On a Saturday night where the Mariners roughed up Yu Darvish behind big Kyle Seager, John Jaso, and Dustin Ackley hits, the King was on full display. He threw a complete game shutout on a night where he actually got run support, as the Mariners won 7-0, sending the 3 game series into a tie with the rubber-game to be played on Sunday.
The Rangers are 1st in the American League in OBP and 2nd in SLG. They didn’t have a runner in scoring position until the 7th. He was sitting at about 92-93 (hitting 94 MPH on a whiff to Adrian Beltre) MPH on his fastball and getting whiff after whiff on it. He made Rangers’ slugger Josh Hamilton look like Justin Smoak.
He threw one 91 MPH changeup to Nelson Cruz that was the velocity of a league average fastball and broke like a splitter or a curveball. He followed that by getting ahead of David Murphy with fastballs and then throwing that changeup in the dirt. David Murphy is a left handed hitter who hits right handers really well, walking as much as he strikes out with a .876 OPS. None of that mattered.
In the 6th, he made young Ranger Leonys Martin look especially bad. Martin thought it would be a good idea to swing at this pitch:
He got this result:
Or if you prefer this view:
He later got Cruz to whiff at a changeup in the dirt again for a Cruz’ 3rd strikeout and Felix‘s 10th strikeout. Felix didn’t stop after the 7th, getting Michael Young to whiff at 2 pitches to strikeout. He then blew away David Murphy with a 94 MPH fastball to get his 12th strikeout. The 8th wasn’t the end of Felix’s day either, as he came out to pitch the 9th and got 2 pop ups, then shattered Elvis Andrus’ bat, kissed his wrists, pointed to the crowd, and high fived his teammates.
Overall, Felix gave up just 3 hits, striking out 12 and walking 0. Officially, he averaged 92.53 MPH on his fastball, maxing out at 94.1 MPH. His change averaged 90.05 MPH and turned into 7 whiffs (or over 43% of the time he threw it). He lived in the strikezone:
and there wasn’t anything the Rangers could do about it.
While we have you here, please take a moment to check out our Forums and Message Boards to discuss everything Seahawks, Mariners, SuperSonics, Sounders and more!
Follow us on Twitter @PaulNovakSSC and Like us on Facebook
Favorite general sports moment: The Texas versus USC college football national championship comes to mind, as does Gary Matthews Jr. catch on July 1st 2006.
Favorite Seattle Sports Moment: King Felix throwing a perfect game against the Rays
Latest posts by Clint Hulsey (see all)
- Brandon Maurer, Kameron Loe, and Recalling Spring Training – May 18, 2013
- Hector Noesi as a Starter – May 17, 2013
- How Is Hisashi Iwakuma Missing Bats? – May 12, 2013
