Hometown King: Felix is Seattle's best, intent on playoffs

Jorge L. Ortiz | USA TODAY Sports

SEATTLE -- About 25 fans total were in lower-level sections 149 and 150 of Safeco Field for the start of a Tuesday game in July against the Boston Red Sox, one of baseball's top road draws.

The previous night, under similarly cloudless skies, both areas were bursting with raucous, festive fans who spilled over and also filled most of section 148.

Felix Hernandez was pitching, and this was no longer just a corner of the left-field grandstand adjacent to the foul pole. This was King's Court.

Clad in their distinctive yellow T-shirts — some also wearing foam crowns — King's Court fans rose in unison every time Hernandez got two strikes on a batter, waving their K cards and demanding a strikeout by chanting, "K! K! K! K!" on every subsequent pitch.

"I hear them," Hernandez acknowledges in a lengthy Spanish-language interview. "I try to strike the batter out so they'll cheer louder. Even the guys get more enthused when they hear them. It's amazing."

For anyone wondering why such a supremely talented pitcher — a four-time All-Star and the 2010 American League Cy Young Award winner — would cast his lot with a perennial also-ran, in a city 4,000 miles from his homeland of Venezuela, the King's Court provides part of the answer.

The effusive support for the player known as King Felix is by no means the only reason Hernandez committed to remaining with the Mariners through 2019 by signing a seven-year, $175 million extension in February.

The contract made him the highest-paid pitcher in baseball history at the time, although that money and perhaps more would have been available elsewhere, along with better chances for winning.

Despite a season-best eight-game winning streak that was broken Wednesday, the Mariners (48-53) are merely in third place in the AL West, 11 games behind the first-place Oakland Athletics.

Seattle has not been to the playoffs since 2001 and has finished above .500 twice since Hernandez broke into the majors as a 19-year-old in 2005.

Hernandez, 27, has gone 109-80 in his nine-year career, his victory total depressed by the Mariners' inability to score more than one run while he was in the game in 91 of his 259 starts.

And were it not for his contract extension, the latest round of a July tradition around Seattle — Should the Mariners trade King Felix? — would be in full swing, creating angst locally and stoking the hopes of fans elsewhere that Hernandez might be coming to their team.

Instead, he remains here.

"We've talked. 'Have you ever thought about a team like the Yankees?'" bullpen coach Jaime Navarro says. "He could have 150 or 200 wins now on a team like that. But he wants to do it here, not elsewhere. That's his goal, to take Seattle to a championship. He dreams about that."

In a city that has seen Mariners such as Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson and Ichiro Suzuki leave in an attempt to find their nirvana elsewhere — a town also jilted by the NBA's SuperSonics, who took Kevin Durant with them to Oklahoma — Hernandez stands as a rare example of loyalty.

"I think he's a fan favorite all across the Puget Sound. He loves Seattle and he wants to make this his home,'' says Brian Harlow, an Olympia resident celebrating his birthday at King's Court. "You have to respect a guy who sticks around. That's why Edgar (Martinez) is so beloved. He always stayed in one place, and it would be great if Felix did the same.''

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Settling in Seattle

The Mariners have been Hernandez's extended family since he signed with them as a 16-year-old out of Valencia, Venezuela, in 2002. He took a liking to Seattle and its cool climate from the moment he visited but really fell in love with the area when his wife, Sandra, joined him full time in 2007.

They have been together since Hernandez was 14 or 15, after repeatedly spotting her in the house next to the ballpark where he worked out. They have two kids, Mia, 8, and Jeremy, 4.

"I missed Venezuelan food at first," said Hernandez, who has lived in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue for four years and is building another house. "But I started getting used to it. And when my wife arrived, she would cook Venezuelan dishes, our arepas (turnovers). She began to enjoy it even though she missed her family, and she adjusted to it."

They found a supportive Latino community that included then-teammates Adrian Beltre, Joel Pineiro and Raul Ibanez, who is back for a third stint with the team and has made Seattle his home.

Hernandez has found it easy to be a celebrity in Seattle, where he's frequently recognized but rarely bothered. The comments he hears on the street are always positive, he says, and the fans don't boo when he has a rough start.

"If you talk with players who have spent time here, they'll tell you this is a really special city," Ibanez says. "We bought a house here two years ago when I was with Philadelphia so we could return here."

Hernandez's visibility and popularity soared two years ago when the club started running a TV spot that featured him disguised with glasses, a wig and fake sideburns in an attempt to trick manager Eric Wedge into letting him pitch more frequently.

The character, known as Larry Bernandez, was such a hit with the fans that the club held a bobble-head night featuring him in August 2011.

"I think he's more famous than me," says Hernandez, who not only helped hand out the giveaways at the gate but also threw out the ceremonial first pitch in character.

Hard to imagine the famously intense Johnson doing that.

"People couldn't believe it was him. They were convinced it was an actor," says Kevin Martinez, the Mariners' VP of marketing.

Martinez's department came up with the idea of the King's Court the season after Hernandez won the Cy Young to make his starts more of an event, and they sold tickets on the level right above that — the so-called High Court — for his bobble-head night May 25 this season.

On Hernandez's first outing after his Aug. 15, 2012, perfect game, the club designated the whole ballpark as the Supreme Court. For that Tuesday game against the Cleveland Indians, every fan would get the same deal available at the King's Court — a seat, T-shirt and K card for $30. The game drew more than 39,000.

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Eye on the future

The Mariners don't typically get much of an attendance bump when Hernandez is on the mound — they rank 26th in the major leagues with an average turnout of 21,813 — but the enhanced buzz in the crowd is undeniable.

His presence represents a better chance of victory for the Mariners, as well as the possibility something special might happen. Besides his perfecto, Hernandez has thrown eight other shutouts and last year had a 12-game stretch in which he blanked five opponents. He's 11-4 and leads the AL with a 2.43 ERA and 144 2/3 innings pitched.

Hernandez points out he has grown from a kid into a man in Seattle — he is now fluent in English and comfortable with the media — while also evolving from a flamethrower into a resourceful pitcher who can get hitters out in a variety of ways.

Red Sox outfielder Jonny Gomes says Hernandez has three above-average pitches, including a changeup that might dart in, out or simply fall, essentially serving as three pitches.

"What's different about him is he's got the embarrassing characteristic, which means there's a chance you could totally embarrass yourself," Gomes says. "There's a chance you could swing at a pitch that went 30 feet because you were that fooled."

Yet such an accomplished pitcher might never get to showcase his ability in the postseason unless the Mariners' extensive rebuilding starts to produce results. The closest they have come to the playoffs during Hernandez's tenure was a second-place finish in 2007, six games behind.

"We may not be as far away as some people might think," general manager Jack Zduriencik says. "It's not there yet. We still have other things to do, but I think there's a lot of nice pieces in play."

They include third baseman Kyle Seager, rookie middle infielders Nick Franklin and Brad Miller, rookie catcher Mike Zunino, All-Star right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma and pitching prospects Taijuan Walker, Danny Hultzen and James Paxton.

Zduriencik also hints the club will be active in the offseason, whether in the free agent or trade markets.

Hernandez, who famously broke down in tears when greeted by a group of team employees in King's Court shirts upon signing his extension, professes faith in the Mariners brass, saying he wouldn't have committed for the long run if the executives didn't have a winning plan in place.

Friday night, Hernandez will take the ball at Safeco Field again, aiming to follow in Edgar Martinez's footsteps as a career Mariner who helped take them to the playoffs.

"That's going to happen," he says. "It's got to happen. And it's going to be here."