"Felix Hernandez didn't like the green baseball cap Major League Baseball requires all its players to wear on St. Patrick's Day - and he wasn't crazy about his pitching, either.

"I threw everything tonight, and they hit it all hard," the Seattle ace said. "I got my work in, but 80 pitches in four innings? That's not good. And six runs? That's terrible."

The final line on Hernandez Thursday was ugly: four innings, nine hits, six runs - three earned - two walks, a wild pitch and seven strikeouts.

For any good thing you might mention, Felix countered.

Seven strikeouts?

"Yeah, but six runs!" he said.

How about this? In the first inning, the Kansas City Royals had runners on second and third and no one out - then Hernandez struck out the side without another ball being put in play.

"Yeah, but after that look what happened," Hernandez said. "Six runs!"

There were, well, extenuating circumstances.

Like what?"