A tale of two Felixes

I joined a reported 17,927 of my closest friends to watch the third start of our Chosen One, or as Fairly likes to call him, Young Felix Hernandez. I say "reported 17,927" because I would bet that there weren't 12 thousand there. Smallest crowd I've ever seen at the Safe, smallest crowd I've seen in 15 years.

Felix struggled with his control early. Even the outs he got were laborious. He was missing with breaking stuff and gave up 2 homers in the first two innings, to get down 4-0. Top of the third started the same way, 8 pitches to Teixeira for a double, 4 pitches to Nevin, single, 6 pitches to strike out Blalock, 7 pitch walk to Jimenez where he never thought about swinging.

Then suddenly he found it. Two breaking balls that just froze Wilkerson, a fastball out of the zone, a foul ball, and then pure 97 mph gas that Wilkerson couldn't catch up with. After that he was lights out, retiring the next six in order, three by strikeout. He had one two ball count in the last 7 batters, no three ball counts.

He took 22 pitches to go the last two innings after throwing 78 in the first 3. Suddenly he had command, movement and was getting his offspeed stuff over for strikes. He was the unhittable Felix of last season.

Hargrove handed the rest of the game away by watching Woods walk 5 guys in an inning and a third, then replacing him with ANOTHER lefty in Sherrill. He also let Bloomquist and Betancourt bat in the 8th down by three with Reed, Lawton, Petagine, and Borchard all sitting on the bench. Why even have a bench? Why not carry 15 pitchers and Bloomquist and just call someone up from AAA if a regular gets hurt?

Anyway here's hoping Felix figured something out and turned a corner last night or there are going to be a lot more tiny crowds from here on out.