Dean tops Mariners, wins 1st big league game

SEATTLE — It seemed like a pretty brutal assignment for the Twins’ Pat Dean in his second Major League start, but baseball has an odd way of taking expectations and flipping them upside-down.

Friday’s task looked daunting from just about every angle. Dean, a 27-year-old left-hander who had been in the Minor Leagues for seven years prior to his call-up earlier this season, had only started a big league game once, and it came six days earlier against the Blue Jays.

On Friday night, he had to take the ball for a visiting team with a 4-19 road record against the surging Mariners, who were in first place in the American League West. The crowd was out in force, 40,921 strong in Safeco Field to watch their former Cy Young Award-winning ace, Felix Hernandez, and then hang around for a postgame fireworks show.

Then Dean did his thing, and after seven relatively quick, mostly quiet innings, he had subdued the Mariners into a 7-2 loss and the Twins had their 13th victory of the year and maybe a pitcher they can rely on in the coming weeks.

For Dean, it was momentous occasion, one that ended with a beer and barbecue sauce shower, a souvenir ball and game tickets, and the biggest belt-notch of all: Major League victory No. 1.

“The Dean vs. the professor, I guess, or something,” Twins manager Paul …

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