M's Notes: Felix's focus missing

BOSTON — The Mariners have started their recovery efforts after Felix Hernandez's disastrous outing Thursday in Cleveland.

Pitching coach Rafael Chaves sat with the youngster, now with eight walks and a 5.59 earned-run average in two starts, during the club's early-hitting session Friday at Fenway Park.

"His trouble has been more mental than anything else," manager Mike Hargrove said. "You have to think the 14 days he didn't pitch have set him back."

Hernandez did not pitch in a game from March 23 to April 7 after going down with shin splints in spring camp. He threw on the sideline twice but had no game work, even simulated.

Said Chaves: "When Felix made those last few starts in spring training, he was like a boxer ready to go. Then he couldn't go, and he's lost something."

He described it as a loss of focus.

"It's not a chicken-egg thing — which goes first, command or concentration?" Chaves said. "He hasn't had concentration, and that has caused him to lose his stuff."

Hernandez noted after the game Thursday that he hadn't previously had "two games in a row like that."

The right-hander stated his leg felt fine, and Chaves underscored, "That is the key. Since his health is good, we can work on the rest and get that right, too. He'll be all right."

Chaves said his erstwhile ace had no rhythm, which caused a lack of control, "so he was not ahead of the hitters and he was pitching deep into counts. That's not his usual style.

"My job is to find his rhythm. We've got to get him in a groove and he's got to maintain it. We have to find out exactly why he hasn't been right and fix it."

Fixing up Fenway

For a fifth straight year, the Boston Red Sox have made several changes to Fenway Park. The most obvious is the removal of The .406 Club (for Ted Williams' average in 1941, when he was the last to hit .400 or better), the glass-fronted monstrosity that dominated the grandstand behind home plate.

The glass is gone, and there are now two separate open-air levels that added 1,500 seats to the limited capacity of the little park. It now holds 36,108 for night games and 35,692 for day games (when no one sits in the triangle of bleacher seats in dead center to give hitters a dark background to see pitches).

Talking about Fenway and how it is supposed to be a better park for lefty hitters despite the nearness of the Green Monster, Hargrove provided an oddity from his own play here.

"I never hit a ball off the wall," he said. "They always pitched me in."

Notes

• Jeremy Reed's double in the sixth gave him a career-high nine-game hitting streak, in which he is 9 for 30.

• It rained the last four innings of Friday's game, but the umpires were never close to calling for the tarp. There was minimal effect on the field.

• Hargrove said that C Rene Rivera would get his first start behind the plate today. "And depending on how it goes, we may get [Matt] Lawton in, too," he added.

• Jamie Moyer (205 wins) and Curt Schilling (194) entered Friday as the sixth- and eighth-winningest active pitchers.

• The Mariners went into a modified shift against lefty-hitting slugger David Ortiz, with 2B Jose Lopez playing back on the grass and SS Yuniesky Betancourt near the bag on the right side of second.

• Entering Friday, the M's had received six intentional walks, including three in front of Richie Sexson. They were 3 for 5 in the next at-bat with a walk, two Sexson homers and nine RBI.

• The Red Sox sent 1B Hee-Seop Choi (hamstring) to Class AAA Pawtucket for a rehab assignment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.