The Mariners win streak got buried alive.
The Mariners lost 7-1 to the Mets on Wednesday afternoon, snapping an eight-game win streak. It was their first loss in a week and a half, having swept the Athletics and the Diamondbacks before taking the first two this week against the Mets. As I wrote in the game preview, nine games is where win streaks start to get semi-historic for the Mariners. This particular stretch fell just short.
George Kirby got the ball. It didn’t go well, even if he actually pitched
pretty OK. He struck out five, walked one, and allowed mostly weak contact on the ground. But he was chased after four innings following a grounder-BABIP implosion. The Mets against Kirby wracked up eight singles and a double — the double being the dumbest hit of all — finding every natural and manmade hole in the infield.
Kirby was… terse after the game. How does it feel watching grounders roll into the outfield?
“It’s really annoying,” he said after a long pause, eventually turning his frustration toward himself. “I haven’t really been getting ahead well. Got to find ways to get more swing and miss. But I’ve got to get ahead, first off. I’ve been really bad with it the last couple weeks. That’ll allow me to get some opportunities to really go for that swing and miss once I get two strikes. So that’s the biggest focus right now.
“What’s happened the last couple weeks, I know I’m so much better and more capable of getting these outs, getting ahead, whatever it may be. I just got to keep my head down and keep going to work, keep up with my mental stuff, all that good stuff during the week, and keep believing in my stuff and it’ll turn around.”
It’s been a weird season for Kirby. He’s gotten fewer strikeouts and more walks than in the past, but he’s made up for it with a massive increase in groundballs. The effect has been, in aggregate, kind of the same. Kirby has a 3.39 FIP, or roughly identical to his career mark. But the increased reliance on the defense behind him hasn’t always worked in his favor. That was most of the story for Kirby on Wednesday.
In the first inning, he gave up a pair of one out singles. Jared Young followed with a hard grounder to Josh Naylor at first. Naylor looked to start a double play, but fired way over J.P. Crawford’s head at second, sailing it into left field to score the game’s first run.
In the fourth inning, Kirby loaded the bases on a walk and two singles. Bo Bichette followed with a grounder up the middle. Crawford couldn’t quite there with a dive, watching the ball trickle into center to score a pair of runs.
Juan Soto followed with another grounder to Naylor, who again tried to start an inning-ending double play. But Naylor seemed to slow himself down after the error in the first, this time making a slow, looping (technically accurate) throw to second. Crawford made the out, but his arm wasn’t strong enough to make the turn, extending the inning further.
With runners on first and third and two out, Soto stole second. Catcher Jhonny Pereda fired down to try to nab Soto at second, but the throw was a skosh late, allowing the runner from third to trot home and make the game 4-1.
Jared Young followed with another hard grounder to first. Naylor ranged over and looked set to make the play, but the ball hit the bag, popped into the air, and landed in right field, allowing Young to wheel into second while another run scored. It was the only extra base hit Kirby allowed. A strikeout finally ended it.
That was Kirby’s day. He was pulled after four innings, with the score 5-1. Again, he struck out five, walked one, and got grounders on 65% of the contact allowed. Normally, that would look like a great day — it’s a FIP of 1.34. Through a mixture of poor luck and poor defense, however, it goes down as another unfortunate, frustrating day for Kirby.
“They put a lot of pitches on him early and it seemed like it was tough to get settled in,” Dan Wilson said after the game. “It just seemed like it never got to where it was going George’s way. Tough one for him, for sure. But I didn’t think they made a ton of solid contact, and he made some good pitches.”
I’ll be curious to see how the Outs Above Average leaderboard shifts after Wednesday’s outing. The Mariners entered the day as the worst defense in baseball by this “range” metric. Baseball Savant provides an alternative view, showing which pitchers have fared the best and worse with the defense behind them. Kirby entered the day at -4 OAA, tied with teammate Jose Ferrer for the worst on the team and in the bottom 20 in baseball. That’s to say, few pitchers have been more punished by what’s largely beyond their control.
That’s the rub for Kirby and this new grounder-first profile. Groundballs are good because they can’t be homers (though I wouldn’t put anything past the Mariners defense), but they’re not as good as strikeouts because they can still be hits, they can still advance runners, and they can still ruin an otherwise fine outing. And with a defense like the Mariners, that’s become a real threat to Kirby’s performance.
Now, why is Kirby allowing more grounders this year? I’m really not sure. He’s said in the past that he’s not sure, either. There’s some subtle shifts to his pitch shapes, but nothing to me that leaps out as an obvious culprit. To be fair, his groundball rate had been trending down the last few weeks, and it’s possible this is simply a weird, small sample fluke. If it’s not, though, I suspect we’ll continue to see the occasional implosion, even in outings where he’s fine.
Anyways, we’re still at the fourth inning. More things happened in this game beyond Kirby getting beaten into the dirt. The Mets kept wracking up hits against the Mariners bullpen and finished the day with 14 hits, including three doubles. They got another run in the fifth. They got another run in the eighth. There was some more unfortunate defense and seeing-eye singles. I don’t care to get into it.
The Mariners offense was weak. Crawford opened the bottom of the first with his 10th homer of the year. It was the Mariners only run of the game.
Crawford would leadoff the third with a double, and Julio Rodríguez walked behind him. But the threat was nixed when Randy Arozarena grounded into a double play.
In the fourth, the Mariners threatened again with back-to-back singles from Cole Young and Dominic Canzone. Pereda worked a full count, threatening to load the bases or plate a run. But Pereda stepped out of the box — apparently for the second time in the at bat — resulting in automatic strike three. The Mariners would go pretty much in order the rest of the game.
And so the eight-game win streak ends with a thud. It was a solid run in the end. The Mariners zipped from four games under .500 to four games up, before falling Wednesday to 33-30. They also leapt from 2 1/2 games back to 2 1/2 games up in the AL West. They’ll have an off day tomorrow before a 10-game roadtrip to Detroit, Baltimore, and D.C.
“It’s a special group of players in there, and I know how strongly we as a coaching staff believe in them, they know how strongly they believe in themselves, and we knew it was coming our way at some point,” Wilson said of the win streak. “All good things must come to an end at some point, and we just start a new one on Friday.”
