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Mariners' Bryce Miller stumps Tigers with six shutout innings

Tim Booth, The Seattle Times on

Published in Baseball

DETROIT — Bryce Miller was finally provided a full runway. No pitch or inning restrictions. No splitting duties with Luis Castillo. For the first time since last September, it was entirely on Miller how long he stayed on the mound.

After six innings Saturday afternoon, Miller walked off the mound on his own accord. Everything he’d shown in his four previous outings this season while being restricted was just as good when the reins were removed.

Miller struck out nine and allowed just one hit over six shutout innings as the Seattle Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers 4-0 before 32,606 at Comerica Park.

“It was definitely good to get a full six innings in. Been a while since I had a clean six, so I’ll take that for sure,” Miller said.

For as good as Miller’s been since his return turned the M’s rotation into a six-pack of arms and created the odd piggyback situation with Castillo, this was the right-hander at his best. His fastball played at the top of the strike zone. His secondary pitches continued to show their importance to his success, especially the splitter.

If not for two very long at-bats — a 12-pitch walk from Kerry Carpenter and 10-pitch strikeout to Wenceel Pérez — Miller probably pitches into the seventh inning, which would have been a first for him since late in the 2024 season. As it stood, six innings was good enough.

“As he got close to 90 pitches, really didn’t show signs of slowing down at all,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said. “Still looked like it was coming out of his hand extremely well. I thought he was in pretty good control there, even in the sixth inning late. That’s what we’ve seen from him all along and the further runway he had today, he just kept taking it.”

His best pitching came when Miller surrendered his only hit. Colt Keith tripled on an elevated slider leading off the third inning, but he never moved off the base. Miller got an infield pop out from Matt Vierling and consecutive strikeouts of Pérez and Gleyber Torres.

“It was a mistake pitch and they hadn’t really done much, so having a runner on third really didn’t affect me at all,” Miller said. “I knew I had to keep the ball out of the deep parts of the outfield for the first two guys, but we got the quick pop up and then strikeout, strikeout, so it was good.”

Miller threw 94 pitches and the nine strikeouts were two off his career high of 11 set last year. Miller is the fourth different M’s starter this season to pitch at least six innings and allow one hit or less.

José A. Ferrer, Matt Brash and Gabe Speier closed out the victory that was on the verge of being the M’s second one-hitter this season until Kevin McGonigle’s bloop double leading off the ninth.

It also helped Miller that he was given an early lead thanks in part to Dominic Canzone peppering the center-field wall with screamers at more than 105 mph off his bat, one of which found some shrubbery beyond the outfield wall.

Canzone started the scoring for the M’s with a roped double off the base of the wall 412 feet from home plate off Detroit starter Keider Montero and scored Randy Arozarena in the second inning. That ball off Canzone’s bat was a home run in 24 other parks in baseball, including T-Mobile Park, but not in Detroit with its expansive outfield dimensions.

 

No park was going to hold Canzone’s next contact with the baseball. In the fourth inning, Canzone put one into the second row of shrubs that help create the batters’ eye in center field. The home run was estimated at 451 feet by MLB Statcast, the longest of his career, outdistancing a 450-foot homer last season in Arizona.

Miller joked that Canzone seemed to spend batting practice Friday just trying to hit home runs.

“It didn’t work out yesterday, so I guess I saved it for today,” Canzone said.

Canzone finished with three hits, his second three-hit game this week. He’s 11 for 22 at the plate in the last seven games after going 8 for 50 (.160) in the previous 23 games before his recent surge.

“I think just within the course of the season, you’re going to have stretches where you’re not feeling great (and) you’re going to have stretches where you’re feeling really good like I am right now,” Canzone said.

Sandwiched between those swings from Canzone was a two-out rally by the M’s in the third inning that showed they can score without smacking the ball out of — or nearly out of — the ballpark.

It started innocently with Julio Rodríguez reaching well off the plate to poke a base hit into right field. Josh Naylor followed with a sharp single and Arozarena delivered a double into the right-field corner.

Rodríguez scored easily and Naylor got his fingertips in at the plate just before the tag. But Naylor appeared to try distracting catcher Dillon Dingler as his sliding mitt flung forward and into Dingler as the ball was arriving. Naylor said he didn’t get the glove fully on before Arozarena swung and forgot it was on as he tried to score.

“I felt really bad,” Naylor said.

The Tigers didn’t seem to think it was an accident. The next time Naylor was at the plate, he wore a 96 mph fastball off his upper shoulder from Montero. Naylor laughed his way down to first base, but said he thinks it was from something in Friday’s game.

“I knew it was on purpose,” Naylor said.

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©2026 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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