Felix Hernandez

JMB · August 27, 2004 at 11:40 am · Filed Under Mariners 

Now that’s the King Felix we know and love: 7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 7 K.

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12 Responses to “Felix Hernandez”

  1. Troy Sowden on August 27th, 2004 12:06 pm

    That puts him at 144.1 innings pitched this season. I know at one point there was speculation he’d get shut down at the 150 inning mark, which is basically one more start. Do you guys think they’ll shut him down, or will they keep trotting him out there right through the TL playoffs, potentially putting him at 175 innings or so?

  2. Paul Covert on August 27th, 2004 12:25 pm

    Felix thus far with San Antonio:

    7/01 6.0 7 1 1 2 8 1 (ND)
    7/06 7.0 4 4 2 2 4 1 (ND)
    7/16 5.0 4 2 2 4 6 0 (W)
    7/21 2.2 6 6 6 1 1 1 (L)
    7/28 6.0 4 1 1 2 5 0 (W)
    8/09 6.0 3 1 1 1 7 0 (W)
    8/14 5.2 7 5 5 3 4 0 (ND)
    8/20 7.0 6 2 2 2 8 0 (ND)
    8/26 7.0 3 0 0 2 7 0 (W)

    July 26.2 25 14 12 11 24 3 (2-1, 4.05)
    Aug. 25.2 19 8 8 8 26 0 (2-0, 2.81)

    Two bad games out of nine thus far (which, really, were two very bad *innings*); two mediocre games; and five good ones, last night’s being the best yet. ERA and peripherals both improving from July to August; even the bad game in August wasn’t as bad as the one in July.

    At this point I tend to favor seeing him start next year in Tacoma– or, at least, I don’t see any compelling arguments against. (I do agree with Troy’s apparent implication on easing his workload the rest of this year, however.)

  3. adam on August 27th, 2004 12:31 pm

    He should be shut down right now as far as I’m concerned.

    18 year old who throws 95+ = disaster

    And after the Meche, Ryan Anderson, Soriano, etc etc in our organization (not to mention, pretty much all) shut him down.

  4. Paul Weaver on August 27th, 2004 12:49 pm

    Very very good point Adam. Even the successful 1970’s pitchers who threw 40 starts, 300 innings were brought up slowly at the around-20 ages. Let’s not destroy another prospect.

  5. Troy Sowden on August 27th, 2004 1:11 pm

    That’s exactly my point. I would give him one more start, then turn him into one expensive Spanish speaking cheerleader.

  6. DMZ on August 27th, 2004 1:29 pm

    He’s not expensive yet. For an expensive cheerleader may I suggest Scott Spiezio, known for his clubhouse leadership and veteran presence?

  7. Troy Sowden on August 27th, 2004 1:35 pm

    So I guess the real question that nobody wants to ask but everyone wants to know is, who looks better in a skirt, SandFrog or King Felix? I’ll go with the King, even though he probably looks better in an ornate purple robe. SandFrog’s legs are a bit green for my tastes.

  8. Jim Thomsen on August 27th, 2004 4:24 pm

    Let’s not get overcautious. After all, if the Mariners really want to avoid all risk of ar, elbow or shoulder injury for Phelicks, they should release him and help steer him to a career in outbound phone sales. If they don’t want him hurt, it’s not in his anybody’s interests for him to pitch at all, ever.

    I’d like to see more work put into finding ways to keep good pitchers pitching while minimizing their risk of injury. I don’t know that it’s excess innings that hurts pitchers so much as faulty, uncorrected mechanics. It gets to be one of those “man in the moon” arguments, as in “they can put a man on the moon, but they can’t figure out a way to keep a person throwing effectively and naturally?” Seems to me that some bright baseball minds have worked on this and even made some progress … so why are we still in an era in which we live in terror of The Little Labrum That Couldn’t?

  9. Chris W. on August 27th, 2004 4:38 pm

    Good point, Jim. One would think there wouldn’t be quite as much mystery about this as there seems to be. I think part of the problem is that baseball management (and especially the Ms front office) has been ridiculously slow to learn and adapt to many things, including the emerging new frontier of injury prevention. The Ms, for example, drove Meche and Pineiro into the ground last year, despite Meche being just off two surgeries and Pineiro being their best young pitcher. They threw Soriano out there this year in critical game situations when they knew he wasn’t fully recovered from his abdominal injury and then let him pitch with elbow soreness. Heck, Meche threw 125 pitches in a game a few weeks ago. The point is that a smart, progressive, organization might be able to find a way, using pre-hab techniques and monitoring “stressful” innings, to optimize the usage of their stud 18 year-old. Unfortunately, the Ms are not a smart, progressive, organization, so the best I think we can hope for is that they’ll be overly cautious.

  10. Sergey on August 27th, 2004 5:20 pm

    Dusty Baker ruined both Karry Wood and Mark Prior by overpitching them.

  11. mike on August 27th, 2004 6:01 pm

    I have heard that yesterday’s shutout was his final game of 2004. Of more concern is when he goes home to Venezuela this winter – he will receive a lot of pressure to pitch for his hometown team, Lara Cardinales. The M’s don’t want him to do it.

  12. Justin on August 27th, 2004 8:26 pm

    As a Tiger’s fan, I would just like to say that I wish our ruined pitchers were Kerry Wood and Mark Prior.