Felix Hernandez makes his first career appearance in Pittsburgh on Wednesday afternoon when the Seattle Mariners visit the Pirates to close out a brief two-game interleague series at PNC Park.
Hernandez, who's won 102 big-league games in 245 career starts, faced the Pirates for the one and only time in 2007 and emerged with a 5-0 victory after allowing six hits and striking out nine in eight innings.
He threw 107 pitches, including 71 for strikes, before giving way to reliever J.J. Putz to earn the save.
Hernandez, who has won five straight interleague road starts, went on to win a then career-high 14 games that season and has won as many as 19 in 2009. He won the Cy Young Award in 2010 after compiling a 2.27 earned run average and winning 13 times in 34 starts.
Pittsburgh, meanwhile, will start veteran righty A.J. Burnett, who's won three straight decisions since opening the year with two losses.
In his last start, on May 3, Burnett tossed seven innings of one-run ball while defeating the Washington Nationals, 3-1, and lowering his earned run average from an already stingy 2.83 to 2.57 in 42 full innings.
One start previous, he'd allowed two runs on five hits in six innings of a 5-3 victory at St. Louis.
Burnett is 3-2 in eight career starts against Seattle with a 3.71 ERA in 51 innings.
On Tuesday, Andrew McCutchen went 4-for-4 with an RBI double and a run scored and Garret Jones added a two-run home run as the Pirates downed the Mariners, 4-1.
Travis Snider also had an RBI double and Starling Marte scored a run for the Pirates, who had dropped four of their last six games.
Jeanmar Gomez (2-0) scattered two hits and two walks while striking out five over five scoreless innings to earn the win. Jason Grilli worked a perfect ninth to earn his 13th save.
Raul Ibanez drove in the lone run for the Mariners with a pinch-hit double in the seventh inning.
Aaron Harang (1-4) gave up two runs on five hits over six innings to absorb the loss. He struck out six without issuing a walk.
"I was able to throw pitches where I wanted to, moving the ball in an out. I was really getting on top of my slider and had good depth with my pitches today," Harang said.
The Mariners won two of three games when the teams last played in 2007 in Seattle, and swept a three-game series in Pittsburgh in 2004.
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