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

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, 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 300^th start of his venerable big-league career, Lance Lynn, a veteran right-hander, who fits the description of grizzled in every way, overwhelmed the Mariners’ collection of free-swingers and homer-hackers 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 and added three runs off replacement Reynaldo Lopez to roll to a 5-1 victory and a series win.

Seattle starter Bryce Miller, who looks like a smaller version of Lynn in his younger days, was outstanding for Seattle on a day when they needed him to be.  

With the bullpen heavily used over the past two games vs. the White Sox, Miller delivered a brilliant outing. He worked seven innings, which tied a career high, allowing just one run on four hits with no walks and six strikeouts. 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 manager Scott Servais and trainer Taylor Bennett and making a few warm-up tosses, Miller remained in the game and kept getting outs as needed.

One of the American League’s charter franchises, which started playing in 1901 as the Chicago White Stockings as created by owner Charlie Comiskey (renamed the White Sox in 1904). And over all those games, only one pitcher had struck out 16 hitters in one game.

It wasn’t Chris Sale, Early Wynn, knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm 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.  

The Sox manager gave Lynn a chance to break the record, letting him start the eighth inning. But when Kolten Wong dropped down a drag bunt for a single to lead off, it ended Lynn’s outing.

The Mariners’ lone runs off Lynn came in the third inning. Cal Raleigh led off with a single up the middle. Lynn came back to strike out Mike Ford and Wong, but J.P. Crawford worked a two-out a walk to push Raleigh into scoring position and keep the inning going for Julio 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.

Miller’s only run allowed came in the sixth inning when Elvis Andrus led off with a double on the first pitch of the inning and Andrew Benintendi jumped on the first pitch to send a run-scoring single past a diving Wong.