Boston College baseball played just 15 games before COVID-19 wiped out the rest of the 2020 season. As it turns out, though, Eagles fans will get another glimpse of Birdball this year.
Former BC pitchers Justin Dunn and Michael “Mike” King, who fueled the Eagles’ 2016 run to the NCAA Super Regional, both made their respective opening day rosters. Dunn is primed to serve as the caboose of the Seattle Mariners’ six-man rotation, while King secured a spot on the New York Yankees’ 30-man roster after an impressive Summer Camp and exhibition performance.
Dunn was picked 19th overall by the New York Mets in the First-Year Players Draft, following his breakout 2016 campaign—a season that started with him as the team’s closer and ended with him as one of the best aces in the ACC. The Freeport, N.Y. native spent the next year with Class A Advanced St. Lucie, and he was promoted to Double A the subsequent season, where he posted a 6-5 record and 4.22 ERA in 15 starts.
In December 2018, Dunn and fellow top-100 prospect Jarred Kelenic were shipped off to Seattle in a deal for eight-time All-Star Robinson Canó and closer Edwin Diaz. Earlier that offseason, the Mariners reeled in another highly-touted young arm: Justus Sheffield. Seattle nabbed the lefty by trading away a southpaw of their own, James Paxton, to the Yankees.
Sheffield made seven starts for Seattle in 2019, whereas Dunn picked up where he left off with the Mets organization, playing Double A ball with the Mariners’ affiliate in Arkansas. When September rolled around and rosters expanded, Dunn was called up to make his MLB debut for the Mariners, who at the time were in fifth place in the AL West standings.
The 6-foot-2, 185-pound righty gave up two runs to the Cincinnati Reds in his first major league outing but then bounced back to spin six scoreless innings over the course of his next three appearances. Dunn’s September cameo wrapped up a big year for the 24-year-old. While helping the Arkansas Travelers to the best record in the Texas League, he notched a 9-5 record, as well as a 3.55 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, and a league-best 158 punchouts.
Dunn is now listed as the sixth pitcher on the Mariners’ 2020 depth chart, one spot behind Sheffield. It’s the kind of rotation that, given the circumstances, could pay dividends.
“I think the six-men rotation is a great thing for where we’re at right now and something that we’ll look at going forward into the future, Seattle manager Scott Servais said prior to the team’s first Summer Camp workout, per The San Diego Union Tribune. “All these guys throw better when they have an extra day. So because we’re using a shortened season let’s stay with it.”
So far, so good. Last week, Dunn—who’s been developing his curveball and slider—scattered five K’s over three innings during an intrasquad game and stitched together an eye-catching 1-2-3 frame where he struck out the side (J.P. Crawford, Tim Lopes, and Tom Murphy).
Even more recently, King put on a show at Citi Field. The Warwick, R.I. native went four innings against the Mets, only allowing one run in Sunday’s exhibition. He even struck out reigning National League Rookie of the Year (and home run leader) Pete Alonso.
King, an undrafted prospect out of high school, proved his worth at BC. In 2016, he eclipsed the 100-inning mark, going 8-4 and winning both of his NCAA Tournament appearances, including a win-or-go-home Super Regional matchup against Miami.
Still, King went 11 rounds later than Dunn in the 2016 draft. The Miami Marlins selected the right-hander with the 353rd overall pick. He lasted less than two years in Miami before he was traded to the Yankees for lefty Caleb Smith and first baseman Garrett Cooper.
The change of scenery did wonders for King, who ascended all the way up to Triple A during the 2018 season. While there, he logged six starts, a 4-0 record, and a 1.15 ERA for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Despite taking a different path to the majors, King—like his college teammate—made his big league debut in September 2019.
It was, however, just a taste of MLB action. During the final series of the regular season, King pitched two innings out of the bullpen against the Texas Rangers, conceding a pair of hits and a run in the process.
Flashforward to 2020, an already infamous year that has seen a pandemic throw a wrench in society as we know it. Summer started without baseball for the first time in 152 years, according to Forbes, but after months of labor disputes, a 60-game season was finally scheduled.
For the Yankees, that meant no Domingo German, a righty who won 18 games for New York last year but will miss the season serving the remainder of a 60-plus game suspension issued because of a domestic violence incident in 2019. Once Mashiro Tanaka was hit by a comebacker in the middle of a July 4 workout at Yankee Stadium, the star-studded rotation—spearheaded by Gerrit Cole—looked even thinner.
King seized the opportunity, turning heads in Summer Camp. The growth he showed since pre-COVID-19 Grapefruit League play earned him a spot on the 30-man roster.
"He came into Spring Training and was kind of working through some things,” manager Aaron Boone said, per Sports Illustrated. “He was getting his delivery righted and working on some shapes of pitches and stuff. Didn’t feel like he was in a great place necessarily in the spring. He came into Summer Camp from a make-the-club standpoint in a [position where] he really needed to show something. I feel like he more than did that."
King is one of 14 players who wasn’t on the team’s active 30-man roster at the start of last season to make the Yankees’ 2020 Opening Day roster.
Four years after getting BC within one game of the College World Series, Dunn and King are back on the national stage—both in the same league and both part of what will undoubtedly be an MLB season to remember.
