Tonight’s game started off on a sour note, with another first-inning bomb from Guardians rookie Chase DeLauter, already his third on the season. It seemed to foreshadow a replay of last night’s loss. But the next batter flipped the vibes, as Cole Young went full extension to corral a hard-hit grounder from Jose Ramírez and get things back on track for Mariners starter George Kirby.
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Kirby settled down from there, kicking off a run of retiring 11 of 12 batters with five strikeouts. In some ways, he looked like vintage Kirby, with pinpoint command and touching 98 at times. In other ways, it was an unusual performance for him. He went to his four-seamer almost 50% of the time, about twice as much as last year. The fact that the Guardians’ major threats batted from the left side help explain why Kirby left his sinker on the shelf, and the DeLauter dinger coming on a terrible slider may explain Kirby’s hesitance to return to that pitch. He’s also deliberately trying to use his curveball against opposite-handed hitters more this year.
“[The curveball] is a great weapon, especially against the lefties to start the count or finish it,” he said after the game. “But we were aggressive with heaters, and using the curve just to kind of change their sights a little bit and then go back to the heat. But yeah, the curveball is one pitch I really want to rely on to lefties. Good strike pitch, good strikeout pitch. And the more I throw it, the better it is.”
The plan faltered in the fifth inning, when Kirby gave up rare back-to-back walks to open the inning and, an out later, hit a batter. But for as much as the tension rose in the moment, Kirby says he didn’t feel it: “For me right now the biggest thing is to find a way to get back in control and stay in control. Those runners out there in that situation were the least of my worries. Just go attack the hitter – I think it was Kwan at the time – these guys are on, flush it, get back in control and attack from there. So I feel like I’ve made a big step in that side of my game.”
The result was inducing an easy fly ball to shallow left. A baffling baserunning decision by Rhys Hoskins turned it into the easiest double play of Randy Arozarena’s career—just the way Randy likes it—and the end of the threat.
Kirby came back out for one more three-up-three-down inning to finish the night with six strikeouts, two walks, and just two hits and one run on 90 pitches. After an uneven 2025, this was a very promising first start to 2026 for him.
He also left with the lead thanks to the bottom half of the Mariners lineup. It was another quiet night for the heart of the order, with a meaningless walk from Julio Rodríguez the only time he reached base, Cal Raleigh wearing a golden sombrero, and Josh Naylor also sporting a goose egg for his batting line. But at least Randy Arozarena recovered from last night’s torpor, catalyzing the guys behind him a couple times.
He worked a four-pitch walk in the fourth inning, inspiring Dominic Canzone to do the same. With those two runners on base, Cole Young fouled off two belt-high fastballs in a row. Finding himself in an 0-2 count to a pitcher who’d been struggling with command all game could have overwhelmed Cole Young. He says he “definitely” could not have stayed on top of a 97-mph heater in an 0-2 count last year. But this isn’t last year. Crediting a new routine and his work with machines that simulate a given pitcher’s spin, he feels he’s better able to execute. And that’s just what he did, taking the third pitch into the seats for his first home run of the season to make the score 3-1.
Two innings later, Randy led off with another walk, once again never even feinting that he might swing. But if he was a statue in the box, he was anything but once he reached first base, dancing around like a silent disco with long, fidgety, start-and-stop leads. It seemed to get Guardians reliever Colin Holderman shook, leading to him leaving a very tempting middle-middle cutter to Luke Raley, who drove it out of the deep part of the park. It’s worth noting that Raley pulled that off after attempting a bunt earlier in the at-bat. The delightfulness of that juxtaposition and his earlier 110-mph fly out earns Luke Raley this season’s first Sun Hat Award, an award I give out in my recaps to a player who makes a noteworthy individual contribution to the game.
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Kirby’s having pitched that extra sixth inning after seeming to lose it a bit in the fifth meant that the Mariners could use just three relievers tonight, saving arms for the rest of the series. We were treated to the season’s first appearances by Eduard Bazardo, Matt Brash, and Andrés Muñoz, who each allowed a harmless single as they get themselves dialed in and were otherwise the reliable arms you hope for at the back of a bullpen. The biggest highlight of the back three innings was Julio instituting the No Fly Zone in earnest for the first time this season, with a front slide and slick wrist work to wrangle in a ball in the no man’s land behind the infield.
Julio might still be looking for his first hit, but he can’t have one, he’s making damn sure no one else can have one either.
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That play helped lock down the 5-1 win as the Mariners look to get over .500 in Game 3 and stay there for another 159 games after that.
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