Mariners complete sweep of Rangers behind 3 homers, Justin Dunn’s 6 scoreless innings
The Mariners consistently preach to their pitchers about dominating the strike zone. They even have pregame warm-up T-shirts that drive home this point.
They impress upon their pitchers the importance of controlling the count up and down their minor league system, and maybe even more so when they reach the majors. Getting strike one and getting ahead of opposing batters is critical, manager Scott Servais discussed again recently, and the more his pitchers buy into this idea, the better results.
Justin Dunn, a rookie right-hander in his second season with Seattle’s organization, is the latest to see how implementing this simple plan can produce outstanding results.
Dunn entered his fifth start of the season Sunday afternoon at T-Mobile Park with a 7.80 ERA, having thrown first-pitch strikes to only 54.2% of the 72 batters he had faced in his previous four. Last time he faced the Rangers, he threw first-pitch strikes to only 11 of 28 batters.
But, he made the adjustment for this meeting, getting ahead with a first-pitch strike against 15 of 21 batters. And what happened? He turned in the best outing of his young career.
“Huge,” he said during a postgame video call. “We’re putting emphasis on dominating zone and that’s the key component right there — get ahead and stay ahead, and keep guys on the defensive, and we stay on the attack. So, trending in the right direction. Really happy to see that.”
Dunn didn’t allow a run in six quality innings, gave up a single hit, and walked one while notching a career-high six strikeouts. The Mariners won their third consecutive game, 4-1, over the Rangers and earned their first sweep of the season. The Mariners are 11-19 at the halfway point of this shortened season.
“Certainly a great outing by Justin Dunn today,” Servais said postgame. “Heck of a job. Didn’t quite know what we were going to get after he took the line drive off the ribs over in LA the last time out, but I thought his stuff was maybe as good as we’ve seen it in quite some time.
“The first couple innings, I thought he had a lot of life to the fastball. First three or four innings, really aggressive in the strike zone early in the count, which allowed his pitch count to be relatively low. So, outstanding job by him today. A really nice bounce-back.”
Dunn is the latest of this young Mariners group to start to see quality results at the big league level. Two of his fellow young rotation members, rookie Justus Sheffield and Nick Margevicius, have also impressed in recent outings.
Rookie hitters like Evan White and recent call-up Sam Haggerty have started to see success play out in the batter’s box. Rookie Kyle Lewis has been sensational the entire first half.
“We have a lot of young guys here that have played together,” Servais said. “They haven’t played at this level together, but they’ve played together quite a bit. So they do feed off each other. It’s a very close-knit group. They enjoy coming to the ballpark, they work their tails off, and they all know what they’re up against as far as what the goals are the season, and continue to get better, and learn and get a better feeling for what the routine is going to be like at the big league level.
“They’re quickly learning that you need to produce here as well. And they are. So that’s the goal this year, and along the way we’re winning some ballgames which is really, really good for our clubhouse atmosphere.”
Seattle’s offense again put runs on Texas early Sunday, as it did the first two games of the weekend series.
Lewis opened scoring by hitting his team-leading seventh home run of the season in the first on a solo shot to the Rangers bullpen. The Mariners never lost the lead.
Lewis has hit safely in his past eight games, and is hitting .519 during that stretch with a double, three homers, five RBI and seven walks. He also continues to lead the American League in hits with 39.
“Kyle is seeing the ball great,” Servais said. “It’s very easy. He’s not swinging hard, you can see it, his effort level is at a perfect, perfect spot right now, understanding where he’s at, pitches he’s looking for. I hope we can keep them there all year. It’s some kind of fun to watch, and just to see him mature and grow and the confidence, and it’s rubbing off on some other guys, too, which is also a bonus.”
Austin Nola, who has quietly put together one of the most impressive offensive seasons for Seattle, added another run on his fourth homer of the season to nearly the same spot in the opposing bullpen in the second.
Braden Bishop and Haggerty, who were recalled from the club’s alternate training site in Tacoma, added some insurance for the Mariners in the fifth. Bishop singled, stole a base and Haggerty launched his first career homer into Edgar’s Cantina in left to make it 4-0.
Seattle’s bullpen again got through the later innings with relative ease. The Rangers’ only run came on a solo shot from Jeff Mathis off Dan Altavilla in the eighth. Both rookie Anthony Misiewicz and Camas High School product Taylor Williams threw clean innings.
With his sixth save of the season, Williams, a Vancouver native, also became the all-time franchise leader in saves among Washington-born pitchers, passing Karl Best, who was born in Aberdeen and attended Kent Meridian High School.
This story was originally published August 23, 2020 at 3:28 PM.
