SEATTLE – On his way to another impressive night in the big leagues, Felix Hernandez learned a major league lesson Friday.
Leave a pitch over the plate, even to a .154-hitting rookie, and he can hit it out of the ballpark. Twice, as it happened against the Chicago White Sox.
Center fielder Brian Anderson, with just two hits in the 13 days since he’d been called up from the minor leagues, hit two home runs off Hernandez in the White Sox’s 5-3 victory over the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field.
Hernandez was long gone when the game was decided in the 12th inning.
Tadahito Iguchi’s two-run homer off Eddie Guardado, giving the White Sox their league-best 78th victory. They’re third in the league with 159 home runs.
“When you pitch up there, you’re going to pay,” said Guardado, whose chest-high fastball was just where Iguchi could club it. “We played good baseball but we just didn’t pull it out, and it’s my fault.”
The White Sox, who rank near the bottom in most American League offensive categories except home runs, did all their scoring on long balls. And mistake pitches by the Mariners.
Hernandez had mastered the low side of the strike zone and hadn’t given up a homer in his four starts since being called up from Class AAA Tacoma. In fact, he had pitched to 112 batters without allowing an extra-base hit before Jermaine Dye hit a hanging curveball for a double in the second inning.
In the third, Hernandez threw a 96 mph first-pitch fastball into Anderson’s power zone, and he pulled it over the left-field fence for a 1-0 White Sox lead.
In the seventh, after Yorvit Torrealba’s home run gave the Mariners a 2-1 lead, Hernandez walked Juan Uribe with two outs and tried to curl a two-strike curveball past Anderson.
He hung it, and Anderson drove it out to left-center for a 3-2 White Sox lead.
“It just stayed up there,” Hernandez said. “It was a mistake.”
Manager Mike Hargrove still gave high marks to Hernandez, who allowed seven hits and three runs in seven innings, leaving his earned run average at 1.75.
“He threw an outstanding game,” Hargrove said. “We just couldn’t score enough runs for him to win it.”
The Mariners came close, coming from behind twice to send the game into extra innings.
Willie Bloomquist, who entered the game in an 0-for-18 slump, dropped a squeeze bunt in the third inning to score Torrealba for a 1-1 tie. Torrealba put the M’s ahead 2-1 in the fifth with a home run. In the eighth, Bloomquist drove a two-out triple to the gap in left-center, scoring Torrealba to tie the score 3-3.
Hernandez was gone by then, finished off by a patient White Sox team that didn’t give him an easy inning.
“They have an incredible lineup,” Hernandez said. “I tried to keep my pitches down.”
He did most of the time, although it wasn’t easy.
Hernandez had averaged eight innings and 103 pitches in his previous three starts, but had thrown 112 after the seventh. He retired the White Sox 1-2-3 only once.
Still, all it got the Sox was a 3-2 lead after 7 innings, and Bloomquist changed that in the bottom of the eighth with his triple.
The White Sox threatened in both the ninth and 10th innings, putting runners in scoring position with less than two outs off M’s reliever Julio Mateo.
When he absolutely needed an out, however, Mateo got it in 22/3 scoreless innings. Jermaine Dye doubled with one out in the ninth, but Mateo got Geoff Blum to pop up and he struck out Juan Uribe.
Anderson led off the 10th with a double and reached third on Timo Perez’s sacrifice bunt. Mateo then struck out Iguchi and Carl Everett, getting Everett one pitch after he’d hit a liner down the left-field line that landed in foul territory by inches.
Jeff Nelson started the 12th and Uribe pushed a bunt near the first-base line for a leadoff single. Anderson’s sacrifice bunt moved Uribe to second, and Hargrove brought in Guardado.
Guardado struck out pinch-hitter Aaron Rowand, then tried to throw a fastball past Iguchi.
Like the pitches Anderson hit out off Hernandez, this one stayed high in the strike zone and Iguchi didn’t miss it. He crushed a towering drive over the White Sox bullpen in left field for the game-winning homer.
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