Mariners overcome outstanding 16-strikeout effort by White Sox’s Lance Lynn

SEATTLE – 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 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 Lynn’s 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 the day before.

“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 Servais and trainer Taylor Bennett and making a few warm-up tosses, Miller remained in the game and kept getting outs as needed.

“In typical Bryce Miller fashion, he says: ‘I’m OK. I’ve been doing some calf raises,’” Servais 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 said: “I’ve done quite a bit, but especially after I got hit. 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 down the Mariners in record-setting fashion.

As one of the American League’s charter franchises, which started playing in 1901 as the Chicago White Stockings, created by owner Charlie Comiskey (renamed the White Sox in 1904), only had one pitcher strike out 16 hitters in a game.

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. Lynn, who came into the game with a 4-7 record and 6.75 ERA, found something he had not for much of this season.

He struck out J.P. Crawford to start the game and Ty France to end the first inning, and just kept going. He struck out two batters in every inning and fanned Teoscar Hernandez and Mike Ford three times each.

The Mariners’ lone runs off Lynn came in the third inning. Cal Raleigh, the only player in the lineup not to strike out against Lynn, led off with a single up the middle. Lynn came back to strike out Ford and Kolten Wong, but Crawford worked a two-out walk to push Raleigh into scoring position and keep the inning going for 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.

“Lance Lynn was awesome,” Servais said. “He pitched very, very well. Obviously, Lynn dominated us. He used the cutter, the breaking balls, kind of went against his typical game plan. He had us out in front and not really on anything outside of the big hit that Julio got early.”

Indeed, Lynn, who relies heavily on his fastball, throwing it 43.5 percent of the time this season, used his breaking pitches knowing it is a big weakness of the Mariners. Of his 114 pitches, 33 of which got swings and misses, Lynn threw only 26 four-seam fastballs. He threw 36 cutters instead and got 10 whiffs on the pitch.

“It isn’t picture perfect with our scouting reports,” Kelenic said. “We have an idea, but he may go out there and change it. That’s what he did today and that’s what makes him Lance Lynn though. We just tried to battle.”

White Sox manager Pedro Grifol gave Lynn a chance to break the record, letting him start the eighth inning despite having thrown 113 pitches. But when his former Cardinals’ teammate Kolten Wong dropped down a drag bunt for a single to lead off, it ended Lynn’s outing, much to his displeasure.

Grifol, who worked for the Mariners as director of player development under Jack Zduriencik, called on Lopez to keep the Mariners lead to just one run.

He got Crawford to hit into a force out at second and struck out Rodriguez. But France and Hernandez worked back-to-back walks to load the bases and bring Kelenic to the plate.