The Mariners dominated the Angels in a bounce back 6-2 win on Monday.
That’s really it. This game was quick. It was simple. And it was necessary after Sunday’s disastrous, hard-feelings loss in Cleveland. George Kirby was great. He had a few hiccups early, mostly limited to Zach Neto, and then worked through eight innings with vintage efficiency. The Mariners offense backed him up with some timely hits and a trio of homers, including two from Cole Young. With the win, the Mariners are back to .500, beginning a crucial four-series stretch ahead of the All-Star Break.
“Quick wins are always good wins,” Dan Wilson said postgame, clearly pleased with his team’s bounce back performance.
For as great as this game ultimately turned out, it felt a bit familiar through the first two-plus innings. The Angels jumped on Kirby quickly. Neto led off the first by lacing a double into the gap, and he quickly scored on a one hopper from Denzer Guzman. The Angels got Neto back to the plate by the third, and he made it 2-0 with a solo homer. It was early, but it certainly didn’t feel after the Mariners’ lineup had gone went six up, six down against Angels’ starter Ryan Johnson, with a bunch of weak contact to boot.
Then Young stepped to the plate to lead off the third. He watched the first five pitches of the at bat to work the count full. Then Johnson returned with a middle-middle sinker, and Young took his hack, cutting the deficit in half with a laser to right.
The Mariners lineup got right back to it in the fourth. Julio led off with a single. Dominic Canzone followed with a ground into a double a double play — at 103.6 mph, it was by far the hardest batted ball of the inning. But the pressure was on, and Johnson looked vulnerable. Randy Arozarena took a hit by pitch. Josh Naylor hit a 46 mph squibber to third, that spun under Guzman’s glove and leaked into left field, moving Arozarena to third and Naylor to second.
That brought up the slumping Cal Raleigh, who was candid about his and the team’s struggles with runners in scoring position after Sunday’s loss. Johnson got a quick called strike then threw the cutter low and in. Cal took a hack of sorts, getting handcuffed but muscling a flare into no-man’s land in left field. It dropped and plated a scoring a pair of runs to give the Mariners a 3-2 lead.
“I think he hit the nail on the head yesterday,” Wilson said of Raleigh’s comments on Sunday. “Today, he didn’t want to try to do too much. He got a pitch he could handle, it got in on him a little bit, but he was able to hit it to left field and get that ball in and pick up those two runs. That’s the approach – not getting too big where you swing and miss on that pitch, or taking a swing where you’re out front, but he stayed on it, stayed through it, and was able to get it in left field and give us the lead, which I think was obviously the big turning point in the ball game.”
The Mariners broke it open in the sixth against lefty reliever Mitch Farris. Canzone quickly fell behind, but fought and fought and eventually got a middle-middle fastball. He crushed it 428 feet to right center.
Josh Naylor then drew a walk, putting a runner on for Young. He saw one pitch, and obliterated it off the facing of the Hit-It-Here Café. His second homer of the day gave the Mariners a 6-2 lead after six.
The Mariners, of course, have struggled mightily against lefties this year. They simply don’t have many quality righty batters and are now forced to take a number of left-on-left at bats. Young said the key to improving against them going forward is to keep things simple.
“The biggest thing is not thinking too much about it It’s not, ‘Oh, he’s a lefty, it’s gonna be so much different.’ It’s more, ‘All right, let’s create an approach against this guy, and let’s stick to it, not try to do too much and just stick to the approach and hit it hard somewhere.’”
Kirby cruised after his early issues with Neto. He got a double play to work around base runners in the fourth. He struck out the side in the fifth. Then he set down the side in order in each the sixth and seventh with limited labor. The defense behind him was excellent, highlighted by this slick play from J.P. Crawford at third.
A game that looked a bit iffy early saw Kirby at just 79 pitches after seven innings, with a chance to get through eight for the first time since early April. Was there any question about whether he’d go back out for the eighth?
“Yeah we were kind of on the fence about what to do there,” Wilson said with a grin.
Now, the eighth wasn’t perfect for Kirby. Josh Lowe led off with a double, and Neto remained a pest, drawing a one-out walk. But Kirby then had two of my favorite at bats of his season. He threw four straight straight sweepers to start Guzman out 2-2, then a 98-mph dot on the low-and-away corner (or at least close enough) , freezing Guzman.
That brought up Nolan Schanuel, who fouled off several pitches. Kirby then got him to chase way out of the zone on a curveball in the dirt. It was his 17th whiff and seventh strikeout of the day. Kirby stormed off the mound, fired up as the furious George of old, only to enter the dugout through a hand-tunnel from his teammates (which he kindly demonstrated for the press corps). He could be seen in the dugout not long after with a wide grin on his face. It was a good day.
“There was something in him tonight that was a little bit different – the look in his eye – and he was really able to shut them down,” Wilson said.
For Kirby, it was nice to see him not let the game get away after early struggles and an up-and-down season to this point.
“You just gotta tip your cap sometimes, and if that stuff happens early, it doesn’t mean the game’s over,” Kirby said. “I just have to keep going, and I feel like I’ve been doing a lot better job of that. Some stuff happens early on, just keep my head down, just keep going, and get the win for the team.”
Perhaps the Mariners might take something from that as well.
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