Dane Dunning was well-rested. But Andrew Heaney was a left-hander. Ultimately, that got Heaney the call to start Game 1 for the Texas Rangers in the American League Division Series on Saturday.
It was Dunning who replaced him. Combined, they got the job done.
Heaney went 3 2/3 innings and was followed by Dunning, who threw two full innings. Combined, they gave up four hits, two runs, struck out two and walked two as the tandem helped get the game to the Rangers bullpen, who got the final 10 outs of the 3-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards.
But it started with Heaney, who was effective in nearly four innings of work.
“He hadn't pitched in a while, and he got us where we were hoping he would get us,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said.
Heaney seemed like an odd choice. He went 10-6 with a 4.15 ERA in the regular season, but spent most of the final month of the season in the bullpen. His last appearance was on Sept. 30 against Seattle. He threw 4 1/3 innings, giving up five hits and no runs.
He was available for the AL Wild Card series with the Tampa Bay Rays, but didn’t pitch.
The selection of Heaney was partly driven by analytics. In the regular season at home, the Orioles were hitting .236. On the road against left-handers, they were batting .283.
Bochy was hoping the Orioles would go right-handed heavy at the plate to try and exploit the matchup, even though the configuration changes at Camden Yards have made left field more expansive.
The Orioles deployed a batting order with four right-handed hitters, two left-handed hitters and three switch hitters.
Heaney held them to two hits — an Anthony Santander single in the first and a Ryan Mountcastle double in the fourth that scored Baltimore’s first run of the game and cut the Texas lead to 2-1. At one point, Heaney retired eight straight hitters.
After Heaney got potential AL Rookie of the Year favorite Gunnar Henderson to pop out, Heaney handed the baton to Dunning, who hadn’t pitched since the Rangers’ season finale last Sunday on three day’s rest.
Dunning, a right-hander, ended up being just as effective.
“(Heaney) set it up nice for Dunning, who did a good job to bridge it to pretty much our guys,” Bochy said. “It worked out well.”
Dunning got Adam Frazier to pop out to end the fourth. That was a strategic move by Orioles manager Brandon Hyde, as Frazier was a veteran left-handed hitter and that gave him a bit of a matchup advantage.
Dunning faced the minimum in the fifth, as he gave up a single to Ramon Urias but got Austin Hays to ground into a double play. In the sixth, he gave up a one-out solo home run to Santander, which cut the Rangers’ lead to 3-2. After he got Mountcastle to pop out, he handed the ball to left-hander Will Smith, who retired Henderson on five straight sliders.
Ultimately, Bochy said he got what he wanted out of both Heaney and Dunning.
“Pretty much,” Bochy said. “With Andrew going, and we're hoping to get three or four, maybe five innings from him. But we had Dunning ready to go. And he was going to be our bridge to our set up guys. So it really worked out well. And Dane came in and he did a nice job, too. We're down a couple starters. So you've got to get creative and it worked out well today.”
The Rangers will start left-hander Jordan Montgomery in Game 2 on Sunday at 3 p.m. CT opposite Grayson Rodriguez.
More must-reads: