Bronx, N.Y., June 30, 2010 — “King” Felix Hernandez has been in the league for years, but the Yankees have not seen him better than he was Wednesday night. The young righthander dominated “Bomber” bats once he worked through a little first inning wildness on a night custom-made for a ballgame. The home team flailed their way to 11 strike outs through nine innings in Hernandez’s complete game 7-0 shutout, but the Stadium was such a pleasant place to be you half expected to hear on the way out that this game didn’t actually count, that the athletes were all just feeling so good they just “decided” to play a game.

The scoreboard posted Felix’s first-pitch fastball to Derek Jeter at 91 mph, but the second one rose to 94, and they hovered in that neighborhood all night. Once Jeter worked him for a leadoff walk, the King was ready to make a statement. He promptly went up 0-2 on both Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira. Swish survived through one pitch off the plate before going down swinging, a claim Tex would not be able to make, as he whiffed as well.

Alex Rodriguez would follow with a walk as well in an at bat during which Jeter moved to second and then third on a wild pitch, then a passed ball, and two pitches later Robbie Cano’s line drive bid for an rbi hit to left resulted in a leaping grab by left fielder Michael Saunders. The gear guys could have wrapped up the Yankee bats then. Hernandez went up 0-2 on Jorge Posada in the second, on Jeter in the third and on A-Rod following Teixeira’s leadoff double in the fourth, which was the lone viable Yankee hit of the night. Five 0-2 counts over four frames: They led to four swinging strike outs and Jorge’s liner to center.

Of course Hernandez wasn’t the only one working from the mound this night. Javy Vazquez was toiling for the Yanks, and although when compared to what the King brought his pitching seemed inferior, he actually turned in a quality start. Just three of the seven Mariners runs were scored on the Yankee righty, but he unfortunately cemented his evening’s work early, as it turned out, and after going up 0-2 on a batter as well. The travails of Seattle DH Milton Bradley are much known around the league. His 2009 season with the Cubs was so bad they needed him out of town, and he’s had issues off the field and poor play on it up north as well, as his .207 ba would begin to tell you. But when Vazquez tried to sneak an 0-2 fastball by the veteran leading off the top of the second, Bradley parked Javy’s only truly bad pitch of the night into Monument Park in center field.

The 1-0 lead would be plenty as it turned out, but the M’s scored two more in the third just to be sure, the first on the first of two home runs by left fielder Saunders. Vazquez withstood everything else the visitors threw at him for six innings, and a few face-to-face confrontations with home plate ump Angel Hernandez as well. Angel and Javy butted heads in front of the mound for the first time in the fourth, a discussion that seemed to result from a complaint by Seattle catcher Rob Johnson, who wanted the ball checked after Javy had allowed five hits, two home runs and a hit by pitch while retiring 10 batters. What? No one thought to check the ball Hernandez was throwing?

The discussion ended and Vazquez struck Johnson out for the second of three times, but the home plate ump was all over him as he warmed for the fifth as well. It was odd to see, and surprising that Joe Girardi made no appearance either time the ump was confronting his starter.

The inning that followed saw Vazquez walk his only two batters, and although he escaped a bases loaded situation by striking out Ryan Langerhans, the 28-pitch frame had the Yankee starter near three figures in pitches. As it turned out Javy pitched through six innings, allowing just the three runs on six hits while striking out eight. Not bad really, but astronomically more than his counterpart would allow.

Hernandez established his fastball early, started mixing in a curve ball and a slider as the innings mounted, then leaned on a change of pace Yankee hitters could not distinguish from his heater in the latter frames. He pitched around Teixeira’s leadoff double in the fourth and again when Colin Curtis’s popup toward second feel for two bases when Chone Figgins couldn’t find it against a sky that did not look to be trouble. Strangely, Figgins couldn’t find Francisco Cervelli’s following bloop either, but Ichiro Suzuki corraled it in short right field. Jeter made a bid for an rbi single right up the middle, but the Seattle righty plucked it going by and pegged him out. With one down in the ninth Ramiro Pena received a free pass, and became the home team’s only baserunner in the last four innings, for a nine-innning offense that consisted of two hits and three walks. Seattle reached Damaso Marte and Chad Gaudin for two runs apiece in the seventh and eighth, but they needn’t have bothered.

French high-wire artist Jean François Gravelet-Blondin, also known as Charles Blondin, made the first of a series of tightrope walks over Niagara Falls on this day back in 1859. In the days that followed he would repeat the trick with flourishes, like doing it blindfolded, in a sack, pushing a wheelbarrow, on stilts and carrying a man on his back. Javy Vazquez would have had to bring this level of talent to Wednesday’s start to stand any chance against Felix Hernandez.

But Hernandez wouldn’t need to perform any high-wire tricks to bag this win. He had a can’t-miss formula:

Oh and Two and Out

YANKEE BASEBALL!!!