M’s finally execute to score and win, but Felix Hernandez isn’t happy at being lifted

Just when it seemed like the people keeping stats on the Mariners’ run production could shift their efforts to, say, tracking baserunning mistakes, we get this out of absolutely nowhere: An inning of quality execution.

With the Mariners trailing 1-0, Jack Wilson laid down a perfect bunt for a base hit to start the bottom of the 11th inning off White Sox closer Bobby Jenks. Ichiro Suzuki dropped a sacrifice bunt to push Wilson to second base, and Chone Figgins followed with a single to center field that put runners on first and third with one out.

Figgins stole second easily before Franklin Gutierrez delivered a two-run single to center that won the game 2-1 for the Mariners.

How easy was that?

It may have looked easy, but it’s been darned difficult for these Mariners, as evidenced by their near-record streak of scoreless innings. They’d gone 27 straight, back to the first inning of Monday’s series opener, before Gutierrez’s hit. The franchise record is 29 scoreless innings.

However, before we prounce this team all back-slapping and happy, there’s the curious case of Felix Hernandez’s eight spectacular innings and his dour mood at not being able to pitch any longer.

He’d held the White Sox to two hits and had retired 17 straight through eight innings. And he was prepared to pitch the ninth, considering he’d thrown only 93 pitches. It was the fewest he’d thrown since he threw 84 on May 7 when he lasted 3 1/3 innings against the Angels.

But manager Don Wakamatsu said no and he brought in David Aardsma, explaining later that it’s important to watch Hernandez’s workload at this time of the season. He’s at 153 2/3 innings.

“I was going to go out (for the ninth,” Hernandez said. “I was at 93 pitches.”

Asked if he understood Wakamatsu’s reason, that it’s important to hold down his innings, Hernandez said he didn’t.

“I don’t worry about the innings,” he said. “I feel good. I feel strong. What do you want me to say? Talk to the manager.”

Here’s what Wakamatsu said: “You’re sitting there at 93 pitches, and do you send him back out? In any other situation, to ask him to pitch that in eight innings, you take it. But it’s at that time of year when you’ve got to protect him a little bit.”