Seattle Mariners Offense Bucks Downward Trend With Kirby on The Mound
The Seattle Mariners earned a much-needed win on Sunday when they beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 10-3. It was the first win for the Mariners on their current nine-game road trip. They lost their five road games before Sunday.
Seattle starter George Kirby earned the win for his efforts on Sunday against the Pirates. But arguably the worst outings of his career came on this exact road trip.
Kirby's last start came against the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 13 in the first of the nine-game road trip. He pitched 3.2 innings and allowed 11 runs (six earned) off 12 hits. All 11 runs were originally ruled as earned before a play was retroactively changed to a throwing error to shortstop Leo Rivas.
Kirby followed one of his worst starts of his career up with a six-inning, five-strikeout quality start on Sunday.
"I just tried to put last week behind me. Take a couple things, learn from it," Kirby said in a postgame interview Sunday. "Today I just tried to pitch angry, pissed off. It really worked the first four (innings). And it kind of was hard for me to reel it back in the fifth and sixth. Got a little wild. ... But I'm just happy — quality start, gave the team a chance to win."
George Kirby, 98mph ⛽️ pic.twitter.com/TmMZQn0l6p
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 18, 2024
It was a good bounce back for Kirby. He's been one of the best pitchers in the game for two years but this season he hasn't had the greatest win-loss record. Due to very little fault of his own.
According to the ROOT Sports pregame broadcast — Sunday was just Seattle's second win in Kirby's last nine starts. He has a 3.40 ERA this season in 26 starts with 148 strikeouts in 150.2 innings pitched with a 9-9 record.
That is indicative of the kind of season the Mariners offense has had. But there's 37 games left in the season and the team's four games out of the top spot in the American League West. There's not a time better than now to give Kirby, and the rest of the pitching staff, some much-needed support.
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