Mariners’ Nate Karns rides curve to beat Astros’ ace Dallas Keuchel

Seattle Mariners starter Nate Karns watched teammate Taijuan Walker stifle the Houston Astros for seven innings Monday night.

Karns, an Arlington Martin alumnus, took notes on Walker’s performance.

The next night, Karns topped Walker’s performance by holding the Astros scoreless on two hits over seven innings.

In short, it was the best start of Karns’ career. He matched his career-high of seven innings, and it was the first time he has held a team scoreless for seven innings since Sept. 12, 2014 against the Blue Jays. Karns, who was drafted in 2009, has made 35 career starts.

“I guess I was just tired of not doing what I’m capable of doing,” said Karns, who had six strikeouts and three walks to beat reigning Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel. “I just wanted to give a good performance today. ... I took great notes watching Taijuan do his thing. Taijuan stayed aggressive.”

Karns (2-1) threw 50 curveballs in the win, the most thrown by a Mariners pitcher since at least 2008, according to BaseballSavant.com. Adding to the effectiveness of the curve is an increased velocity. He averaged 93.3 mph on his fastball Tuesday, according to Fangraphs. He averaged 91.6 mph in 2015.

“We didn’t make an adjustment against his breaking ball, and he had a good one,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “He’s a good pitcher, especially when he gets his breaking ball over for strikes early and doesn’t rely as heavily on fastballs, then it makes him a tough pitcher.”

Especially against the Astros. In two career starts against Houston, he’s allowed one earned run and struck out 14 in 13 innings.

He’s scheduled to make his next start Monday at Oakland.

Hometown notables

▪ Former TCU shortstop Taylor Featherston is batting .343 with four doubles, a triple, and two homers for the Phillies’ Triple A affiliate Lehigh Valley IronPigs. He also only has one error in 59 total chances, shuttling among second base, third base and shortstop.

▪ Former Southlake Carroll and TCU left-hander Tyler Alexander has allowed just one run and five hits in his past two starts for the Tigers’ High A affiliate Lakeland (Fla.) Flying Tigers. Alexander has a 3.47 ERA with 23 strikeouts (and six walks) in 23  1/3 innings.

▪ Tigers outfielder Tyler Collins (Northwest High School) was demoted to Triple A Toledo a couple of days after he was caught on television cameras giving the bird to fans who were jeering teammate Justin Upton after he lost a fly ball in the lights. Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said the demotion had nothing to do with the gesture.

This story was originally published April 30, 2016 at 5:36 PM with the headline "Mariners’ Nate Karns rides curve to beat Astros’ ace Dallas Keuchel."