M’s hope return to Tampa Bay will get Nathan Karns back on track
Maybe a return to the place he called home last season will help Nathan Karns find his way, and help the Mariners regain their footing.
After their roughest stretch of the season – a 6-11 record in their past 17 games – Karns and the Mariners head out on their longest road trip of the season, a 10-games-in-10-days journey that begins Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Karns is scheduled to pitch Wednesday, a game that will be a homecoming. He played last season and part of 2014 for the Rays before being traded to the Mariners in November.
“There were a lot of firsts for me there,” he said. “My rookie season, my first full season and making the team out of spring training. It was a very special year (in 2015).”
Karns went 7-5 with the Rays in his first full year in the majors, leading American League rookie pitchers with 26 starts, 147 innings and 145 strikeouts. He also allowed two or fewer earned runs in 19 starts, fifth-best in the A.L.
That was enticing enough for the Mariners to make Karns the centerpiece of their first trade under general manager Jerry Dipoto.
The Mariners acquired Karns, left-hander C.J. Riefenhauser and outfielder Boog Powell for pitcher Danny Farquhar, infielder Brad Miller and first baseman Logan Morrison.
Karns said the timing – four days after the end of the 2015 season – caught him off guard, though he wasn’t shocked about being moved.
“I knew there were a lot of starting pitching in Tampa, so I knew we had options if we were going to make a trade,” he said. “I just didn’t know if I was going to be the one or not. When I got the call it was definitely a surprise. But at the same time I was excited to have an opportunity to come to Seattle and compete for a position and hopefully at the end of the day win it.”
Karns did just that, outlasting James Paxton in a spring-training battle for the final rotation spot.
After a couple rocky outings early, Karns hit his stride in late April and May, winning four consecutive decisions with a 33-to-9 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
But June has been a swoon for Karns, who is 0-2 with eight earned runs allowed and 10 walks against 10 strikeouts in 8 1/3 innings. He has had a season-high five walks in each game, including in a 5-3 loss to Cleveland on Thursday.
“We’ve got to get him back on track,” manager Scott Servais said after that game. He cited Karns’ lack of command with his curveball.
“That’s usually been a big pitch for him,” Servais said, adding Karns has been “really struggling timing wise, mechanically driving the ball downhill and then kind of leaking out.”
Karns, who did not face his former team when the Rays were in Seattle in May, says the key is making better in-game adjustments when his mechanics go off track.
“The walks that are long at-bats, those don’t hurt as much as the four-pitch walks,” he said. “So that’s just kind of when I get in those phases I need to do a better job of getting out of it more quickly rather than walking a hitter or two before I make the adjustment.”
The Mariners need that to happen sooner rather than later after falling a season-high five games behind Texas in the American League West race after dropping two of three to the Rangers during the weekend.
“Not the best, not the worst,” Karns said of his season, a statement that also could apply to the Mariners after the struggles of the past few weeks. “Just kind of still learning a lot. We’re still in the first third of the season. Hoping to turn it around and have a stronger second half.”