Blue Jays Bomb Focusless Felix

All the dailies run today with stories about how Felix Hernandez lost his focus after not getting a call on what looked like strike three to Alex Rios with the bases loaded.

But I'm not so sure Hernandez' focus wasn't lost earlier in the inning.

He showed pinpoint control in his life-or-death battle with Rios, but where was that control at the start of that fifth inning, when he walked .226-hitting Gregg Zaun on four pitches?

If Hernandez had shown the same attention during Zaun's at-bat that he did during Rios' he never would've needed a borderline call to get out of a jam.

Contrast this with Roy Halladay, who battled through a two-out, nobody-on sequence against Kenji Johjima the previous inning. He threw 11 pitches in the at-bat, and afterwards, looked like he was going to fall over. He knew that he couldn't just take a batter off.

Hernandez lost focus again in the 6th, allowing Zaun to hit a leadoff homer on a 2-2 pitch. Gregg Zaun has 66 home runs in 2706 major league at bats. He doesn't hit homers unless something goes drastically wrong.

For Hernandez to reach the ranks of the elite pitchers--Roy Halladay, for example--he's going to have to learn that he can't just turn on his intensity when things get interesting--he has to bring it the entire game.

As Larry LaRue points out, Hernandez isn't the first Mariner ace to have maturity issues. And as USS Mariner points out, the guy's only 21.

As a fan, it's tough to watch Felix go through this when every game means so much. On the other hand, even with his problems focusing, he's the best pitcher we've got.