The month of September brought something new for George Kirby – fighting.
After a start in Tampa, he let his emotions out and said regrettable things that were out of character for anything he had shown in his short big league career.
His toughness and commitment were questioned by former top players because of these comments.
He found it difficult to do what had always come so naturally to him since his childhood in Rye, New York: take a baseball where he wanted.
And as he tried to pitch a scoreless sixth inning on Tuesday night, he was stunned when a foul ball from Kyle Tucker’s bat that landed in the stands was bounced back to him by a teenage fan, who caught it and then fired it back to the mound and met Kirby.
But on a night when losing wasn’t an option for his team and he had to be better than he was in September, Furious George returned to his strikeout style and didn’t let that stop him, leading the Mariners to a 6-2 victory over the Astros.
Kirby pitched six scoreless innings, looking dominant most of the time and setting the tone for a victory that ended a four-game losing streak and kept the Mariners’ postseason hopes alive.
With the win, the Mariners (85-72) moved within half a game of Houston (86-72) in the race for the third wild card spot in the American League and are two games behind the Blue Jays (87-70). , which lost to the Yankees.
The top three wild card teams advance to the playoffs / *Texas has the tiebreaker against Seattle
Mariners playoff odds (via Fangraphs, beginning Wednesday)
Reaching the playoffs: 48.5%
Win division: 6.2%
Games remaining: 5
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“A clear win for our ballclub,” said Mariners manager Scott Servais. “Really happy for our guys. Obviously we’ve been struggling here for the last four days and you’re starting to wonder if we can get it going again.”
Kirby got it going for the Mariners, as is expected of a top starting pitcher in these situations.
“A hell of a job by George,” Servais said. “I know his last four or five starts have been a bit rocky, but today I thought he was locked in from the start.”
This isn’t the first time Kirby has taken the mound at T-Mobile Park in a must-win game.
A little over a year ago, as a rookie making his first postseason start in Game 3 of the American League Division Series, he delivered a brilliant performance, pitching seven scoreless innings against the Astros in an eventual 1-0 loss led in 18 innings.
“I love it,” he said of the responsibility. “Big games, I always want the ball. I love pitching against the Astros. It always gets you going a little bit more.”
But early in the first period, Kirby appeared to be headed for another frustrating outing when Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman each delivered singles after falling behind in the count. Kirby managed to get the ever-dangerous Yordan Alvarez to second base.
With runners on second and third and one out, catcher Cal Raleigh went to the mound to make sure Kirby didn’t make an error when the left-hander hit Tucker at the plate. He shot three balls just outside the zone to see if Tucker would chase him. When he failed to do so, the Mariners intentionally walked him to load the bases for Jose Abreu with one out.
A sinker traveling at 96 miles per hour brought a ground ball to third base, which Eugenio Suarez fielded and fired home for the force out. Kirby then got Yainer Diaz to force out at second to end the inning.
It took 26 pitches, but Kirby left the mound after holding the Astros without a run.
“Does this count as a walk?” Kirby asked as he talked about the visit to Raleigh.
“Yes.”
“Okay, I can live with that,” he said.
It was the first conscious step of his professional career. The last time Kirby intentionally walked a batter of any kind was on March 1, 2017, when he was a freshman pitcher at Elon University. While playing against East Carolina, Kirby intentionally walked a batter named Spencer Brickhouse.
“I remember him,” he said.
As for the incident with the fan in game six, Servais was stunned.
“Out of the corner of my eye I saw a ball flying towards him from the stands and I just thought, ‘How can this happen?'” he said. “I’ve never seen that before, especially not in our home park. This is something you wouldn’t expect. I only understood the story after the game. It was an Astros foul ball, and a young teenager picked it up and thought the right thing to do was throw it back onto the field. The fact that he threw it at our starting player in perhaps the most critical game of the year…interesting.”
After looking shocked and perplexed at what had happened, Kirby forced a smile onto the hill.
“It surprised the hell out of me,” Kirby said. “I thought it was the referee because I held my hands up and asked for the ball. I thought he threw it. I mean, it was an impressive throw. I’ll give it to him.”
Meanwhile, Kirby’s teammates rewarded his efforts by providing above-average run support, capitalizing on three Houston errors and scoring five runs in the first five innings.
Houston starter Christian Javier retired the first six batters in order. But back-to-back singles by Mike Ford and Ty France got the Mariners going in the third.
After Tucker made a brilliant diving grab on Josh Rojas’ line drive to right field, Altuve inexplicably tried to throw out Ford, who had made the play, at third base. Ford is slow, but not that slow.
Altuve’s throw sailed over Alex Bregman’s head and into the camera, allowing Ford to trudge home and France to move into third place. Julio Rodriguez drove a fly ball deep into left field in the second run of the inning to allow France to connect and score.
The Mariners knocked Javier out of the game and took down an old friend in the fifth inning.
Rojas hit a double to left field and Javier threw around Rodriguez with the base open and accompanied him on five off-speed pitches.
Houston brought in Rafael Montero, the other pitcher after the infamous Kendall Graveman, to try to get the final out. He left the game four batters later without recording an out.
Cal Raleigh hit an RBI single to right that scored Rojas. Tucker’s throw to third rolled into the Astros’ dugout, allowing Rodriguez to trot home and Raleigh to advance to third. Hernandez followed with an RBI single to left to make it 5-0.
After Kirby completed 84 throws, Servais went to his rested leverage relievers. Justin Topa struggled to load the bases with no outs. Servais brought in Matt Brash, who cleaned up the mess and allowed just one run on a sacrifice fly.
With a new sinking fastball, Brash pitched a scoreless eighth, and the Mariners added a run on a French home run.
Andres Munoz struggled a bit in the ninth and had to give up a run.
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Ryan Divish: [email protected]; on twitter: @RyanDivish. Ryan Divish covers the Mariners in Seattle and on the road. Look out for his Extra Innings podcast and mailbags throughout the season.