Kirby does his best King Félix impression, but Mariners offense repays the favor with no run support in loss to Orioles
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – The narratives and jokes all seemed to write themselves on the day that Seattle’s King Félix was inducted into the Mariners Hall of Fame, as starting pitcher George Kirby threw nine-innings of shutout baseball but failed to get any run support from his team. A sold out T-Mobile Park applauded Kirby for his effort all night long, including giving him a standing ovation when he took the mound for the ninth inning, but the Seattle bats couldn’t show him their admiration in the form of production as the Mariners tallied only four hits, stranded nine runners on base, and went zero for ten with runners in scoring position. It’s a rough end to the team’s impressive winning streak that vaulted them back into the playoff picture, but Seattle cannot let this loss spiral into something more than just one result.
Seattle Mariners pitcher George Kirby pitched nine innings of shutout ball (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Kirby’s “King Félix” impression
It seems remarkable that George Kirby made his Major League debut this season, because the type of outings that the Elon University alum has put together for the Mariners this season in only his second season have been “Ace” level material. Kirby only surrendered three hits on the night, didn’t walk anybody with his elite level of command, and pitched nine innings of this ballgame as he got through his outing in an extremely efficient manner. Social media was set ablaze by this performance, only for it to be a cruel callback to King Félix’s time with the Mariners when he got little to no run support during his stellar outings.
The Baltimore Orioles offense wasn’t able to do much of anything against George Kirby, including former Mariner Adam Frazier and PNW native Adley Rutschman (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Kirby had his pitching arsenal at his mercy in tonight’s outing, getting up and down the Orioles lineup like he was playing a game on easy difficulty. According to baseball savant, George used his four-seam fastball, sinker, splitter, curveball, and slider tonight (seeing velocity upticks in all of them) to get 15 whiffs out of Baltimore’s hitters. The Orioles made contact with 22 of Kirby’s 103 pitches thrown, only getting hard contact on five of them. George faced the minimum in the first seven innings that he pitched, doing his absolute best to keep the Mariners in this ballgame. That sort of performance has Kirby looking like the leader of this rotation into the future, and maybe even right now.
The Seattle Mariners offense struggled to get any runs across after getting some traction on the base paths (Photos by Liv Lyons)
The Mariners also do their impression, of the offense when king Félix was pitching
The jokes write themselves here. Seattle’s offense, coming off a shelling of Baltimore starter Kyle Gibson, looked lost and disappointing against old frenemy Cole Irvin, who infamously trashed the Mariners during his time with the Athletics. The lineup has changed for Seattle since then, and while that means there likely isn’t as much hatred or anger towards him, the Mariners looked back to the worst version of themselves that we’ve seen this season with tonight’s poor performance at the plate. It wasn’t as though Seattle couldn’t get any base runners, as the Mariners had Dylan Moore at third base in the third inning thanks to a double and advance on a ground out, but Seattle couldn’t keep the line moving to score runs, let alone a singular run.
Seattle Mariners reliever Andres Munoz comes in to pitch the top of the 10th inning (Photo by Liv Lyons)
‘Pen report
Well, considering the show that George Kirby put on tonight, this segment will be short. Andres Munoz pitched the only inning of relief that we saw tonight, as he came in for the tenth inning with the ghost runner of Cedric Mullins on second base. Mullins recorded a steal of third base, and that proved critical for Baltimore as he represented the only run of this game when he was singled home by Ryan Mountcastle straight up the middle of the field, taking a bounce off the mound. It’s a tough situation to be in for Munoz with the margin of error so little considering the zero-run support that the Mariners hitters gave their pitchers, so it’s hard to cast much blame on Andres here.
Quick notes
In the second game of the series, the Mariners fell to the Orioles 1-0…the series is now tied at 1-1.
Tonight, Seattle snapped their season-high 8-game winning streak.
Seattle is now 10-2 over its last 12 and 12-3 over its last 15.
Over their last 36 games (7/1-c), the team holds a 25-11 record which is still the best record in the Major Leagues.
In his 23rd start of the season, George Kirby threw 9.0 innings and allowed only 3 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks and struck out 7 over 103 pitches…his 9.0 IP is a new career high (previously: 8.0, 2x, last: 5/31/23 vs. NYY)
The last time a Mariners pitcher tossed 9.0+ innings in a team loss was Félix Hernández on 7/26/13 vs. Minnesota…a 3-2 loss in 13 innings…tonight was Félix Hernández Mariners Hall of Fame Induction Night.
Tonight marked Kirby’s 2nd game this season with 8.0+ innings pitched, 3-or-fewer hits allowed and no walks (also: 5/31 vs. NYY)…he and Logan Gilbert (8.0 IP, 3 H, 0 BB on 5/25/23 vs. OAK) are the only Mariners pitchers to accomplish this feat since Erasmo Ramirez threw 8.0 IP, 3 H and 0 BB on 9/22/17 vs. CLE.
Kirby tossed his 17th quality start of the year tonight, which now ties him for the lead across all Major League starters (also: Logan Webb-SFG and Gerrit Cole-NYY)
In all 17 of Kirby’s quality starts, he has not allowed more than 2 walks and he has allowed 1-or-fewer in 15 of those occasions, both of which Kirby singlehandedly leads among all Major League pitchers.
Seattle’s 58 quality starts this year trails only Minnesota (60) for the most among all Major League teams.
Kirby did not allow a walk tonight for the 10th time in a start of 6.0+ innings pitched this season…he leads all Major League starters…Zach Eflin-TB holds the next most occurrences with 7.
He recorded the fastest pitch of his career on a 99.7 MPH 4-seam fastball against Anthony Santander in the 1st inning.
Ty France drew his 28th and 29th walks of the season to pick up his 5th multi-walk game and was hit by 1 pitch tonight…it marked his 19th game reaching base 3+ times and the first time he has reached 3+ times without recording a hit…he joins Julio Rodríguez and Eugenio Suárez as the only Mariners batter to reach 3+ times without a hit this season.
France has now reached base safely in 16 of the last 18 games (7/23-c).
Cal Raleigh hit his 18th double of the season in the 6th inning to extend his on-base streak to 11 games (7/31-c)…during this span 7 of Raleigh’s 9 hits have been extra-base hits, including 6 home runs.
Dylan Moore picked up the Mariners first hit of the night on a double in the 3rd inning, the 50th of his career…11 of his 15 hits this season have been extra-base hits.
Cade Marlowe singled in the 9th inning…he has reached safely in 10 of his last 11 games (7/29-c), during which he is batting .353 (12x34) with 6 runs, 1 double, 1 triple, 1 home run, 6 RBI and 3 walks.
Tom Murphy’s walk in the 7th inning extended his on-base streak to 10 games (7/24-c)…during this streak he is batting .361 (13x36) with 6 runs, 3 doubles, 2 home runs, 6 RBI and 2 walks…prior to tonight, Murphy had hit safely in 9 straight games.
Teoscar Hernández picked up 1 single on the night in the 4th inning…in 11 games this month, he has hit safely in 8 and is batting .289 (10x35) with 3 runs, 3 doubles, 1 home run, 1 RBI and 1 walk.
Eugenio Suárez extended his on-base streak to 9 games after walk in the 8th inning…he has hit safely in 15 of the last 17 games (7/23-c).
In a pregame ceremony, Félix Hernández was inducted into the Mariners Hall of Fame tonight, becoming the 11th member of the Hall of Fame…he joins Alvin Davis, Jay Buhner, Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson, Dan Wilson, Ken Griffey Jr., Jamie Moyer, Ichiro Suzuki, broadcaster Dave Niehaus and manager Lou Piniella.
What’s next?
The Mariners and Orioles will complete their three-game series, as Seattle finishes their homestand tomorrow, on Sunday, August 13th, with a first pitch time of 1:10PM PST. Seattle will be giving out Félix Hernandez bobbleheads to the first 20,000 fans that enter T-Mobile Park ahead of the rubber match between the Mariners and Orioles. Seattle will have young right-hander Bryce Miller on the mound, following his ten-strikeout performance against the Angels, as he duels against Kyle Bradish for Baltimore.