To be honest, going back through his game logs, I thought the total would be higher than that. I remember the 1-0 win over the Twins in his Safeco debut. Apparently, between then and tonight, there was only one other of these, in April 2009 (Update: this post used to say "fourth" instead of "third", but though the Mariners won a Felix start 1-0 in August 2009, Felix did not get the decision). But while Felix has only wound up with a small handful of 1-0 wins, it's safe to say the Mariners offense is always keeping him prepared for another. That's one way to keep a pitcher sharp.
I mentioned in the game thread post that writing will be light for a few days, so I can't go into much detail with this recap. What I will say, though, is that, after a pair of unusually difficult starts, it's nice to see Felix Hernandez bounce back, even if it took him a few extra pitches to do so. I wouldn't say I was concerned about him coming out of the Royals game, but tonight was still reassuring. From what I was able to watch, the stuff was all there, and the A's were taking a lot of funny swings. They weren't hitting the ball like his last couple opponents hit the ball.
Meanwhile, obviously the offense didn't show up, but you can only ask for so much from this team when it's without Justin Smoak, Milton Bradley and Franklin Gutierrez, and in a way it's nice to see Brandon McCarthy turn in another strong start even though he throws for a direct division rival. I'm a fan of the Mariners, but I'm also a fan of good stories, and besides, the Mariners still got their win. There's not a lot to complain about. It would be nice to see the lineup produce more runs, but this version of the lineup could never be counted on to produce many runs.
Kudos to Adam Kennedy for hitting a ball just hard enough to give the Mariners the one run they needed. And kudos to Carlos Peguero for hitting a ball just soft enough to record his first-ever knock. The subsequent pick-off was somewhat humiliating, but at least it gave Peguero an opportunity to quickly return to the dugout and make sure the ball the team saved for him wasn't being messed with. Jack Cust seems like the kind of guy who would take those baseballs and mess with them.
It's Michael Pineda against Tyson Ross tomorrow, and Tyson Ross isn't Brandon McCarthy, so I'm all about the M's winning by like a hundred runs.