Sox rookie one-ups M’s star

SEATTLE – On his way to another impressive night in the big leagues, Felix Hernandez learned a major league lesson Friday.

Leave a pitch over the plate, even to a .154-hitting rookie, and he can hit it out of the ballpark. Twice, as it happened against the Chicago White Sox.

Center fielder Brian Anderson, with just two hits in the 13 days since he’d been called up from the minors, hit two home runs off Hernandez in the White Sox’s 5-3 victory over the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field.

Hernandez was long gone when the game was decided in the 12th inning.

Tadahito Iguchi’s two-run homer off Eddie Guardado gave the White Sox their league-best 78th victory. They’re third in the league with 159 home runs.

“When you pitch up there, you’re going to pay,” said Guardado, whose chest-high fastball was just where Iguchi could club it. “We played good baseball but we just didn’t pull it out, and it’s my fault.”

The White Sox, who rank near the bottom in most American League offensive categories except homers, did their scoring on long balls and mistake pitches by the Mariners.

Hernandez had mastered the low side of the strike zone and hadn’t given up a homer in his four starts since being called up from Triple-A Tacoma. In fact, he had pitched to 112 batters without allowing an extra-base hit before Jermaine Dye hit a hanging curveball for a double in the second inning.

In the third, Hernandez threw a 96 mph first-pitch fastball into the power zone of Anderson, who pulled it over the left-field fence for a 1-0 White Sox lead.

In the seventh, after Yorvit Torrealba’s home run gave the Mariners a 2-1 lead, Hernandez walked Juan Uribe with two outs and tried to curl a two-strike curveball past Anderson.

He hung it, and Anderson drove it out to left-center for a 3-2 lead.

Manager Mike Hargrove still gave high marks to Hernandez, who allowed seven hits and three runs in seven innings, leaving his earned run average at 1.75.

“He threw an outstanding game,” Hargrove said. “We just couldn’t score enough runs for him to win it.”

The Mariners came close, coming from behind twice to send the game into extra innings.

Willie Bloomquist, who entered the game in a 0-for-18 slump, dropped a squeeze bunt in the third inning to score Torrealba for a 1-all tie. Torrealba put the M’s ahead 2-1 in the fifth with a home run. In the eighth, Bloomquist drove a two-out triple to the gap in left-center, scoring Torrealba to tie the score at 3.

Hernandez was gone by then, finished off by a patient White Sox team that didn’t give him an easy inning.

“They have an incredible lineup,” Hernandez said. “I tried to keep my pitches down.”

Notes

Seattle claimed right-hander Francisco Cruceta off waivers from the Cleveland Indians and assigned him to Triple-A Tacoma. … With Felix Hernandez and Randy Johnson the likely starters when the Mariners host the New York Yankees on Wednesday, there were about 9,000 tickets remaining for the game on Friday.