SEATTLE _ It ended _ and started _ with a bunt.
That's how Seattle Mariners outfielder Jarrod Dyson ended Justin Verlander's perfect game in the sixth inning.
That's how the Mariners' comeback started.
That's how weird baseball can be, how quickly it can change.
The Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-5, to get back to .500 (37-37) after winning their fourth straight game. And they did it by going from lifeless and lost against Verlander to surging and clutch after Dyson's bunt.
So first, the bunt.
When Dyson stepped to the plate with one out in the sixth inning, Verlander had faced the minimum: 16 batters up, 16 batters down. He had struck out 10 of those batters, and he looked dominant doing it.
There's an old school thinking in some baseball circles that a player shouldn't bunt to break up a no-hitter or perfect game, and that argument was already playing out on Twitter before Wednesday's game had even ended. But Dyson is a bunter; it's part of his game, a tool he can call on.
And his team needed a base runner.
So Dyson bunted, and he didn't lay down just a good bunt. He laid down a perfect bunt to break up the perfect game. That was very clearly the moment the game turned on its head.
Verlander walked Mike Zunino next. He gave up a single to Jean Segura to load the bases. Ben Gamel drove in Dyson with a single. Nelson Cruz drove in two more runs with a two-out double _ the final batter Verlander faced.
Just like that, in the span of six batters, Verlander's perfect game, no-hitter and night all ended.
The Mariners still had comeback work to do, however.
In the seventh inning, Mitch Haniger tied the game with a solo home run. After Segura and Gamel reached base, Robinson Cano drove them in with a double in the gap.
And Cruz delivered once more, this time a single to give the Mariners a 7-4 lead.
On the other side of Wednesday's pitching duel was James Paxton, the Mariners' developing ace who has hit one of those rough patches.
Three weeks ago, after watching Paxton's brilliance in his first start back from the disabled list, Mariners manager Scott Servais said Paxton had turned into a "top-of-the-rotation stud." Nothing has changed in terms of upside, but one of the hallmarks of a top-of-the-rotation stud is consistency.
What Paxton's recent struggles have reinforced is just how elusive that consistency is at this level.
Paxton hasn't made it through the sixth inning in any of his past six starts. In his last four starts, in fact, Paxton has allowed at least three runs while never getting more than one out in the sixth inning.
After giving up a wall-scraping solo home run to Tigers catcher James McCann in the third inning, Paxton ran into trouble in the fourth.
He gave up a one-out double to J.D. Martinez, then an RBI single to Justin Upton, who was then thrown out trying to steal second. Paxton allowed another two base runners on a walk and a single but got a big strikeout to end the inning.
In the sixth inning, Paxton gave up a leadoff single to Miguel Cabrera, which is when things got a little weird.
J.D. Martinez hit a fly ball to center field, which dropped in front of Dyson. Dyson tried to throw to second to get Cabrera, who doesn't run well and who held up because he thought Dyson was going to make the catch, a fair assumption. But Dyson's throw sailed into the Tigers' dugout, allowing Cabrera to reach third and Martinez to reach second.
The Tigers scored two runs that inning and ran Paxton out of the game with one out in the fifth inning.
In the end, Paxton gave up four runs (three earned) and nine hits in 5 1/3 innings. His ERA (now 3.54) has risen by more than two runs in his last four starts.
But the Mariners' offense erased Paxton's up-and-down start with a comeback that all started with a bunt.
