BOSTON — The problem with good baseball players is that they’re asked about often. Sure, the questions come in different shapes and forms, but even a veteran manager like Bruce Bochy can exhaust his bag of unique responses.
Dane Dunning is creating that problem. It’s a good one to have.
“I’m kind of out of superlatives to give this kid,” Bochy said. “That’s how good he’s been.”
Six days removed from a near-complete game shutout, Dunning pitched six innings, allowed one earned run on six hits and a walk and struck out five in the Rangers’ 6-2 win over the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday at Fenway Park. He allowed a first-inning leadoff triple to Boston centerfielder Jarren Duran, who came around to score on a Alex Verdugo groundout, but closed his outing with five consecutive scoreless innings.
He struck out the side in the second — Justin Turner went down swinging on Dunning’s slider, and Triston Casas and Christian Arroyo were each rung up staring at his sinker — and limited damage in his next four frames. He stranded Duran (double) at second base in the third, induced a 1-6-3 double play after a Turner single in the fifth and worked around back-to-back singles from Masataka Yoshida and Rafael Devers in the sixth.
“I felt really good,” Dunning said. “It was a really good atmosphere. Fourth of July, lots of people here. I tried to just take it all in, have fun.”
The 28-year-old right-hander has recorded four-straight quality starts since June 17 vs. the Toronto Blue Jays, and he’s gone 6-1 in 11 games as a starter since he was elevated from the bullpen and replaced the injured Jacob deGrom in Texas’ rotation on May 5.
He’s pitched six quality starts since his starting debut against the Los Angeles Angels (in which he threw five shutout, two-hit innings) and has only given up more than three earned runs once. He’s upped his cutter usage (from 11.9% last year to 22.8% this year, per Baseball Savant) and found it to be a successful tool; opposing batters have hit just .196 off of it.
Dunning threw his cutter — which he found comfortable earlier this season when he struggled to locate his sinker — 17 times against the Red Sox. They swung at it eight times and put it in play just once for a groundout. The pitch has helped make him a more dynamic. Consistent, too.
“He’s been able to locate all of his pitches,” Rangers catcher/designated hitter Mitch Garver said. “He’s just been able to be in the strike zone, compete, get ground balls when he needs to. He rolls through innings pretty quickly.”
And he hasn’t just bailed out an injured Rangers staff. He’s been one of the American League’s best starting pitchers.
Seriously.
Dunning lowered his ERA to 2.61 on Tuesday, the fourth-best in the AL, a couple of ticks ahead of possible All-Star game starter and teammate Nathan Eovaldi (2.64). Only All-Stars Framber Valdez of Houston (2.49), Sonny Gray of Minnesota (2.50) and Shane McClanahan of Tampa Bay (2.53) have a lower ERA than Dunning.
There are caveats: that fourth-best mark is partially buoyed by his 1.77 ERA in 20 and one-third relief innings this season, not that those are less-valuable frames by any means. He’s thrown the fewest innings of any pitcher ranked within the top 20, and he’ll be unqualified for the league leaderboard before his next start due to his lack of innings.
But enough nit-picking. Dunning — who started 29 games and had a 4.46 ERA last season for the Rangers — broke spring training camp on the outside looking in on the rotation, began the regular season as an ace long man out of the bullpen and has since become arguably Texas’ second-most reliable starting pitcher behind Eovaldi.
It’s hard to nit-pick that.
“Going into the season, I was trying for a starting spot, and obviously things didn’t work out,” Dunning said. “But I wanted to help the team out in any way that I could. It was really unfortunate that deGrom went down. I’ve been trying to be needed as much as I can, and try and help the team as much as I can.”
The data says that he has. Dunning entered Tuesday’s game with a 1.8 WAR, the third-highest among Texas pitchers behind Eovaldi (3.1) and Jon Gray (1.9). FanGraph’s WAR formula clocks him at 1.2, behind only Eovaldi and deGrom.
That’s good company however you want to slice it. And if you’re hesitant to buy into advanced metrics, try this.
“I can’t think of a pitcher who has brought more value,” Bochy said.
Hey, that’s a pretty strong superlative.
