WOW! Félix Hernández pitches first perfect game in Mariners history at Safeco Field

All hail King Félix!

The twen­ty-six year old Mariners pitch­ing phe­nom solid­i­fied his place in base­ball his­to­ry by becom­ing the first Seat­tle pitch­er to toss a per­fect game in front of 21,000+ cheer­ing fans on a sun­ny sum­mer day at Safe­co Field. The Mariners scored just one run against the Tam­pa Bay Rays, but that was all it took to win the game in the 9th inning. Hernán­dez was dom­i­nant, strik­ing out twelve bat­ters. He retired the last bat­ter he faced after ini­tial­ly falling behind in the count 2–0.

Safe­co Field erupt­ed in jubi­lant cel­e­bra­tion fol­low­ing the final strikeout.

A pitch­er is con­sid­ered to have pitched a per­fect game when no bat­ter from the oppos­ing team reach­es first base.

In oth­er words, the pitch­er (backed up by the defense on the infield and the out­field) has to retire every bat­ter he faces, for a total of twen­ty-sev­en con­sec­u­tive outs. A per­fect game is, by def­i­n­i­tion, also a no-hit­ter.

Six Mariners pitch­ers col­lec­tive­ly tossed a no-hit­ter ear­li­er this sea­son against the Los Ange­les Dodgers (on June 8th), tying the record for a no-hit­ter with the most pitch­ers involved. That was quite an accom­plish­ment… but this is some­thing else.

Asked by Root Sports when he real­ized that he might be on the verge of mak­ing his­to­ry, he replied, “It was in my mind the whole game. I was like, ‘Come on, you got­ta do it. You got­ta do it. When I came out in the ninth, I was a bit nervous.”

No doubt he was, but he got the outs he needed.

The Mariners’ John Jaso also shares in the accom­plish­ment. He is the first Seat­tle catch­er to call a per­fect game. He’ll sure­ly remem­ber this day (and his suc­cess­ful part­ner­ship with Félix) for the rest of his career.

The gem was only the twen­ty-third per­fect game in Major League Base­ball his­to­ry. It was the third per­fect game this sea­son, which is a new MLB record.

The Mariners were on actu­al­ly on the los­ing end of one of the two pre­vi­ous per­fect games pitched ear­li­er this sea­son; now it’s their turn to win one.

Elect­ed lead­ers were quick to con­grat­u­late Hernán­de­zon the feat.

“Today all of Seat­tle is the King’s Court,” said Seat­tle May­or Mike McGinn. “Using all four of his pitch­es, King Félix blew the Rays out of the water. Backed up by some of the best defen­sive play­ers in the game, King Félix and the Seat­tle Mariners made his­to­ry at Safe­co Field. I con­grat­u­late him on this incred­i­ble achieve­ment and know that all of Seat­tle joins the Mariners in cel­e­brat­ing today’s game.”

“Today we saw a piece of base­ball his­to­ry here in King Coun­ty,” said King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine, also a big Mariners fan.

“Con­grat­u­la­tions to Félix Hernán­dez on pitch­ing the 23rd per­fect game in Major League Base­ball his­to­ry and the first in Seat­tle Mariners his­to­ry. He was just awe­some. He made us proud. Today he proved he tru­ly is the King.”

The linescore of today’s game

No doubt wher­ev­er he is now, Mariners play-by-play announc­er Dave Niehaus is beam­ing. My, oh my. What a game.