Mariners Greatest Hits: “The King” Felix Hernandez Top Performances

April 11th, 2007

Before he won any Cy Young award or was even an All-Star, Hernandez was finding his stride in his 2nd full season with the Mariners.

Having just wowed the Mariners faithful in his first Opening Day start, Hernandez was about to have an encore performance that would blow all of his starts before it out of the water.

Facing the mighty Boston Red Sox, a team that would go on to have the 3rd best record in the American League that year, the Mariners had a major battle ahead of them.

The three years prior to 2007, the M’s finished with a record below .500 and would not finish closer to the AL West Divison leaders than 15 games.

Yet, with the season not even 10 games in, it was as if the teams were on level ground, and the Mariners were sending their newly anointed ace to the mound to prove they were a team to be feared.

Hernandez would take the mound following his line of 8IP, 3H, 2BB, 12K and would make that look like child’s play.

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He would dismiss the first eight Red Sox he faced, striking out three of those men. He would then hit a minor bump, walking two of the next three men he faced, but would regain his composure and settle into a real groove.

Hernandez would easily take care of the next 11 men mostly by inducing groundball outs. While he did fan two guys during this span, he would send seven of the Red Sox back to the dugout on grounders.

Rolling along with such ease, Hernandez was in line to throw a no-hitter through seven innings. If not for the leadoff batter in the eighth, J.D. Drew, he would have done it.

Drew would start the 8th by smacking a ball with enough muster to roll into the outfield past the shortstop, Yuniesky Betancourt.

The lone hit would amount to nothing for the Red Sox as Hernandez would close out the game sending the last six batters packing.

This was the first time that he would allow fewer than two hits while pitching at least five innings and it would be the last time until one of the most historic days in Mariners history.