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Report: Mariners nearly traded Leake to D-Backs before latest start

Stephen Brashear / Getty Images Sport / Getty

On Wednesday, the Seattle Mariners pummeled the Houston Astros 14-1 in a complete-game victory that starter Mike Leake was almost never a part of.

The Mariners nearly had a trade worked out to ship the right-hander to the Arizona Diamondbacks before Leake took the mound against Houston, sources told Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times.

Seattle general manager Jerry Dipoto was reportedly working on the deal up until the late hours of Tuesday. However, the trade never came to fruition, so Leake made his start as scheduled. The 31-year-old wound up going the distance, allowing one run on six hits and two walks while striking out five.

"I hadn't heard of anything about a trade," Leake told Divish. "But I understand it."

The Mariners have openly been sellers since the offseason, when they shipped Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to the New York Mets in exchange for top prospect Jarred Kelenic. More recently, the club sent outfielder Jay Bruce to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Leake owns a 4.30 ERA and a 5.31 FIP over 81 2/3 innings this season. The 10-year veteran is under team control for two more years and is owed at least $20 million with an $18-million mutual option for 2021. He's thrown at least 180 innings in five of the previous six campaigns.

The Diamondbacks currently sit one game under .500 and in fourth place in the NL West. However, they trail the second-place Colorado Rockies by just a game and a half and rank second in the division with a plus-38 run differential.

Arizona's already relied upon seven different pitchers to make at least two starts, and the team is now dealing with an injury to breakout star Luke Weaver, who will miss a large portion of 2019 with an elbow injury. As a group, D-Backs starters possess a 4.07 ERA and a 3.79 FIP while ranking sixth in the big leagues by FanGraphs' WAR.

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