Mariners vs Twins : 4 - 2

Felix Hernandez's answer needed no translation. Does he feel like he's back to being the hard-throwing phenom everyone expected? "Si," Hernandez said emphatically. The Seattle Mariners' 20-year-old right-hander won for the third time in four starts Tuesday night, outlasting Minnesota's own young pitching star, Francisco Liriano, in a 4-2 win over the Twins. Hernandez allowed one run and scattered six hits over seven innings. He overpowered some batters with his 97 mph fastball, buckled knees with his breaking pitches and, most importantly, kept Seattle in the game by pitching out of tough situations early. Hernandez (5-6) struck out five and threw 60 of his 100 pitches for strikes, and in the process handed the 22-year-old Liriano his first loss of the season. Hernandez also got some payback for a 3-1 loss to Liriano on May 26. Hernandez won consecutive starts for the first time this season and Seattle snapped a four-game losing streak to the Twins.

Seattle Mariners' Willie Bloomquist scores in the sixth inning of an MLB baseball game against the Minnesota Twins Tuesday, June 6, 2006, in Seattle.

This season, Hernandez has struggled with giving up runs early -- he's allowed first-inning runs in six of his 11 starts -- before settling into a groove. On Tuesday, Hernandez battled through the first, getting a two-out groundout from Justin Morneau with the bases loaded. In the third, Hernandez got a weak groundout from Torii Hunter and a strikeout of Michael Cuddyer to end the inning after allowing one-out hits to Jason Kubel and Joe Mauer. Minnesota's only run off Hernandez came in the fifth, when Kubel lined a two-out single to left, and Mauer followed with a slicing fly down the left-field line. Left fielder Raul Ibanez was playing Mauer in the left-center gap and could not run down the ball, allowing Kubel to score from first.

Seattle scratched out a pair of runs off Liriano (4-1) in the fourth, just the second and third runs he has allowed since moving into the Twins' rotation on May 19. The Mariners added another in the sixth before Liriano was lifted. Liriano gave up seven hits and struck out three in six innings. Ichiro Suzuki had four hits and Mike Morse drove in a pair of runs for the Mariners. Kubel led off the eighth with a homer off Seattle reliever Eddie Guardado, who received a cascade of boos after giving up the 404-foot shot to right field. Seattle used four pitchers in the inning, but J.J. Putz got the final out of the eighth, stranding two runners, and pitched the ninth for his ninth save.

Kubel had three hits and Mauer was 4-for-4 with two doubles. He is hitting .492 over his last 15 games. Kenji Johjima led off the fourth with a single to center and scored easily on Morse's one-out double off the top of the wall in center, missing a home run by about two feet. Liriano briefly lost focus and it cost him a run. He threw a wild pitch on his first delivery to Yuniesky Betancourt, allowing Morse to move to third. Betancourt grounded to third for the second out, but Suzuki hit a chopper that Liriano jumped for, but it bounced off his bare hand. Suzuki was safe on the infield single and Morse scored for a 2-0 lead. Seattle added a run in the sixth, when Willie Bloomquist neatly slid around Mauer's tag after Morse grounded sharply to third baseman Tony Batista. Reliever Matt Guerrier allowed an RBI double to Ibanez in the seventh.