Bryce Miller spins gem, Mariners stifle late drama to beat Brewers
MILWAUKEE – Before the words, “played their best game of the season” could be written or even be uttered on Saturday evening, the Mariners found a way to take a seemingly complete performance and a rare comfortable victory, highlighted by a scintillating performance from starter Bryce Miller, and turn it into another second-guessing, stomach-churning, late-inning dramafest.
Roughly 24 hours after one of the worst performances of his career, walking four batters, which included a bases-loaded walk to lose the game, Andres Muñoz climbed back on the mound of American Family Field with his team leading by two runs in the bottom of the ninth.
There would be no walks or any baserunners this time. Muñoz got ahead of hitters, picked up two groundball outs and struck out Jackson Chourio to close out Seattle’s 5-3 victory over the Brewers.
“I really wanted to get him back in there after the rough outing last night,” manager Scott Servais said.
After Friday’s frustrating outing, Muñoz walked into Servais’ office in the visitor’s clubhouse to assure his manager it wouldn’t happen again.
“He just said, ‘I don’t know, that’s not me, I’m trying to throw it down the middle and the ball is running,’ ” Servais said. “I told him don’t worry about it and asked him, ‘How do you feel?’ He said he felt great, so I told him, ‘Good, you are back out there tomorrow.’ When I got to the park today, I told him, ‘Get ready to go, you are in there tonight.’ ”
Muñoz wanted to the leverage situation immediately. It didn’t matter that he threw 27 pitches the night before. He wanted to atone for the bad performance.
“I am not that kind of guy,” he said. “If something went wrong last night, I want to come here the next day and work the best that I can to make the adjustment and help the team to win. I was excited to get out there again and makes sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Using a deft mix of two different fastballs and a split-finger fastball with a few well-timed breaking balls sprinkled in, Miller delivered a brilliant outing. He pitched seven innings scoreless innings, allowing just three hits with a walk and seven strikeouts. The Brewers had just one runner reach second base in those seven innings.
Miller was also coldly efficient, throwing just 78 pitches with 53 strikes. He threw first-pitch strikes to 17 of the 25 batters he faced.
But after seven innings, Servais went to his bullpen with a 4-0 lead. Reliever Austin Voth and lefty Gabe Speier struggled, combining to give up three runs in the eighth inning. Voth allowed three hits, including a two-run homer to Jackson Chourio. Speier walked the first two batters he faced to load the bases and gave up a sac fly to Rhys Hoskins. Trent Thornton ended the chaos by getting Joey Ortiz to ground out to end the inning.
The Mariners’ offense had its best showing of the season, banging out a season-high 10 hits, including solo homers from Jorge Polanco and Luis Urias.