George Kirby roughed up again; Nationals hand Mariners worst loss of year

SEATTLE – The bullpen door sprang open at 6:35 p.m. Wednesday, and immediately the sounds of dubstep electronic dance music began blaring through the T-Mobile Park speakers.

Dubstep, you ask? It’s George Kirby’s favorite, all dark and ominous and irritating. It’s fingers scratching a chalkboard, the kind of music you’d blast into your sibling’s bedroom early on a Sunday morning as a prank.

It’s not pleasant.

And there was nothing pleasant about what came next for Kirby and the Mariners.

The Washington Nationals blasted Kirby to the tune of three loud homers and six runs, spoiling the right-hander’s return to Seattle in the Mariners’ 9-0 loss Wednesday night.

It was the Mariners’ most lopsided defeat of the season, and it was a rare noncompetitive game for them of late.

The Mariners (30-24) managed just three hits – all singles – off Nationals veteran right-hander Trevor Williams, who threw six shutout innings in his first quality start of the season. He’d entered the day with a 6.39 ERA.

The Nats’ bats, meanwhile, were popping against Kirby, who surrendered seven hits and six earned runs in five innings in his second start of the season. He issued two walks with four strikeouts on 78 pitches.

Shut down in early March because of shoulder inflammation, Kirby made his delayed season debut last week in Houston, allowing five runs in 3⅔ innings.

The results weren’t any better Wednesday, the same day the Mariners announced the demotion of rookie Logan Evans following his eight-inning gem against this Nationals lineup Tuesday night.

Kirby has allowed 11 earned runs in his first 8⅔ innings of the season.

In the second inning, Kirby left a 2-1 slider hanging over the middle of the plate and Luis Garcia Jr. mashed it out to right-center field for a solo homer, 110.4 mph off the bat.

The next batter, Josh Bell, sent a well-placed 3-2 fastball on the outside corner out the opposite way for a home run to left field, giving the Nats a 2-0 lead.

Kirby got two quick outs in the fourth before walking Garcia. His 3-2 sinker was a borderline pitch at the bottom of the strike zone, and Kirby did not get the call from plate umpire Malachi Moore. That began a string of five consecutive batters reaching base for the Nats.

Kirby was again one strike away from getting out of the inning unscathed until rookie Robert Hassell III, playing in his sixth MLB game, sent a 2-2 splitter to left field for an opposite-field single.

That drove in Garcia to make it 3-0.

On the next pitch, Jose Tena drove a hanging curveball the other way down the left-field line, driving in two more runs. The relay throw home from J.P. Crawford was off-target.

James Wood, Washington’s emerging young star, hit his 15th homer of the season way out to right field – 435 feet, with a 113.3 mph exit velocity

Hassell added his first career homer in the eighth off Mariners rookie reliever Blas Castaño, making his MLB debut, extending the Nats’ lead to 7-0. Wood added a two-run double to make it 9-0.

Only once did the Mariners get a runner past second base. That was in the sixth, after Miles Mastrobuoni hit his second single off Williams and eventually moved to third. But he was stranded there.

The Mariners are 2-12 when they don’t hit a homer, and their lead in the AL West shrunk to a half game after Houston’s victory over the Athletics earlier Wednesday.