With all due respect to some of the joy-to-watch pitching performances we’ve seen this season from the likes of Mark Buehrle, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Chris Young, Brad Penny, Jake Peavy, and Jason Vargas John Lackey, there are days in which the Mariners’ Felix Hernandez seems to playing an entirely different game than the opposition.
On Saturday, Hernandez tossed 8 scoreless innings against Oakland, allowing just a pair of hits, 2 walks, and no baserunners at all advancing past 2nd. Hernandez is now working on a streak of 16 shutout innings versus the A’s, who along with the rest of the AL West, would truly love to see King Felix spend more time with Mike Hargrove’s family.
I’d be remiss in not mentioning the oft-maligned Adrian Beltre, who came back from a 5 hit game Friday evening with a 3-run blast off Rich Harden in the 3rd inning.
And just like that, Brian Fuentes is no longer on the NL All-Star team. I’ve not heard the expression “adding justice to injury” before, but feel free to use it whenever you’d like.
From the cruelty to animals (and humans) dept., Fox intends to place Eric Byrnes in a kayak during Tuesday night’s All-Star Game. The bad news is, there’s no word of the network preventing him from returning to shore.