Justin Dunn outstanding, Kyle Lewis homers and Mariners hold off Angels in extras
The Mariners played their first intrasquad game of summer camp back in July, and in his first at-bat, Kyle Lewis turned on a fastball from teammate Justin Dunn and planted it in the bullpen.
Dunn, who was supposed to be Lewis’ ride home from the ballpark that day, joked Lewis would probably be walking home.
The two Mariners rookies have enjoyed continuing to play baseball together at the major league level this season after tearing up the Texas League with Double-A Arkansas last year. The two play MLB The Show together, talk about pitch sequencing, and Dunn has been quick to promote Lewis’ American League Rookie of the Year bid.
Lewis cranked another home run with Dunn on the mound Sunday afternoon in Anaheim — though this time they were on the same side — to put an exclamation point on another outstanding outing from the starter.
For the second time in a week, Dunn allowed a single hit across six innings of work, and Lewis’ homer in the seventh broke a scoreless tie, putting Dunn in line for a win against the Angels.
It didn’t quite stay that way — the Angels tied the game at one run apiece minutes later off Seattle’s bullpen — but it was another sign of good things to come from this young Mariners club.
Lewis did eventually scored the winning run in the 10th to lift the Mariners to a 2-1 win at Angel Stadium, turning on the jets as he rounded third and diving just ahead of the tag at home. It was a refreshing win for the Mariners (14-22) after a 16-3 drubbing a night earlier.
Lewis opened the inning on second base per Major League Baseball’s new extra-inning rule, and Tim Lopes worked an eight-pitch at-bat with one out as a pinch hitter. Lopes took a pair of pitches and batted three more away after falling behind 0-2 to Angels reliever Jose Quijada, and eventually got a changeup he could handle, lifting it into left.
For a moment, it seemed Lewis would slow up and stop at third on the base hit, but third base coach Manny Acta waved him through, and Lewis outlegged the throw to give the Mariners the final advantage.
Mariners Rule 5 Draft pickup Yohan Ramirez picked up the first save of his career in the 10th, striking out a pair of batters.
“Really fired up about what Justin Dunn was able to do,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said during his postgame video call. “He kind of carried over from what we saw in his last outing with Texas and really took control of the game and kept us right there in a very, very tight game.
“Not many hits, not many base runners, not much offense today but a lot of it attributed to the quality of the pitching, and even the bullpen finishing off the way we did, and it’s exciting for a young guy like Yohan to be in that spot, and that’s kind of what we’re looking at as we move forward into the second half — creating opportunities for players to experience those type of things, and you’re hoping they get through them, and can really build off them.”
Dunn was superb in his second consecutive scoreless start — he hasn’t allowed a run in his past 12 innings pitched — and third quality start in four outings.
He worked around two walks in the first inning to retire the side without damage, and at one point retired 13 of 14 batters — Shohei Ohtani ripped a single to right for the Angels’ first and only hit off him in the third — before working out of another jam in the sixth.
Dunn issued a four-pitch, leadoff walk to Luis Rengifo, but managed to strike out Ohtani looking with Mike Trout looming in the on-deck circle. Trout was intentionally walked, putting the Angels in position to strike first with two on and one out.
Dunn then nearly picked off Rengifo taking too bold a lead at second, but Dee Gordon dropped the ball on the tag. Dunn returned his attention to Anthony Rendon, eventually getting him to chase a slider in the dirt for the second out.
“Honestly, I didn’t think he was going to swing out of the hand,” Dunn said. “It came out of my hand down. And as soon as I let it go, my immediate thought process was we’re going to go back to the same pitch, but bring it back up a little bit in the zone and see if we can’t get a swing. So to get a swing like that against a hitter like that was was good to see and very, very thankful for it.”
A pop up from Brian Goodwin ended the frame — Sam Haggerty, filling in at third base, made a basket catch running to his left that seemed to nearly fall to the ground — and kept the game scoreless as Dunn returned to the dugout visibly amped.
“To go through that part of the lineup in that big of a situation was huge for me, so extremely grateful to be able to get through it and give my team a chance to win,” Dunn said.
Dunn said wearing Jackie Robinson’s No. 42 on his jersey, which the Mariners will do throughout the weekend series, gave him extra energy to get through the big spots in the game.
“Last year Kyle and I, we shared it,” he said. “I warmed up in it and then he played in it, but this was the first time I got to pitch in it. So to honor him and then to honor Chadwick Boseman — he did an amazing job playing Jackie in 42, and then Black Panther is one of my favorite movies, and my inner spirit animal I guess you can say — so to go out there and do that for them was huge for me.”
Lewis’ homer came moments after Dunn’s day was over, when he hopped on a Griffin Canning fastball for an opposite-field solo shot to right that gave Seattle a 1-0 lead.
It was his first home run since Dunn’s last start against the Rangers — when his solo shot in the first inning gave Dunn a quick lead to work with — and his eighth of the season. Lewis trails only White Sox outfielder Luis Robert (nine) among rookie homer leaders, but continues to lead qualified AL rookies in several other categories, including runs scored (29), hits (43), walks (21), average (.339) and on-base percentage (.430). His runs scored also lead all AL hitters.
“He wasn’t real happy with they way he’s been swinging the bat, maybe just the last couple days, and he made a comment to me before the game started, ‘I got one in me today, Skip.’ And he did,” Servais said. “He did have one in him today. It was a big one.”
But, the Angels took Dunn out of the running for his third win in the bottom half of the inning. Rookie reliever Anthony Miseiwicz served up a leadoff double to Albert Pujols before striking out the next two batters. Andrelton Simmons then dumped a single into right field. Pujols rounded third, and it appeared the Mariners would have a play on him at the plate, but Jake Fraley overran the base hit and the run scored to make it 1-1.
Yoshihisa Hirano held the tie for the Mariners in the eighth, working around a leadoff single and a walk. Taylor Williams labored in the ninth, but kept tie in tact to push the game to extra innings. A double play wiped out a leadoff single from Pujols, but then Williams walked Anthony Bemboom, and two wild pitches allowed him to advance to third. But, Williams battled back for a swinging strikeout of Simmons to end the threat.
This story was originally published August 30, 2020 at 4:40 PM.
