Mariners overcome outstanding 16-strikeout effort by White Sox’s Lance Lynn
The frustration was growing with each swing and miss and each “K” being written into the score book.
The Mariners, a team of many strikeouts, so many damn strikeouts this season, found a new level of futility on Father’s Day afternoon at T-Mobile Park.
The long-taught philosophy from fathers to their baseball-playing children of doing anything and everything possible to avoid striking out, well, that wasn’t evident.
Making the 300th start of his venerable big-league career, Lance Lynn, a veteran right-hander, who fits the description of grizzled in every way, including an appearance more diver bar bouncer than ballplayer, overwhelmed the Mariners’ collection of free-swingers and homer-hackers to equal a franchise record with 16 strikeouts.
But amid all those whiffs and walks back to the dugout, the Mariners managed to get two runs off Lynn in the third inning on a Julio Rodriguez double and added three runs off his replacement Reynaldo Lopez on Jarred Kelenic’s bases-loaded triple to pull out a 5-1 victory and a series win over the White Sox.
The Mariners finish the six-game homestand with a 4-2 record with both losses being winnable games, including a frustrating extra innings loss less 24 hours earlier.
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“That’s a nice series win,” manager Scott Servais said. “That’s a big bounce back. I mentioned it earlier today, but I think everybody left here very disappointed last night. We should have won the game yesterday. Our players they come in and know we’ve we got to wipe it clean. It’s not easy.”
Seattle starter Bryce Miller, who looks like a smaller and trimmer version of Lynn in his younger days and pitches with a similar mentality, made it much easier to ‘wipe it clean’ with one of his best starts of his rookie season on a day where Seattle absolutely needed it.
With the bullpen heavily used over the past two games vs. the White Sox, Miller worked seven innings, which tied a career high, allowing just one run on four hits with no walks and six strikeouts to improve to 5-3.
“It starts with that guy on the mound,” Servais said. “Bryce Miller, wow, what an outing on a day that our bullpen was very thin. That was our best shot to win the game. He had to go out and dominate the game and he did it. For a young player, it’s very, very impressive.”
He did so with a throbbing left calf for the final four innings.
With one out in the third inning, Jake Burger hit a 107-mph comebacker that struck Miller in the back of the leg, which wouldn’t be confused with a small tree trunk or even Jarred Kelenic’s leg. After a brief conversation with manager Scott Servais and trainer Taylor Bennett and making a few warm-up tosses, Miller remained in the game and kept getting outs as needed.
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“In typical Bryce Miller fashion, he says, ‘I’m okay. I’ve been doing some calf raises,'” Miller said. “That’s what he says to me on the mound.”
Servais knew Miller wasn’t coming out. His parents had flown in from Texas to see their son pitch on Father’s Day.
“He ain’t coming out of that game unless the bone is broke,” he said. “He knew who was in the stands and I know as well.
Asked about the calf and the calf raises, Miller replied.
“I’ve done quite a bit, but especially after I got hit,” he said. “It didn’t feel good. It got me right on the muscle. If it would hit the bone I probably would have thought about crying a little bit. I just had to keep moving. I didn’t sit down for the rest of the game. Once I did sit down, it tightened up pretty good.”
While Miller wasn’t sitting down during the game, Lynn was sitting his Mariners teammates down in record-setting fashion.
As one of the American League’s charter franchises, which started playing in 1901, the Chicago White Stockings as created by owner Charlie Comiskey (renamed the White Sox in 1904), only had one pitcher strike out 16 hitters in a game.
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It wasn’t Chris Sale, Wilbur Wood, Red Faber or Eddie Cicotte, the ace of the 1919 Black Sox team. No, it was left-hander Jack Harshman, who was actually a two-way player — pitching and playing first base. On July 25, 1954, he struck out 16 hitters, including Ted Williams, in a 5-2 complete game victory over Boston at Fenway Park.
White Sox manager Pedro Grifol gave Lynn a chance to break the record, letting him start the eighth inning. But when Kolten Wong dropped down a drag bunt for a single to lead off, it ended Lynn’s outing.
The Mariners’ lone runs off Lynn came in the third inning. Cal Raleigh led off with a single up the middle. Lynn came back to strike out Mike Ford and Wong, but J.P. Crawford worked a two-out a walk to push Raleigh into scoring position and keep the inning going for Julio Rodriguez.
Mired in another bit of a funk at the plate, Rodriguez didn’t try to pull a low fastball from Lynn. Instead, an inside-out swing produced a line drive into the right-center gap that went for a double and scored both runs.
Miller’s only run allowed came in the sixth inning when Elvis Andrus led off with a double on the first pitch of the inning and Andrew Benintendi jumped on the first pitch to send a run-scoring single past a diving Wong.
Source: The Seattle Times
