SEATTLE — The Rangers left Seattle with a strange feeling Wednesday. It had nothing to do with the prevalence of legal marijuana up here.
Winning brings a different kind of high.
On Wednesday, the Rangers felt all kinds of new things. They closed out a series win at T-Mobile Field for the first time since 2019. The 4-3 victory was their second one-run win in three games. They’d won just one one-run game here over the previous three seasons. Dane Dunning filled in just fine again for Jacob deGrom, outdueling Luis Castillo, the trade target that got away from the Rangers last summer. Will Smith shut down Seattle in the ninth.
It made for a happy flight on to Oakland, the last leg of their three-city West Coast road trip. It also completed their first full circuit of series inside the division. They have won all four, going 8-4. That is not insignificant for a team that posted a .391 win percentage inside the division from 2020-22. Nowhere was the trouble worse than in Seattle, where the Rangers went 4-22 and lost eight times by one run losses, including four on walkoff hits.
“We’re not trying to overly push it, but, yes, the division needs to know that we’ve got a new [pitching] staff and that we’re one of the best offensive teams in the league,” said first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, whose run-scoring double in the third was the linchpin to a 37-pitch, three-run inning that gave the Rangers the lead. “Being able to scratch out W’s on the road is huge, regardless of who we are playing.
“It should be irrelevant, but sometimes you do pay attention to who and where you are playing. After not giving ourselves a fair chance to win the first two years I’ve worn the uniform, it feels good to scratch out a couple of one-run wins.”
Nothing explains the difference in this series — and the wins against the West — better than the remake of the starting rotation. Yes, the Rangers’ offense has been better and deeper and has, on more than one occasion, pummeled an opponent early in this season. But this series win was built on the strength of the starting pitchers outlasting Seattle’s. The Mariners featured a top tier rotation in 2022 and entered this series ranked ninth among MLB rotations in ERA at 3.84, despite the loss of ace Robbie Ray to Tommy John surgery.
The Rangers started their Nos. 4-5 starters and a “fill-in” in Dunning and got more innings (19 2/3) than Seattle’s trio of prized young starters Logan Gilbert and George Kirby and Castillo. It gave the lineup enough of a chance for a couple of big hits to make a difference instead of just pad a box score.
It began with Dunning, making his second start since deGrom went to the IL, struggling with his command. He walked leadoff hitter J.P. Crawford and then allowed a single to Ty France. Crawford scored on a throwing error on the play by left fielder Robbie Grossman.
Dunning credited catcher Jonah Heim, who like Lowe is one of the few survivors from the last two long seasons, for the adjustment.
“He’s been doing wonders behind the plate,” Dunning said.
And at the plate, too. Heim’s run-scoring double capped the Rangers’ three-run third inning against Castillo. Heim is 15 for 38 (.395) on the trip and has hit safely in his last nine games.
But, as Heim and catching instructor Bobby Wilson like to say: Helping the pitcher out is priority No. 1. So, back to that.
“He was able to get me to settle down and get going,” Dunning said. “The pitch calling was phenomenal. I was just able to start executing pitches as they needed to be executed. And I got more confident as the game went on.”
Even more phenomenal: Heim apparently did this trick without even saying a word to Dunning. He simply looked for pitches that would allow Dunning to get more arm extension, get the ball down in the zone and allow him to revert to his sinker. Came in handy, too, helping him to a rally-smothering double play in the fifth.
Said Heim: “It’s just trying to find the pitch that gets him back on his extension. With him, it’s his cutter. When he can locate that, I know all of his pitches are going to be good. So, you try to work in some of those, they are getting back into the zone and it’s working him back to a lower target.”
It was all so surreal. Here are the Rangers. Talking nuances of pitching. In Seattle.
“This was a good one to get,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “The more games like this, the better this team is going to get. We are a good team, and these are good teams we’re playing. When your guys go out and pitch well, which they did, and you get some timely hits, which we did, you can, it makes a difference in the ballgame.”
It made a difference in a series.
And for the first time in a long time, the Rangers left Seattle with a different feeling.
Strange times indeed.
Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant
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