Mariners’ George Kirby dominates Angels with career-high 14 strikeouts

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Since making his season debut last month following a stint on the injured list, George Kirby incrementally inched closer to the version everyone has come to expect from the past.

That version showed up on Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t furious George. It was nearly unhittable George.

“George being able to come back and really put on the performance of his career, super happy for him,” M’s catcher Mitch Garver said. “We can pump him up as much as we need to, tell him how good he is, but he also has to prove it to himself. We know who George is and that’s the guy he can be.”

Kirby put together one of the best starts in franchise history by a right-handed pitcher, throwing seven dominant innings and striking out a career-high 14 as the Mariners snapped a five-game losing streak with a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Angels before 31,416 at Angel Stadium.

The M’s longest slump of the season ended thanks to Kirby looking like a vintage version of himself from the past few seasons.

“He was attacking. He was throwing quality strikes. He wasn’t giving them a chance to get comfortable at all in the box,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said. “It was just a different day from George today.”

Kirby needed just 96 pitches to throw seven complete innings. He struck out eight of the first 11 batters, all retired in order, before finding his only trouble of the afternoon. Mike Trout singled with two outs in the fourth on a 1-2 slider that stayed on the plate and Taylor Ward followed with his 18th homer of the season after Kirby fell behind 2-0 in the count and threw an elevated fastball.

But that was it. No other Angels’ batter reached base. When Trout came up again in the seventh inning, Kirby won the battle this time, striking him out looking on a 3-2 pitch to end a nine-pitch at-bat. He followed by getting Ward looking at another 3-2 pitch, and on his 96th and final pitch of the day got a line out from Chris Taylor.

“After kind of that first inning, I was really spotting up, getting ahead, I was like, ‘You know, this is my … game, so I’m going to keep bearing down and keep going,’” Kirby said.

Kirby had 23 called strikes and another 14 whiffs, according to MLB Statcast. Only nine balls were put in play and his strikeouts came in a variety of forms.

Six strikeouts were looking, his favorite being a front-hip sinker to Nolan Schanuel in the fourth inning that perhaps was a touch off the plate but was called strike three. He struck out Trout swinging in the first inning on a fastball up and got both him and Ward looking at similar pitches in the seventh.

Kirby had 12 strikeouts in his first three starts since coming off the injured list. The 14 strikeouts toppled his career-high of 12 set last year against Arizona. It was the most strikeouts by a Mariners pitcher since James Paxton struck out 16 A’s batters in 2018. He’s one of three different pitchers in Mariners history with at least 14 strikeouts and no walks in a start, joining Randy Johnson and Mark Langston.

In Mariners history, only two right-handed pitchers struck out more in a start: Mike Moore struck out 16 in 1988 in a complete-game against the Yankees and Felix Hernández had 15 K’s in seven innings in 2014 against Tampa Bay.

Kirby relied almost entirely on the trio of his four-seam fastball, sinker and slider. The slider was the key pitch.

“I feel like my best pitch is the slider but I haven’t been getting it to where I want these last couple of starts,” Kirby said. “Being able to do that, execute it well, was really nice.”

Matt Brash continued the run of strikeouts with a pair in the eighth and Andrés Muñoz pitched for the first time in a week, although the final three outs were stressful. Jorge Soler walked on a 3-1 pitch to start the inning, before Zach Neto struck out and Schanuel lined out to right.

That brought Trout to the plate – of course – but Muñoz got him to chase a slider off the plate to end it for his 18th save.

Garver went to the mound for a brief talk with Muñoz before the final out.

“I wanted to flip it into a fun situation for him, like, ‘Hey, this is the best possible situation we could be in. You got to face Trout. He’s the winning run, tying run is on first base. Plan A attack, go get him,’” Garver said.

Kirby walked off the mound with only a one-run lead and Brash and Muñoz had to hold it because the M’s left 11 on base and were 4 for 16 with runners in scoring position.

And they were fortunate to even be in the lead thanks to the unlikely combo of Jorge Polanco and Donovan Solano coming through with two-out RBI hits in the fifth inning that ended the day for Angels starter Tyler Anderson.

Polanco’s second hit of the game scored Randy Arozarena and Solano followed with only his third RBI of the year to score Garver.

“I thought it was huge that after they scored the two runs, we came right back with two of our own in the fifth to grab the lead right back,” Wilson said.

Arozarena had three hits for the second straight game, including two doubles. His double in the first inning scored Julio Rodríguez from first base. Rodríguez was back in the lineup after leaving Saturday night’s game early when he was hit on the right ankle on a batted ball off Arozarena’s bat.

The M’s managed to give baseball’s home run leader Cal Raleigh his first full day off for the season a day after he hit home runs Nos. 25 and 26. Raleigh wasn’t in the starting lineup for the first time since May 6 against the A’s and ended up getting his first complete day of rest in the 64th game of the season.