After rallying for a stunning comeback win, the Seattle Mariners will send rookie right-hander Bryce Miller to the mound on Wednesday afternoon to face the Minnesota Twins in the rubber game of a three-game series in Minneapolis
It will be just the 14th career start for Miller (6-3, 3.50 ERA) and his first against the Twins. The 2021 fourth-round pick out of Texas A&M gave up just one run on three hits and two walks while striking out six in 5 1/3 innings on Friday during his latest start, a no-decision against the Toronto Blue Jays
Minnesota, which had a four-game winning streak snapped with the 9-7 loss on Tuesday night, will counter with Joe Ryan (9-6, 3.88). The right-hander is 0-2 with a 6.23 ERA in two career starts against the Mariners
Seattle snapped a two-game losing streak with its come-from-behind victory on Tuesday. The Mariners scored four times in the eighth to tie it 6-6, then followed that up with a three-run ninth highlighted by a two-run, go-ahead double by Eugenio Suarez
Julio Rodriguez, dropped from second to fifth in the batting order, responded with two home runs, including a two-run, game-tying, opposite-field blast in the eighth inning.
"Just the way we drew it up," Mariners manager Scott Servais said with a chuckle. "Big comeback. Big night for Julio. ... Not too many times you come back from down four on the road. It's been 30-some years since the Mariners have done it.
Seattle's comeback from a 6-2 deficit entering the eighth inning marked the first time since Sept. 27, 1991, against the Frank Thomas- and Bo Jackson-led White Sox in Chicago that Seattle won a road game when trailing by four or more runs in the eighth inning or later.
Trailing 8-4 in that game 32 years ago, the Mariners scored four times in the ninth inning and then went on to win it 10-8 on a two-run homer by Ken Griffey Jr. in the 11th inning
In Seattle's win on Tuesday, rookie Cade Marlowe hit his first major league homer to go with a double. He also led off the ninth with a walk, stole second and then scored on Suarez's double.
Afterward, Marlowe got his first Gatorade shower while doing a postgame interview.
"I was thinking just hit a line drive through the middle of the field," Marlowe said of his opposite-field drive into bullpen in left-center off Minnesota starter Pablo Lopez in the fifth inning. "I think I got a changeup. I don't even remember what the pitch was, really."
Marlowe was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma on Thursday after Jarred Kelenic fractured his left foot kicking a beverage cooler in the dugout following a strikeout.
Minnesota struck out a season-high 18 times in the Tuesday loss. It marked the 11th game with 15 or more strikeouts in a game this season the Twins, just three games shy of the major league single-season record. Seattle set the mark in 2019
"It is too many strikeouts," Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli said. "That's a lot of times just not having a productive outcome."
Still, the Twins looked in good shape until a rare collapse by a depleted bullpen that was missing closer Jhoan Duran and setup man Griffin Jax because of heavy use in recent games
"Any time you have a lead like that and you're in a good spot and you can't hold it, it's disappointing," Baldelli said. "We had the game in front of us. We knew what we needed to do. We simply didn't do what we needed to do."
--Field Level Media