Slice and Dice

Seattle righthander Felix Hernandez, a Venezuelan prodigy three days past his 21st birthday, upstaged Dice-K, Ichiro, Johjima, Mitsubishi, sushi, and anything else Japanese at Fenway Park with a one-hit, 3-0 mastery of Daisuke Matsuzaka and the Red Sox. The hachimaki -- Japanese headbands -- distributed by an enterprising seafood restaurant outside of the park might as well have doubled as blindfolds for a Sox lineup that was held without a hit until J.D. Drew grounded a single just past Hernandez's glove and into center field to open the eighth.

"If he wasn't on, I wouldn't want to see him when he's on," said Sox rookie second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who walked in the third but like everyone else in a Boston uniform failed to advance past first base on a night when Hernandez faced just 29 batters, two more than the minimum. " He threw me a pitch my last at-bat, I'm not kidding you, it moved about 6 feet and it was a 95-mile-an-hour sinker. I mean, what can you do? He had some electric stuff, especially in these conditions."

There has been just one no-hitter thrown against the Red Sox in Fenway Park in the last 81 years. That was Detroit's Jim Bunning, before he became a senator, who retired Ted Williams on a fly ball to right field for the last out of his no-hitter July 20, 1958, in the first game of a doubleheader.

Hernandez, who was in the viewfinder of roughly 36,630 fewer cameras than Matsuzaka was when he faced Ichiro Suzuki to start the game, was six outs away from joining Bunning until Drew hit safely. He had to settle for becoming the first Sox opponent to throw a one-hitter here since Carl Everett broke up Mike Mussina's perfect-game bid for the Yankees with two outs in the ninth inning Sept. 2, 2001.

"Any time you break up a no-hitter late in the game, it always feels good," said Drew, the new Sox right fielder who has now hit safely in his first eight games but had no company on a night when Hernandez walked two and whiffed six. "More than anything, you're trying to get on base, trying to get something started.

"You're still in the ballgame late in the game and if you get on base it's crucial right there."