SEATTLE_Two pitchers seemingly going in two very different directions as the twilight years of their career have moved from the future to the now met up once again.
In years past, when they may have been No. 1 and 1A in terms of starting pitchers in the American League , this would have been made Saturday night's match-up a marquee game on the MLB slate.
But now as Justin Verlander continues to dominate hitters with a velocity that never completely disappeared _ his 105th and final pitch of his outing was 99 mph _ his counterpart Felix Hernandez is still fighting a losing fistfight with Father Time and trying to re-find something that may no longer be there armed a fastball that maybe tops out at 92 mph, but usually sits at 89-90 mph.
And the takeaways from their performances in Houston's 3-1 victory could sum up that direction.
Verlander dominated, which was a good thing for the Astros, while Hernandez survived, and that was considering what was expected.
After food poisoning left him sick and weakened in the hours leading up to his previous start, where he exited the game after just one inning because of dizziness, Hernandez delivered his best outing of the young season against an Astros team that has beaten him up the past three seasons.
Hernandez pitched six innings, allowing three runs on six hits with a walk and five strikeouts. He worked ahead in most counts and seemed to have decent command of his pitches.
It's clear for the last few seasons that Hernandez is King Felix in name only. The dominant starts he produce during that reign are infrequent occurrences. But the outing he had against the Astros, that's usable for an offense that is going to score runs.
He made a pair of regrettable pitches for home runs and had some bad luck for the other run.
After working the first two innings scoreless, Hernandez hung a 1-1 slider to Robinson Chirinos that was turned into a solo homer to start the third inning. The Astros tacked on another run in the inning. Hernandez grazed George Springer with a pitch and Jose Altuve hit a weak ground ball that looked to be going foul but stopped in the infield grass for a single. Later with two outs, Michael Brantley singled up the middle to score a run.
Down 2-0 against Verlander seemed insurmountable early on. The Astros ace retired the first 10 batters he faced, striking out eight of them.
The Mariners' record-setting home run streak that doesn't necessarily guarantee or even lead to wins, but may live on forever, was extended to 17 games in the fourth inning. Mitch Haniger jumped on a changeup and sent it into the overcrowded mass of inhumanity known as The Pen in center field. It was Seattle's first hit off Verlander.
And while the Mariners added to that MLB record of consecutive games to start a season, more importantly it trimmed the Astros lead to 2-1, giving the Mariners a glimmer of hope against Verlander.
Those hopes were dimmed when Altuve clubbed a solo homer into The Pen in the fifth inning off Hernandez. After striking out Altuve on an elevated pitch out of the zone, Hernandez tried to do it again the third time he faced the former American League MVP. But the pitch wasn't elevated out of the zone enough and Altuve took advantage of the missed location. It was his 16th hit in 29 at-bats against Hernandez in his career for a .552 batting average.
Verlander allowed just one more hit � a ground ball single off the bat of Daniel Vogelbach � in his outing. He tossed six innings, allowing the one run on two hits with no walks and 11 strikeouts to improve to 2-0 on the season.
The Mariners got outstanding relief work from rookie right-handers Brandon Brennan (one scoreless inning, one strikeout) and Connor Sadzeck (two scoreless innings, two strikeouts).
