King Felix Is Perfect
Source: FanGraphs
27 batters faced, 12 strikeouts, 15 other outs.
In June, I put Matt Cain’s perfect game in historical perspective. This one by Felix Hernandez might not have matched Cain’s strikeout total, but it’s still one of the great single game pitching performances of all time.
Hats off to King Felix, who is more than deserving of the nickname.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Awesome moment!
If Larry Bernandez throws a perfect game, then I will be impressed.
I would leave a clever comment, but I have no words for how good he was today
“Felix is ours and you can’t have him” Welcome, Jeff Sullivan.
I’ve never cried at a funeral. I cried tears of happiness today.
I surprised myself when the tears came today.
You must have never been to the funeral of someone who you were really happy to have died. Alternately, if you were watching this while AT a funeral today, you would have cried at a funeral. Caveats!
“we still have felix”
What is with the Rays and being on the wrong end of perfect games? That’s what 3 (out of 6) in the past 3 years?
And the no-hitter tossed by Edwin Jackson in 2010.
What’s up with the Rays? 3 perfect games against them now.
The strategy of taking until strike two may result in a lot of walks against pitchers with less control. But against strike-throwing machines like King Felix, it’s just like starting every at bat with a count of 0-2 or 1-2. The entire league hits like Ben Sheets in those counts.
As a White Sox fan who has been treated to more than my fair share of these, I’m happy for you Mariners fans and hope that most of you got to watch it somehow — seeing it live is a quite an exciting experience. Congrats
It’s been a really good year to be a baseball fan.
Absolute domination. The Rays didn’t stand a chance.
YES!!!!!!! Felix is more than deserving of this accomplishment as well. Root Sports will replay the game at 7:30 tonight for all of us 9-to-5 chumps.
Interested to see how far up the WAR leader boards this will push Felix. I mean he was second before today and I think he needed .8 WAR to match JV. Those two seem to be quickly separating themselves from the pack. JV Ks 14 Yankees and Felix comes back with a perfect game, wow.
Although it still seems likely we would see a Jared Weaver Cy Young if the season ended today.
I think you are wrong about Jered Weaver winning the Cy. If he had as many innings as either Verlander or Felix, then he should win it. But he won’t come close to their innings totals so I think that hurts him too much.
I think everyone needs to come to terms with the fact that Jered Weaver is a great pitcher, even if the advanced metrics don’t seem to understand why quite yet.
King Felix motherfuckers.
Is it just me, or can that motherfucker really fuckin’ throw that motherfuckin’ ball?
Anyone know the game score value? I’m curious where it ranks compared to the other perfect games recently.
99. It’s always 87+strikeouts for a (9 inning) perfecto.
I calculated 99
50+27(outs)+10(5 innings after the 4th*2)+12(12 Ks)
Dang it, I was all set to listen to this game, even had the radio ready, then got distracted with a project from work (which I’d been looking forward to doing while the game was on, but just totally forgot to click on the radio). Remembered to turn it on just after the game was finished. *shakes fist at work project*
Cain’s game was against the “gauranteed to lose 100+ games” Astros, and Felix’s was against a Rays team that has a great chance of going to the playoffs.
I hope that quality of competition factors into “historical perspective”.
The Rays offense is absolutely horrible right now.
I thought they were ready to waltz into the playoffs with Longoria back? Regardless, they still put out some ugly lineups here and there. They’ve batted Jaso leadoff and had guys like Drew Sutton and Jeff Keppinger batting third.
But not as bad as the Astros. It did have Longoria and, I think, Joyce in the lineup. Upton was there. It may not be great but it’s not Astros-bad.
Well, no wonder they’ve had such trouble scoring, if they’ve been batting Jaso leadoff. Since he caught Felix’s perfecto today.
I didn’t know record was an indicator of hitting performance. I wonder why more pitchers haven’t thrown perfecos against the Astros this year.
Shockingly, you have to score to win a game. Also Astro’s are the 4th worst hitting team and 3rd highest K% team in all of baseball.
Lan, how was the Astros offense before the team was completely traded around? Pretty dumb to look at them now considering all the trades.
Kruk, Your comment is totally unsubstantiated and trollish. Were you talking about the slight drop off from Johnson to Moore? or maybe the huge improvement from replacing Lee with Wallace?
Their season stats aren’t going to change dramatically in one month from the trades.
Also of note, they were the 5th worst batting team in baseball last year.
Is it really hard to believe that Felix’s performance is on par with Cain’s even if he didn’t get as many strikeouts?
The Rays have scored 27 more runs than the Astros, and the Rays have been able to use a DH the whole season. The Rays’ offense sucks.
Happy to have seen this from the 7th inning on, after having previously just missed hearing about Phil Humber and Matt Cain in time to tune in by a few minutes.
King Felix was even more a beast than usual. I’ve always expected him to throw a perfect game some time, good to see him get it.
Wonder what’s with the Rays and getting no-hit. This marks four no hitters in four seasons, three of them perfect. And they came a hair away from being no-hit by Brandon Morrow, as well.
Two thoughts.
With all due respect to Philip Humber, I like to see truly great pitchers with perfect games. This makes me very happy that we have seen one from especially Felix, but Cain also.
What a fluke of history that since 2008 the Rays have been subject to two perfect games and a no-hitter, despite being a pretty good offensive team overall during that time.
*three perfect games
Wow.
That’s three perfectos against the Rays. And a fourth against the Marlins.
Guess I was a bit slow.
So you’re saying this was less unlikely than Humber?
This is probably the greatest moment of Dave’s life.
With all due respect to Felix’s accomplishment, I have to think that beating cancer is a little higher on Dave’s personal list…
I loved when Carson (I think it was him) did a game/WPA graph of Dave vs cancer.
Felix, what the hell took you so long to throw a perfect game? What a waste of talent, man. Dude should’ve been throwing no-hitters for ages!!
You could say bumping Melky off the headlines….
*puts on sunglasses*
…worked to perfection.
YEAHHHHHHHHHH!!
As a thank you for Felix saving him so much bad publicity, Melky should sign a one year deal with the Mariners for league minimum.
FELIX!
Matt Cain is my golden god and I still give Felix bigger bonus points for facing a tougher lineup and doing it in a close game, Cainer had a comfy lead from the get-go.
Just awesome. When I saw he was shutting them down through five, I was really pulling for it. All due respect to Verlander, but Felix Hernandez is, to me, the most exciting pitcher since Pedro. Pedro may have never gotten his, but I’m damn glad to see King Felix get one.
Am I correct in assuming that this is the first season in MLB history that featured as many as three perfect games?
Yes. There were 2 in 1884 and 2009, but never 3.
I was there, congrats
Congrats on another last place finish, too bad Felix’s entire career will be wasted #6org
Nonsense. Felix will have many fine seasons with the Yankees after he hits free agency in 2015.
How did this comment get voted down? I thought it was hilarious.
You’re just mad that they snagged Thames from the Blue Jays, everdiso.
Your comments are so distinct that I know it’s you before I check the name. Every time you post it’s detracting from the topic at hand in an attempt to bring attention to yourself. You are consistently one of the worst commenters on this site with no respect for any of the hard work the posters at Fangraphs provide us all for free.
Felix gave us the performance of a lifetime and his team helped him with several nice defensive plays, but all you want to do is take the piss out of it. Do us all a favor and go back to trolling whatever board you came from.
He’s a troll. At this point it would be best if no one ever replied to any of his posts and just downvoted all of the ones that were obviously trolling.
Could some smart person let us know how much fWAR this game was worth?
Hail to the King, baby!
Best of Times, Worst of Times in Seattle and San Fran. It’s hard to think of another single day in baseball– or perhaps sports in general?–with such a tremendous positive story and such a discouraging negative story. And I say that not as a fan of either team, but simply as a fan of baseball who loves to see a dominating individual performance and hates to see a promising young hitter outed as a cheat.
If Cain pitched in the AL then I would be with you but ask Chapman how much different the AL is he got his ass pounded…
Reports of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.
I kid not, when I say this kid has a plaque waiting in Cooperstown.
Felix is one of my favorite players, so this is awesome to see. That last at bat was incredible. The penultimate pitch of the game, a called strike curveball at 84 mph thrown on a 2-1 count, was one of the greatest single pitches I have ever seen.
That 2-0 slider on the black was pretty effin ridiculous as well
Dave – You blew the call at the beginning of the ninth inning. I know you were only 5 years old at the time, but you shouldn’t have said “Three outs to go, then we riot.” You should have said “Three outs to go, then go crazy, folks! Go crazy!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHEtH5LbkBM
He goes for the record versus the Indians. Two in a row!
Not that it will happen, but if anyone can throw two in a row, it’s Felix.
One record that may never be broken is Vandermeer’s 2 non-hitters in a row. Someone may tie it eventually.
That game made the investment in MLBTV worth the $$$$. I am a die-hard M’s fan living in Alabama, and to see that performance was priceless! WTG King Felix!