Dane Dunning Wins, Snaps Dubious Texas Rangers Record

Dane Dunning gave the Texas Rangers everything he could on Wednesday against the Seattle Mariners — efficiency, quality and, most important, a victory.

The Rangers closed out the win 4-3. And Dunning finally snapped a team-record winless streak in the process.

Entering the game Dunning had started 26 straight road games without a win. He had long since blown past the former team record, set by Pete Broberg in 1972-73. He had 15 of them.

Throw in his final road start with the Chicago White Sox, another loss, and he had 27 straight starts without a road win. He was closing in on the Major League record, which is 29, held by Scott Elarton from 2001-05.

The streak dated all the way back to his last road win as a starter for the White Sox on Sept. 9, 2020, against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Dunning has finally put that streak to bed.

“He just pitched a really nice ball game,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “You have to love the way he works both sides of the plate. He got ground balls when he needed to, a double play, threw six solid innings and held up.”

Dunning made his second straight start in place of Jacob deGrom, who is on the injured list with right elbow inflammation and is unlikely to return for the next two to three weeks.

Dunning threw six innings on Wednesday, his first quality start of the season. He gave up two runs, which came in the first inning, a shaky frame that saw him walk leadoff hitter J.P. Crawford and give up an RBI single to left field by Ty France.

From there he was effective, giving up the other run on a Crawford RBI single in the fifth. He allowed six hits and a walk, struck out five and threw just 71 pitches, 50 for strikes. He trimmed his ERA to 1.72, which put him in rare company across baseball.

Dane Dunning’s 1.72 ERA is FOURTH BEST IN MLB among pitchers with 30+ innings of work.

1—S. Gray, 1.35
2—Steele, 1.45
3–E. Rodriguez, 1.57
4—DUNNING, 1.72
— Jared Sandler (@JaredSandler) May 10, 2023

“I just got more confident as the game went on,” said Dunning said, who credited the work of catcher Jonah Heim. “I thought our pitch calling was phenomenal. I was just able to start executing pitches as we needed them to be.”

Dunning built nicely on his first start, during which he threw five shutout innings, gave up two hits and a walk while striking out three. He threw 72 pitches and left with a 3-0 lead.

Unfortunately the bullpen let that effort slip away.

Wednesday was a different story, and after Will Smith closed out the ninth, the Rangers had their win and Dunning can call his streak snapped.

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