George Kirby delivers strong outing as Mariners split series with Twins
Given the back-and-forth nature of their game results this season, a source of hope for better results ahead and a glaring reason for frustration of results past, it should have been logical to expect the Mariners to pull out a victory on Thursday afternoon, after they’d dropped two straight games to the Twins.
But the easier reason to believe Seattle would prevail in the finale of the four-game series with Minnesota at T-Mobile Park was that starting pitcher George Kirby was coming off a subpar start five days earlier.
In the aftermath of that previous start, one of his worst of the season, a highly-irritated Kirby ended his very brief postgame media session, saying, “I can’t wait to get out there next week.”
Pitching in the brilliant July sunshine with temperatures in the low 80s, the orneriest of the Mariners’ starters delivered another outstanding performance in a season filled with them.
Kirby set the tone from the first pitch of the game, tossing seven scoreless innings with ruthless efficiency, allowing just four hits with no walks and 10 strikeouts to lead the Mariners to a much-needed 5-0 victory.
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“George Kirby, what a season he’s putting together,” manager Scott Servais said. “He just continues to impress time and again. He is not afraid. He loves the competition. I think that is what sticks out more than anything else. When you watch him pitch, he just loves to bring it on.”
Mirroring their season in so many ways, the Mariners split the four-game series with the American League Central leaders, showing how good they could be and why they haven’t been in that span.
“Good ballgame, good bounce back,” Servais said. “Again, we’ll see what happens tomorrow. It’s kind of been the story of our season. We play a couple of really good games, and then do we have the ability to continue it? We’ll find out. It will be big weekend series here. It should be fun.”
The Blue Jays and their mass of fans will invade T-Mobile Park this weekend for what will be an eventful series.
Kirby hasn’t had many poor or ineffective outings this season — only four where he’s allowed more than four earned runs — and he certainly is too competitive and too talented to let it happen in back-to-back outings.
After each of those subpar performances, he has delivered a brilliant outing in his very next start, allowing one run or fewer in each.
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April 3 vs. Angels: 4 1/3 innings pitched, four runs, nine hits, one walk, five strikeouts
April 9 vs. Guardians: 6 innings pitched, one run, five hits, no walks, four strikeouts
May 26 vs. Pirates: 4 2/3 innings pitched, seven runs, nine hits, one walk, four strikeouts
May 31 vs. Yankees: 8 innings pitched, no runs, three hits, no walks, seven strikeouts
June 7 vs. Padres: 3 2/3 innings, five runs, 11 hits, no walks, three strikeouts
June 13 vs. Marlins: 6 innings, one run, three hits, no walks, 10 strikeouts
The trend continued.
In his first start out of the All-Star break, Kirby allowed six runs on eight hits, pitching just five innings in a 6-0 loss to the Tigers on July 15. He lamented his lack of command particularly with two strikes, not allowing him to put away hitters.
There was no repeat vs. Minnesota. He struck out Edouard Julien to start the game and never really looked back. Only one Twins player, Kyle Farmer, who tripled to right field with two outs in the fifth inning, reached scoring position.
“Very motivated,” he said. “I knew I had to come out from the get-go and I’m glad how it went.”
Of Kirby’s 99 pitches, 73 were strikes, including 20 swings and misses. He challenged hitters with his four-seam fastball, throwing 49 of them in the game. They whiffed on 12 of them, watched six go by for called strikes and fouled off 11 of them.
“I think I commanded it well up in the zone today, went in with it when I needed to and it played well off the slider,” Kirby said.
In the first three games of the series, the Twins had scored 22 runs on 35 hits with nine homers, 14 walks and 40 strikeouts. Kirby shut them down. And relievers Matt Brash and Paul Sewald secured Seattle’s seventh shutout of the season.
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The Mariners provided just enough offense early.
After loading the bases with no outs in the first inning against Twins starter Pablo Lopez, a one-time Mariners prospect, on singles from J.P. Crawford and Julio Rodriguez and a walk to Eugenio Suarez, the Mariners mustered just one run.
Lopez managed to strike out Mike Ford, gave up an RBI single to Teoscar Hernandez, struck out Cal Raleigh and Ty France looking to work out of trouble. While they did force Lopez to throw 36 pitches in the inning, it was a missed opportunity.
“You wish we could have gotten more out of that first inning, but we put together a good inning, especially because we made him work,” Hernandez said. “That’s one of the biggest things for our team is to get the starter out of the game before the fifth inning or even in the fifth inning.”
An All-Star in 2023, Lopez found his command after the first inning and worked through five innings, allowing one more run on Hernandez’s solo homer to center in the fourth.
The Mariners picked up three big insurance runs in the eighth inning off struggling Twins reliever Jorge Lopez. Suarez looped a single into left field and Ford crushed a two-run homer off the windows of the old Hit it Here Cafe. Raleigh later scored on a wild pitch.
Of note: Luis Castillo and Kirby are the first Mariners duo to record 10+ strikeouts in back-to-back games since Roenis Elias and Taijuan Walker on June 19-20, 2015.
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Source: The Seattle Times
