ARLINGTON, Texas. — One of the touchstones of a new Mariners’ baseball season is Felix Hernandez’s birthday in the first week.
For a long time, it was a gleeful reminder of how precociously young he still was, compared to his bountiful talent. But gradually, the Hernandez birthday April 8 is turning into an alarm bell. On Friday, the same day the Mariners play their home opener against the Oakland A’s, the King turns 30.
In baseball terms, it’s an old 30. There’s a lot of mileage in that wondrous arm, which has fired 34,519 major-league pitches over 2,2621/3 innings.