Baseball notebook: Hernandez will start Opening Day for M’s

Felix Hernandez will be the youngest Opening Day starter in Seattle Mariners history.

Mariners manager Mike Hargrove announced his selection after Hernandez allowed four runs in six innings of Seattle’s 10-6 win over the Los Angeles Angels on Friday in Peoria, Ariz.

The slimmed-down 20-year-old will begin the season April 2 at Safeco Field in Seattle against Dan Haren and the Oakland Athletics.

Hernandez will join Dwight Gooden (1985) and Fernando Valenzuela (1981) as the only pitchers in the last 26 years who have started on Opening Day while 20.

“The kid has all the characteristics of a big-time winner. We want to push it along a little bit,” Hargrove said of Hernandez, who turns 21 on April 8.

Hernandez, who reported to camp at 226 pounds – 20 lighter than last season – allowed a two-run single to Erick Aybar in the third inning and a Casey Kotchman two-run single in the fourth. He allowed five other hits and struck out four in his longest outing of the spring.

Jose Guillen went 3 for 4 with a two-run home run, his third of the month for the Mariners, against one of his eight former teams.

Sherrill still struggles

Thankfully, George Sherrill doesn’t pay much attention to numbers at spring training – good or bad.

They’ve been particularly bad this year for the Mariners’ left-handed reliever, a traditionally poor spring training pitcher anyway. He has an 18.00 earned run average, opponents are batting .500 against him and three of the 13 hits he’s allowed have been are home runs.

“Results, to me, don’t matter in the spring,” Sherrill said. “I base it on swings and the quality of pitches. I will feel good but gradually the mechanics will go elsewhere. Then all of a sudden it’s a full-blown problem and you’ve got to figure out what’ going wrong.”

That’s where Sherrill is now, and with a week remaining in the exhibition season he knows he must pitch better.

“It is time to get it going and get everything ironed out,” he said.

Sherrill has tweaked his mechanics – working to quicken his hands – after watching video and is more enthused. He was knocked around in a minor league game Wednesday, but believes he made progress.

“It’s just a mater of putting everything together and I think it’s slowly coming,” he said. “Just based on swings and approaches of the hitters, it looked better.”

Hargrove acknowledged that Sherrill needs to step up his performance at time final roster decisions are being made.

Plan for Putz

Closer J.J. Putz threw off the front of the bullpen mound and, if his elbow continues to feel good, will throw off the top of the mound Sunday. The Mariners aren’t ready to pronounce him clear of the strained flexor pronator muscle in his right elbow, but they’re feeling as good as Putz does.

“I watched him throw and you could hear the ball come off his fingers,” Hargrove said. “You don’t see that with an unhealthy arm.”

Hargrove said Putz would pitch in a minor league game Tuesday, then one of the Mariners’ two exhibitions against the Cubs next weekend at Las Vegas.

Misstep

Hernandez gave the Mariners a little scare. He turned his left ankle throwing a pitch in the fourth inning.

Trainer Rick Griffin and pitching coach Rafael Chaves went to the mound and Hernandez convinced them he was OK and pitched on.

“Same thing happened last year in Milwaukee,” Hernandez said. “The mound had a hole in it. I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

Setting the rotation

Hargrove wouldn’t announce how the rest of his starters would line up, but it’s becoming clearer that left-hander Jarrod Washburn will be the No. 2 starter, followed by right-hander Miguel Batista. That leaves left-hander Horacio Ramirez and right-hander Jeff Weaver for the fourth and fifth spots.

“I haven’t talked to those guys yet, and there’s still some question about the four and five guys,” Hargrove said. “It could be right-right-left or it could be right-left-right.”

Notes

Friday’s crowd of 12,204 was the Mariners’ largest at Peoria this spring. It’s the ninth-largest spring training home crowd in M’s history. … The Mariners re-assigned outfielder Tony Torcato to their minor league camp and also released four minor leaguers – pitchers Ari Kafka and Haley Winter, infielder Marcos Villezcas and outfielder Jason Grove. Kafka and Villezcas played last year at Everett.