Felix Hernandez Needs the Runs

Rarely--very rarely--has a man pitched as well at the start of a season as King Felix, but not gotten a win to show for it.

In his last start, Hernandez became the 54th pitcher since 1959 to start a season with two starts of seven-plus innings without allowing an earned run.

Thing is, 52 of those guys got at least one notch on their win board. Not Felix. Only he and Bob Miller of the 1963 Dodgers were so bedeviled by weak hitting teammates that they didn't get a single victory.

(It must have been particularly galling to Miller, who'd finished 1-12 the year before with the horrible '62 Mets.)

You have to wonder how Felix is going to respond tonight.

Will he try to be too fine--which usually leads to horridness--in an effort to get that first win?

Will he try to stay in the game longer than he should?

Will he pitch carefree, confident in new closer Ryan Rowland-Smith?

Or will he put the last two starts in the past, and not worry that Brett Tomko leads him in wins?

What I'd really like to see is the Mariner offense get Hernandez a big lead, and take some of the pressure off of him, but that's like wishing for Bill Clinton to say 23 words without lying.

Meanwhile, I'll take solace in this--the anemic Dodger offense which couldn't get a run for Bob Miller in April? It perked up enough by October to sweep the World Series.

Photo by Gayle Kingston via Flickr by Creative Commons license. You can buy that '65 Topps Bob Miller card for $1.80 at CheckOutMyCards.