Mariners fans enjoy vibe-repairing win over Reds 9-3.
Mariners score a season-high nine runs on 42 day.
One of the most challenging parts of baseball is the grind of playing a game every day, and also, one of the biggest gift of baseball is getting to play a game every day. Tonight the Mariners swept away yesterday’s bad vibes and disappointing loss to the Cubs with a team win that featured what so many of the games so far this season have lacked: solid pitching, grinding out at-bats, stacking hits, and playing clean defense, all working together in harmony. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73281665/usa_today_23035914.0.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
player making a debut; as Lou wrote, a debut is one of baseball’s most beautiful moments, creating a generous pride that connects us all as people. Tonight, Mariners fans were gifted an opportunity to feel that generous pride, and that generosity was extended by all members of the team, authoring one of the most complete team wins of the season.
George Kirby had a solid start, going six innings and allowing two runs on five hits, with no walks and six strikeouts. The one nit to pick could be over pitch efficiency; he got into some longer battles with hitters, going to three-ball counts five times and often needing six or more pitches to retire a hitter. Postgame Kirby said he was experimenting with a different slider grip to something akin to what Logan Gilbert uses, as an attempt to get the pitch more vertical movement and maybe elicit
some empty swings, although he wasn’t using that grip consistently and per Gameday, he didn’t get any whiffs on the slider tonight, period, although he did get five called strikes on the 14 he threw. Overall, Kirby got a respectable number of whiffs—12, putting him just off the leaderboard for today—but Servais emphasized the focus is on getting hitters to become uncomfortable in the box against him once again. There’s still work to be done on that front, but for tonight, Kirby did all the Mariners needed him to do and more, limiting the Reds to just two runs over a solid six innings.
Of course, it helps when you have some run support. In a refreshing change of pace, the Mariners got off to an early start offensively, exhausting Reds starter Frankie Montas in the first and making him throw 45 pitches. Montas didn’t have his command at all tonight, and the Mariners made him pay, with J.P. Crawford and Julio Rodríguez opening the game with back-to-back walks. In a 3-1 count, Jorge Polanco punished this fastball over the plate for his second home run in as many days:
