Tonight the atmosphere at T-Mobile Park felt like when your parents have a party and invite a bunch of strangers and you’re like: who are all these people in my house? In a sold-out stadium between the Dodgers fans, who outnumbered Mariners fans roughly 3:1, their not-insignificant press corps, Japanese media here to cover Ohtani and Sasaki and hope for a glimpse of Ichiro, and media that doesn’t cover the Mariners daily here to see the AL Division champs, it didn’t feel like the cold-but-cozy days
of sparsely-populated April games. The game was weird, too: the Dodgers ran a bullpen game, and the Mariners pulled their starter after five (85 pitches) to do the same in a game that didn’t really matter to either team, at least on the scoreboard, where the Mariners lost, 3-2. Spring training, but without the spring. Fall training?
(Obligatory plug here for the Arizona Fall League, which is the best, and well-worth a quick little weekend trip down to Phoenix. Hotels and plane fares are cheap, the weather’s great, and the baseball is one of the best experiences for the (very minimal) buck, intimate and super kid-friendly.)
Of importance to Mariners fans: George Kirby got off to a blazing start, looking like his old self over the first couple of innings. He opened the game by striking out the side, touching 98.4 on his four-seamer while working in his slider. He had a similarly great second inning, again mowing down the middle of the Dodgers lineup 1-2-3. Kirby threw all four of his pitches—sinker, four-seam, slider, and curve—tonight, and was able to produce swing and miss on all of them, getting at least one of his 10 strikeouts on each type of the pitch. The hot new bombshell in the villa was his sinker, which Kirby said he’s made a tweak on in the grip after watching Bryan Woo throw his sinker in a bullpen a couple of weeks ago.
“I was like, dude, how do you throw that? And then he just showed me and I threw it the next day in my game and I had 14 punchies,” he grinned, referring to his outing against the Angels on September 14th.
“It’s been a great pitch the last couple weeks. I knew I wanted to make a little adjustment with it…It was as simple as just turning my fingers a little bit,” said Kirby, who said he felt like he’d lost the feel for the pitch some, especially the back-door sinker. “Sometimes all it takes is a new grip. You see one move and you’re like, okay, I’m back, and you have confidence with it.”
Can a sinker move like a wiffle ball? Let’s find out together:
But the Dodgers would pull ahead in the third. After allowing a leadoff infield hit to Dalton Rushing that was more bad BABIP luck, Kirby made a mistake to Enrique Hernández, hitting well below the Mendoza Line, falling behind 3-1 before leaving a fastball on the inner half of the plate Kiké was able to turn-and-burn on for a two-run homer, just his tenth of the year. With no outs, Kirby had to battle through the rest of the inning, issuing a walk to Ohtani but collecting another two strikeouts—one on the curveball and one on the four-seamer, both swinging—to close up shop.
That inning dinged Kirby’s pitch count, but other than that, he pitched well in a solid if abbreviated outing, racking up 10 strikeouts in just five innings and getting to 85 pitches, with a league-leading 18 whiffs on the day. The only other damage off him was a Miguel Rojas ground ball double that Eugenio Suárez kind of…watched go by him. Hey, I get it, Geno, there’s no need to be diving for anything in meaningless games, especially because he’d taken a foul ball sharply off his foot earlier in the game that seemed to cause him some issues. Also of concern: Josh Naylor departed the game in the fifth after experiencing groin tightness. Postgame Dan Wilson said the move was precautionary, as was the late scratch of Victor Robles, who was seen earlier in the clubhouse wearing an infrared heating pack over his previously injured shoulder.
The Mariners got a run early in the game, taking advantage of some mistakes from the Dodgers. Randy Arozarena worked a full count and then a soft infield single, taking second on a wild pitch from opener-not-starter Emmet Sheehan; he’d later score on an absolute rocket from Julio Rodríguez (114.9 mph off the bat) that was meanly scored an error on Michael Conforto, who attempted to catch the missile headed right at him and wound up with a stub of a glove instead. But the Mariners wilted after that, facing an endless parade of Dodgers bullpen arms that showed no signs of their monthlong struggle.
Meanwhile Eduard Bazardo was the first one out of the Mariners’ ‘pen and he was a touch wobbly, surrendering a run that would be the difference-maker in the game. He gave up a leadoff walk to Michael Conforto on ten pitches (ouch) followed by a single to Teoscar Hernandez and was one out away from getting out of it but left a sinker right in the middle of the plate that Rushing, another sub-Mendoza hitter, shot into right field for what would be the game-winning run.
The Mariners had a shot in the seventh when Randy Arozarena clobbered a two-out double off Roki Sasaki, missing a home run by inches, but Cal Raleigh struck out on three pitches, utterly baffled by Sasaki’s splitter. Big bummer. (Not to the media in the press box, who cackled with glee at every ugly swing Sasaki elicited.)
Instead, it took until the eighth inning of the game for the Mariners to get their second run, again capitalizing on some Dodger misplays. Blake Treinen got dinged with a pitch timer violation, granting Julio first base; he was replaced by Mitch Garver on a fielder’s choice, who worked his way to second and then hustled home on a Dominic Canzone single. It’s been occluded by the clinching and other high-drama games lately, but Canzone has been on an absolute tear this month (he also had a hit earlier in the game that would have been a homer had he hit it to literally any other part of the park). September baseball, like birds, isn’t real, but Dom’s wRC+ for September is 222. Deuces are wild and so is Canzone, who was sporting a “Mangia!”(“eat!”) t-shirt with his signature Italian-hand-gesture celebration on it pregame. When you’re at T-Mobile, you’re family.
J.P. Crawford almost delivered the go-ahead hit after working a ten-pitch at-bat, but Hyeseong Kim jumped up and snared his soft liner out of the air. Womp womp.
That left lefty Tanner Scott to close things down for the Dodgers. Scott has been very shaky down the stretch, but he was able to retire Leo Rivas—although Leo battled him to a full count, bless this pest—and then struck out Randy Arozarena swinging. That brought up Cal Raleigh, who did not homer but did double, because he can do other things than just hit homers, you guys. Unfortunately, with two outs it was just too little too late, as the Dodgers walked Julio for the second time in the game (how tacky) to get to Mitch Garver, who he then hit with a pitch (how silly!), bringing up a still-smarting Eugenio Suárez, who struck out on five pitches, not one of which was in the same zip code as the zone (how sad).
It’s been a bit of a joke this season among the media members about how many times Dan Wilson has said, after a loss, something to the effect of how proud he is about how his guys battled, or fought, or what have you. It’s a cliche that’s born itself out, though, as the Mariners pushed things to the very last pitch tonight, ultimately coming up short.
If the Mariners make a deep run at this, T-Mobile Park will continue to fill up with strangers, in the stands and in the press box and on the field. But focusing on a Mariner pitcher doing something excellent to make up for a meh offensive effort in a meaningless September game? It’s a strange new world, but tonight I feel right at home.
