Justin Morneau, who waited for it to fall like he was at the bus stop. Meanwhile, Ichiro was sprinting towards him down the first base line. The ball finally fell and the first baseman was just able to tag Ichiro, who was falling away in an attempt at a hood slide.
3. With the opportunity to send a couple of runner home from first and third, but with two outs, Ichiro took a tough call slider strike to go down in the count quickly. With a glance at his teammates on the base, he dipped a bit to drive a low fastball into right center, a confident RBI single on a pretty good pitch. “I don’t know how he does it every time,” said Mike Blowers. The night before, the broadcast team spent some time looking at Ichiro’s head while he swings. As the body shifts and ducks and moves, the head remains as still as if it were operated with Steadicam technology.
4. A non-descript pop-out to left field at a crucial point in the game.
