Cal crushes, Mariners get insurance runs late to beat Red Sox in first game of series as trade deadline looms
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – A few hours after the team made two trades, including shipping off closer Paul Sewald, the Seattle Mariners took the first game of their series and homestand against the Boston Red Sox. Starting pitcher George Kirby was solid in his outing, only allowing one run off four hits and two walks (even though the run arguably shouldn’t be charged to him) but failed to stay efficient as his pitch count was at 97 through five innings. Seattle’s bullpen picked up the slack, supported by Cal Raleigh’s two solo homers before the Mariners hung four insurance runs on the Red Sox in the eighth inning. Seattle draws closer in the hunt for the Wild Card and remains in the realm of possibility for the top of the division, and it will be very interesting to see how the next 17 hours play out before the trade deadline.
Kirby solid, but struggles with efficiency
Seattle starting pitcher George Kirby had a solid game if looked at with just the basic statistics, but the second-year right hander wasn’t pleased with his outing because he only lasted five innings in this outing. The Elon university alum has a decently well-known competitive fire to him and always seems to want to go deep into ballgames to give his team the best chance to win, so you can understand why George would be upset at a solid performance against a good Red Sox team. Considering that George likes to bounce back from bad performances, perhaps since he’s so upset about tonight’s ballgame, Seattle may have a determined Kirby on the mound next time it’s his start day.
“You know you’re not going to score runs all the time, so you want to win the battles, you know, and we got him [Kirby] out of the game soon enough and we put pressure on the bullpen, but we didn’t catch them.”
Going into Kirby’s night, George threw five kinds of pitches in this ballgame according to baseball savant. His fastball dominated his outing, followed by a sinker, slider, splitter, and even a curveball mixed into his night. Four of those five pitches, not the splitter, saw increases in velocity while only his sinker saw an increase in spin rate. Kirby only gave up the four hits, all of them singles that didn’t pose much danger, and two walks, the first of which turned into the only run that Boston scored. That walk turned into a run as Jarren Duran stole second, Mariners catcher Tom Murphy had a horrible throw that went into center field where Julio Rodriguez then threw to third base which was offline, and Duran scored in what became a brief jog thanks to the two errors.
Where George really got into trouble during this outing, as we alluded to, was with that pitch count. The Red Sox fouled off 27 of Kirby’s pitches, kicking his pitch count way high and effectively knocking him out of the game much earlier than he surely wanted to.
Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh celebrates one of his two homers with the teams Home Run Trident (Photo by Mathew Bermudez)
Cal the crusher
Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh apparently loves to homer against the American League East, and the Red Sox in particular. Raleigh has four multi-homer games this season after today’s win, all of them coming against teams in the East (the other being the Tampa Bay Rays) and now two of them against Boston, dating back to his historic game at Fenway Park when he became the first catcher in history to homer from both sides of the plate at that ballpark. There wasn’t any of that sort of history made tonight by Raleigh, but his two homers certainly made an impact for the Mariners offense as the solo shots were the only runs that Seattle had for seven innings.
The Seattle Mariners offense had four insurance runs added on in the bottom of the eighth inning to help propel the team to a series opening victory (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
Insurance
The Mariners were able to add on some big insurance in their game, to help their bullpen who had picked up the slack from George Kirby and added on some offense on top of what Raleigh had done to drag this offense along. Despite the inning beginning with a groundout from Tom Murphy, Seattle reached base in the next seven at bats before Ty France grounded into a 3-2-3 double play to end things and send us to the top of the ninth inning where Isaiah Campbell could close things out. Cade Marlowe got things started with a double before Jose Caballero got hit with a pitch, JP Crawford then drew a walk to load up the bases. Julio Rodriguez came through as he singled down the first base line to drive two runs in, before Eugenio Suarez singled, Cal Raleigh reached on a fielder's choice E6, and Teoscar Hernandez singled to round out the four runs that Seattle pushed across.
The Seattle Mariners defense and bullpen (including reliever Gabe Speier) helped beat the Red Sox in the series opener (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
‘Pen report
It’s weird to not write the #37 in the bullpen section of my scorebook, but alas that is not the point of today’s bullpen report. The Mariners deployed five of their relievers in tonight’s ballgame, which is slightly concerning given the amount of them used in the first game of the series and that Seattle used their high leverage guys. It may be a bit of a bad mix tomorrow when Bryce Miller gets the start, as he may not necessarily be able to go deep into the ballgame, but you never know since Miller had such a historic start to his MLB career this season and has been solid on the year overall. Outside of two hits allowed by Gabe Speier and a hit and walk from Tayler Saucedo, the Mariners bullpen did their job leading into the ninth inning. Seattle had kept the Red Sox to just one before Isaiah Campbell struggled in the ninth. Two hits against Campbell saw Connor Wong, who led off with a double, score to give Boston their second run of the night and had it not been for JP Crawford’s diving catch to end the game, the Red Sox likely have more runs on the board considering that there were runners on the corners.
Seattle Mariners shortstop JP Crawford made a diving catch on a line drive up the middle to end the game (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
Quick notes
In the first of a 3-game series, the Mariners beat the Red Sox 6-2.
Seattle is a season-high 4 games above the .500 mark at 55-51.
The Mariners are now 20-15 in series openers (10-8 at home) this season.
Seattle wrapped up the month of July with a 17-9 record this season, tied with Baltimore for best record in the Majors during the month…dating back to 2021, the Mariners are 49-26 in July contests.
Cal Raleigh went 3-for-4 with 1 single and 2 home runs to pick up his 4th multi-homer game of the year tonight…it is the 2nd multi-homer game that Raleigh has recorded against Boston this season (also: 2 HR on 5/15 @ BOS).
Raleigh’s 4 multi-home run games are tied for 3rd-most in the Majors and the most among catchers.
With 16 home runs on the season, he is tied for 2nd-most by a Mariners hitter (also: Teoscar Hernández) and trails Julio Rodríguez’ 17 home runs for the team lead.
Raleigh’s home run in the 2nd inning were both the Mariners first hit and run of the night.
Julio Rodríguez extended his current hitting streak to 9-consecutive games following a 2-RBI single in the 8th inning, tying his career-high hitting streak (also: 6/27/22-7/5/22)…he picked up 1 hit, 1 run and 2 RBIs tonight.
He has now reached base safely in the last 25-consecutive games, the longest active on-base streak in the Major Leagues…he matches Ken Griffey Jr. (25 G, 6/16/90-7/15/1990) and Alex Rodriguez (25 G, 7/16/96-8/10/1996) for the longest on-base streak by a Mariners player age 22-or-younger in franchise history.
In his start tonight, George Kirby threw 5.0 innings and allowed 4 hits, 1 run (1 ER), 2 walks and struck out 7 over 97 pitches.
He allowed 2 walks for only the 2nd time this season (also: 7/1 vs. TB)…with only 14 walks in 21 starts this season, Kirby continues to lead the Majors in fewest walks allowed by a qualified starter…Braxton Garrett-MIA and Zach Eflin-TBR each hold 17 walks on the year, the next fewest following Kirby.
Kirby’s leadoff walk to Jarren Duran marked his only leadoff walk to a batter in the 1st inning this season and the 4th leadoff walk in the 1st inning he has issued in his career (last: 10/3/22 vs. DET).
Tonight marked Kirby’s 9th start allowing 1-or-fewer runs this year…entering today, Kirby’s 8 games of starts with 1-or-fewer earned runs on 5.0+ innings pitched tied for 10th most among American League starters.
J.P. Crawford picked up 1 hit, a single in the 3rd inning, and drew 1 walk on the night …he has now hit safely in the last 6-consecutive games (7/24-c).
This season, Crawford has recorded 4 separate hitting streaks of 6-or-more games long (highest: 10 games, 6/30-7/9).
Crawford finished the month of July batting .340 (32x94) with 16 runs, 11 doubles, 3 home runs, 8 RBI, 17 walks and 1 HBP.
Tom Murphy picked up 1 single in tonight’s game…he has hit-safely in his last 5-consecutive starts (7/24-c) and in 8 of his last 10 games (7/8-c)…over 13 games in the month of July, Murphy hit .333 (13x39) with 3 doubles, 4 home runs, 7 RBI and 2 walks.
Cade Marlowe picked up 1 double in the 7th inning tonight…he has reached base safely in each of his last 5 starts, recording extra-base hits in 3 of those 5 games.
Euegenio Suárez and Teoscar Hernández each recorded 1 hit and 1 RBI in the 8th inning.
The Mariners bullpen tonight (Gabe Speier, Matt Brash, Tayler Saucedo, Andrés Muñoz and Isaiah Campbell) combined for 4.0 innings and allowed 5 hits, 1 runs (1 ER), 1 walk and struck out 2.
What’s next?
There are two ways to look at what’s to come for the Mariners. Tomorrow, Seattle will play the second game of this series and homestand against the Boston Red Sox, looking to win their fourth consecutive series if they’re able to come out victorious. Not only would it be big for the Mariners to continue winning in general, but Boston is also the team that’s the first looking into the Wild Card picture, aka they are the closest to the last playoff spot available in the American League West. The other notable thing on the schedule for tomorrow is that the MLB Trade Deadline is at 3PM PST, just a few hours before the Mariners are set to play that game. With the trades of Paul Sewald to the Diamondbacks and AJ Pollock to the Giants, we imagine that Seattle may have more moves coming.