King Felix wears the crown of perfection |

Mariners’ ace Felix Hernandez collected his and the team’s first-ever perfecto, fanning 12 Rays in a 1-0 victory, as Seattle took the rubber match of a 3-game set with Tampa Bay. The key defensive play came on the first hitter of the game as Eric Thames tracked down a Sam Fuld drive on the warning track in the right-center field gap.

For Hernandez, the game also marked his first no-hitter after a one-hitter in 2007 and four previous two-hitters, most recently against the Yankees two starts ago on August 4th. Hernandez continues his recent hot streak with his 5th straight start allowing 5 hits or less over 7 innings or more, the longest such streak in MLB this season.

It was the third time this season the Mariners have been involved in a no-hit game, the previous times being on the losing end of Philip Humber‘s April 21st perfect game for the White Sox, and a Mariners’ team no-hitter against the Dodgers on June 8th. Seattle is the first team with two no-hit games in the same regular season since the Angels in 1973 (Nolan Ryan twice) and the Cubs in 1972 (Burt Hooton and Milt Pappas). Roy Halladay, of course, had a regular season perfect game and a post-season no-hitter for the Phillies in 2010.

Hernandez is the third pitcher this season with a perfect game, following Humber and the Giants’ Matt Cain, the first time with that many perfectos in the same regular season. Previously, the most proximate 3 perfect games were by Mark Buehrle, Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay, between July 2009 and May 2010. This is also the 6th no-hit game of 2012, the same as in 1908, 1915, 1917, 1969 and 2010, and trailing only the 7 no-hit games in 1990 and 1991.

For Tampa Bay, this was their 3rd time in 4 years to be victimized by an opponent’s perfect game, tied for the most for any franchise. Only the Dodgers (including post-season) have also suffered that same fate three times.

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Richard Chester

12 years ago

Not to mention Vic Wertz’s walk-off homer with two out in the bottom of the 9th on 5/15/52. This gave Virgil Trucks his first of two no-hitters that year.

Reply to Richard Chester

Whoops, wrong blog how did that happen?

MikeD

Blogging around? Are you cheating on us, Richard?

Author

Doug

Richard,

With the no-hit angle, it fits. Actually, Virgil`s two no-hitters in the same season (1952) puts him in the same company with only Johnny Vandermeer (1938), Allie Reynolds (1951), Nolan Ryan (1973) and Roy Halladay (2010).

Editor

birtelcom

Interesting that Felix, native of Venezuela, is only the second pitcher born outside the U.S. to pitch a perfecto, after native Nicaraguan Dennis Martinez.

AlbaNate

Were any Rays in all three of the perfect games against them? If so, I imagine that these players have appeared in more perfect games than anyone else, albeit on the losing side.

Reply to AlbaNate

Upton, Longoria, and Pena were in all three.

Reply to Ed

Opps, missed Zobrist.

Evil Squirrel

Alfredo Griffin was also on the losing end of three perfect games… Barker’s, Browning’s, and El Presidente’s….

Thomas Court

How about being on the winning side of three perfect games?

Paul O’Neil was on the Reds Tom Browning was perfect and he was on the Yankees for David Wells’ and David Cone’s perfectos.

Reply to Thomas Court

I would prefer to do it Paul O’Neill’s way.

Darryl Strawberry played in the Martinez and Wells perfectos and was on the ’99 Yankees when Cone had his gem.

On the flip side, the Giants had perfect games in 2009 and this year. Among position players, only Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey (barely) were on both teams. Different story for pitchers with Lincecum, Cain, Zito, Bumgarner, Wilson and Romo on both teams.

Reply to Doug

Jonathan Sanchez’s 2009 game was a no-hitter, not a perfecto. Juan Uribe’s eighth inning error was the only blemish.

Nash Bruce

Without checking, I’d bet that King Felix is the only pitcher who has thrown a perfect game, and also posted a single season OPS of over 1000(1168 in 2008).

John Autin

Reply to Nash Bruce

Nash, that “1168” was actually an OPS+ figure. The raw OPS was 5.000 — 1 for 1, the hit being a grand slam against future fellow no-hitter(er) Johan Santana.

Reply to John Autin

Good catch, John. My mistake.
I know that a couple of others have mentioned it, but is there a possibility of an “Edit” button someday? 😉

I’ll bring it up with Andy. You have my sympathy; I do have the “Edit” button, and use it often. In fact, I used it twice on that comment you just replied to (I had typed “former” when I meant “future”) — and once on this one!

deal

I think I heard via either espn or MLB network that y-day when Buerhle faced Halladay it marked only the 12th time that perfect game pitchers faced each other.

Which I would imagine makes y-day the first time that somebody threw a PG while 2 PGs Ps were facing off elsewhere.

Mike L

Reply to deal

I wonder about that stat, or at least the way they may have expressed it. They can’t mean total number of games pitched where a PG pitcher faced off against another PG pitcher, since so many of these player’s careers ran contemporaneously.

JW Lewis

First perfect game ever pitched in the month of August in the long history of Major League Baseball, even if one includes the “lost perfectos” by Shore, Haddix, and Gallaraga.

Chad

As good as Cain’s game was in June, I think this one was more impressive. I would think this is on the very short list of best games ever pitched. Well done, Felix.

Reply to Chad

Hernandez actually made a first pitch strike to only 16 batters, although 9 of those were in succession in the 5th through 8th innings. He also got to a 3 ball count on 3 batters. So, not quite “Larsenesque”, but we’re really quibbling when we start to debate which perfect game was “better” than another.

Hmmm, that’s interesting. I actually thought Cain’s perfect game was one of the “worst” pitched perfect games!

Voomo Zanzibar

On the subject of the increase of strikeouts in MLB:

Currently, the ONLY players with more than 8 homeruns AND more walks than strikeouts are:

David Ortiz
Prince Fielder
Joey Votto

That is out of 163 players.

Ted Williams’ head is rolling in its jar.

Reply to Voomo Zanzibar

Yikes. A stat like that kind of leaves you speechless.

If you’re curious, there are only four other qualifying batters with more walks than strikeouts – Callaspo, Reyes, Mauer and Carlos Lee. Of these seven, the largest spread of walks over strikeouts is only 7 by Ortiz, and 5 of these guys have a spread of 4 or less.

Doug, your quiz seems to have disappeared.

Yes, I had to leave for a spell, so didn’t want to leave you and others hanging. I’ll bring it back tomorrow.

Taking into account his young age and his high level of effectiveness, coupled with decreasing offense and rising strikeouts in the game, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if King Felix becomes the first pitcher to toss two perfect games in his career. Statistically the odds are incredibly low of any pitcher tossing a perfect game, yet I believe he’s going to do it.

mosc

I read a lot of velocity comments in other places about King Felix. I don’t understand it after the guy throws a 92mph changeup to end that game. He doesn’t throw a 4-seamer anymore it’s just that simple. The 2-seamer gets added work and the cutter is just filthy. I’d like to see the fly ball vs ground ball through his career, I think it’s leading to a lot more grounders. I can’t remember this many well controlled curveballs the previous decades. Blyleaven comes to mind, but Verlander, Lee, Hernandez, Price, they just have insane control of the bender. In… Read more »