In case you missed it on Saturday afternoon, King Felix ruined the return of Rich Harden for the Athletics by making Harden's presence an afterthought. Felix was treating the Athletics the same way a bear plays with a fish before eating it.Hernandez lasted eight innings, giving up only two hits and no runs in Seattle's 4-0 victory.
The key is where Hernandez got his strategy. Unlike Sports Illustrated, when Felix Hernandez takes something from a blog, he gives them credit.
"Chaves gave me a report,'' Hernandez said. "On the internet, they say when I throw a lot of fastballs in the first inning, they score a lot of runs. I tried to mix all my pitches in the first inning.''Chaves is Mariners pitching coach Rafael Chavez, who was given a letter by an unknown fan whom he'd never met before. The letter that fan gave him was a printout from this post, "Open Letter to Rafael Chaves", by the guys at USS Mariner.
"It was nothing but reinforcement of the talks we've had in the past,'' Chaves said. "I just wanted to make Felix aware that 'It's not a top secret around baseball that you have a tendency to get into patterns. We all get scouted and...unless you make your own adjustments it's going to be easy to predict what you're going to be doing out there to begin with.''
As a blogger, I think this is one of the coolest things ever. Of course, while the fellas over at USS Mariner are happy to help, they feel that Felix and Rafael deserve most of the credit.
Now, correlation is not causation. Maybe the A's hitters just aren't very good, and maybe Felix is just bound to dominate line-ups like this because his stuff is off the charts.And long live the power of the blog!
But you know, I love seeing Felix trying something new. Its extremely encouraging that he took some information made available to him and made adjustments to improve his approach.
That Chaves was able to use the the open letter from the blog to help drive home a point he'd already been making, well, that's just the cherry on top. But Felix deserves all the credit in the world for this. He and Chaves did the work, and they're the ones who tossed a shutout at the A's today. We just get to enjoy the fruits of Good Felix.
Long Live King Felix.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
This is a great story. Long live the blog!
It's not just Felix either, Weaver seems to have really turned himself around. 1.67 ERA in his last six starts, can you believe that? Who is this man and what has he done with the 0-6 14+ ERA in his first six starts Jeff Weaver? It used to be you could guarantee a loss whenever he was starting, now he's become one of our most reliable pitchers, and that just blows my mind.
People are wondering why the M's are now seriously challenging both the Angels for the pennant and the Indians for the wild card: Well those two are a big part of it. Our pitching is no longer miserably deficient, and our batting has been stellar. That's how you win games.