SEATTLE — The Mariners will induct Félix Hernández into their hall of fame during the 2023 season, the team announced Wednesday.
Hernández, widely regarded as one of the best pitchers in franchise history, will be the 11th inductee for the club. The ceremony will be held Aug. 12 during a three-game series against the Baltimore Orioles.
Hernández pitched parts of 15 seasons with the Mariners after debuting as a 19-year-old during the 2005 campaign. He was a six-time All-Star, won the 2010 American League Cy Young Award and twice finished second in Cy Young voting.
He went 169-136 with a 3.42 ERA while playing on several terrible teams and should have ended his career with better numbers. Hernández threw the most recent perfect game in baseball on Aug. 15, 2012, against Tampa Bay and for many seasons was the main draw on an underachieving franchise.
Hernández started 418 of the 419 games he pitched for Seattle but never got the opportunity to pitch in the postseason.
He had a rocky departure from the team after the 2019 season but seemed to reconcile any hard feelings and returned to throw out the first pitch before Game 3 of the AL Division Series against the Houston Astros in October.
“Fans were captivated by Félix from his first start in 2005 until his final pitch in 2019 with every game of his career in a Mariner uniform,” Mariners chairman John Stanton said in a statement.