King Felix rules over A’s

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif.  –-  There’s a reason they call him King Felix. “He can throw any pitch on any count,” said Bob Melvin. He’s the Oakland Athletics' manager. He was in the other dugout Monday night, opening night, a disappointing night for Melvin and the A’s.
    
A losing night.
  
“Opening night,” Melvin reminded, not that anyone needed reminding, “you’re always going to face the other team’s best pitcher.”
   
The Seattle Mariners’ best pitcher. One of baseball’s best pitchers. Felix Hernandez, who’s won an American League Cy Young Award, who last season threw a perfect game, who by anyone’s definition is pure baseball royalty.
   
“Maybe he didn’t have his best velocity,” said Melvin, a former catcher who knows all about pitching and too much about Hernandez, “but he was great.”
   
What Hernandez did was retire the first 10 batters of the game, really of the season, and although Hernandez would allow three hits – one to his former battery mate, John Jaso, whose double in the fourth was end of the no-hitter – the A’s never scored, losing 2-0.
   
An opening day and night without runs from teams by the Bay. Down in Los Angeles, the Giants – the World Series champion Giants, if you will – were blanked by the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw, 4-0. A few hours later, up at this end of the state, the A’s, the American League West Champions, were just as ineffective.
  
Two teams, two winning teams from 2012, zero runs.
   
“You always get somebody’s ace,” said Melvin.
    
The A’s similarly had one of their aces pitching, Brett Anderson. He struck out the first four Mariners. He went seven innings. Permitted only four hits and two runs.
   
“You’re going to take seven innings and two runs anytime from your starter,” Melvin insisted. Absolutely. But when your team gets no runs, you’re in trouble.
    
The A’s traded for Jaso in January. So long, Felix. “It’s easier catching him than batting against him,” said Jaso. But he did get that double. He did halt any chance for more perfection.
   
Before the game, Hernandez sent his former catcher a remembrance from the perfect game against Tampa Bay last August, a Rolex watch. Those beauties don’t come cheaply, starting a $5,000 or so and climbing exorbitantly depending on the number of diamonds on the face. Then again, Hernandez signed a $175-million, seven-year contract in January, so he has a bit of spare cash.
  
Someone asked Jaso whether it meant more getting a watch from Hernandez or a hit. “The hit,” he said, not all that seriously. “Then he struck me out.”
  
Hernandez struck out eight in his 7 2/3 innings, walking only one. “He had his stuff,” agreed Jaso. “He was really fun to catch when I was in Seattle. But today, so was Brett.”
 
Anderson is the medical miracle. The lefthander underwent Tommy John surgery in June 2011 and didn’t pitch again until last August. Then he strained an oblique muscle in September and missed more time. But on October 10, with the A’s trailing the Detroit Tigers two games to none in the best-of-five American League Division Series, Anderson, in his first start in six weeks, went six scoreless innings.
   
Monday night, opening night, was the next time Anderson pitched in competition. He liked the way he threw, for the most part. He didn’t like giving up the runs.

“A couple of mistakes,” said Anderson, analyzing the performance. “We had a chance to win it. I walked the leadoff batter (in the fifth). I hate walking people. That was my biggest downfall.”
   
The O.Co Coliseum was a wild place, a sellout – if with an asterisk, because the tarped rows of seats restrict attendance to 36,067 – the fans coming out with their rally towels and high hopes.
    
Where the A’s go from here – no jokes about San Jose – nobody is certain, but they won’t be going up against Hernandez at least for a few days, maybe a few weeks.
    
“We kept feeling we would pull it out,” said Melvin, the 2012 American League manager of the year. “In close games you have to have that feeling. We had it all last year, and it worked. A lot of times, one hit makes the difference.”
    
Hernandez wouldn’t let it work Monday night. The fans could chant “Let’s go Oakland.” The A’s couldn’t get that one hit. The A’s couldn’t get any runs.
    
“Felix is probably as good a pitcher as anyone as getting guys to swing at pitches,” said Melvin. He meant pitches at which they shouldn’t have swung. Pitches which they couldn’t hit.
   
At least when thrown by King Felix, as he threw them Monday night. So disappointing.