Rookie Bryce Miller sharp in his return as Mariners shut out Tigers
SEATTLE – The Mariners know the reality of where they stand.
They know where they want to go.
And they know what they need to do to get there.
They need more performances like Sunday’s, a clean 2-0 victory over the Detroit Tigers in a had-to-have-it game to salvage something of a lost series to open the second half of the season.
They know they need them quickly, too.
“We’ve got to win. We’ve got to win games. That’s what it comes down to,” said closer Paul Sewald, who anchored a lights-out performance from the bullpen with his 18th save. “Hopefully we have a little bit more sense of urgency than we’ve been having.”
The Mariners, at 46-46, have inched back to .500.
They’re eight games back of Texas in the American League West, and still a handful of games back in the wild-card chase, with just 16 days left before the Aug. 1 trade deadline.
“You don’t want to panic,” Sewald said, “but at the same time these two weeks are important to see what the front office is going to do. We’ll see. Last year was a really nice spot where we knew we were going to get great pieces. This is a dangerous situation. Being on the bubble is a really bad place to be. It can throw your team one way or the other. We have to win as many games as we can in these next two weeks to make it viable. If we don’t, then the front office will have to make some tough decisions.”
The Mariners continue a 10-game homestand Monday night with the Twins (48-46) in town to open a four-game series. The Blue Jays (53-41) come here for the weekend. Both teams are ahead of the Mariners in the wild-card mix.
Pivotal week, indeed.
If they continue to get the kind of dominant pitching they got Sunday, the Mariners will certainly give themselves a chance to make a sustained push.
Rookie Bryce Miller threw five scoreless innings in his return from the injured list, and Matt Brash, Justin Topa, Andres Munoz and Sewald completed the shutout with four almost-untouchable innings out of the bullpen.
“That’s kind of what they do,” catcher Cal Raleigh said of the relievers. “They’ve been doing it all year. They did it all last year. We take it for granted sometimes. But they’re so good, day in and day out … and they never get any love. But they’ve been the backbone of the team all year. The whole pitching stuff has been, actually.”
Over four innings, the bullpen allowed only one hit – a bloop single with one out in the ninth – with seven strikeouts and no walks.
“That’s what we’ve been doing since I got here, and we don’t really get a ton of credit for what we do,” Sewald said. “I have a saying that we get all the blame, none of the credit and none of the money, which kind of applies to our bullpen. But it was a great day.”
J.P. Crawford reached base in all four of his plate appearances – two doubles, a single and a walk – and scored the first run on Jarred Kelenic’s two-out double in the first inning.
Kelenic just missed a home run, by a few inches, on his 24th birthday.
In the third, Kelenic then made a nice running catch on the warning track in left field for the final out , stranding Detroit’s Zach McKinstry at second base and preserving the Mariners’ one-run lead.
Raleigh extended the Mariners’ lead to 2-0 in the fourth when he worked a 3-1 count against Detroit starter Reese Olson and then turned on a 95.5-mph fastball, belting it 432 feet, with an exit velocity of 108 mph.
It was Raleigh’s 12th of the season, but first since June 25 at Baltimore.
“It’s been a while,” Raleigh said. “So it’s always good when you can square one up and help the team out.”
Miller, activated off the IL earlier in the day, showed little signs of rust in his first start since June 30, when the 24-year-old right-hander left his start against Tampa Bay with a bloody blister on his right middle finger. He’s been getting treatment on the finger, using red-light therapy and glue.
“It felt good today,” he said.
He looked good, too.
Miller leaned on his slider – his two sliders – early, and scattered five hits over five innings, with one walk and three strikeouts. He threw 70 pitches, with 48 strikes.
“Obviously, I haven’t thrown all month, so I was excited to get back out there and be back be back on the bump,” he said. “Everything felt good.”
The victory was the Mariners’ 1,000th in franchise history at T-Mobile Park, which opened on July 15, 1999 – the day before Kelenic was born.