George Kirby bounces back, but Mariners' offense goes quiet in loss to Orioles

BALTIMORE - The evolution of George Kirby continued in the Mariners' 7-2 loss to the Orioles on Wednesday.

Through the first five innings, the Mariners' 28-year-old right-hander was as good as he's been all season.

His fastball had extra life, topping out at 99 mph on a handful of occasions.

His sweeper had some bite, setting him up for a season-high 10 strikeouts.

And his escape from a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the third inning offered some encouragement, certainly.

Kirby, of course, wasn't pleased with how the sixth inning unfolded, and that's what stuck with him well after he'd exited this one.

"This game finds a way to slap you in the face all the time," he said. "So the more and more you go through it, then the more you learn from it. So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm still gonna be mad, still gonna be angry, but use it in a different way to approach the next start."

This was Kirby's most effective start in a month. The three runs he allowed all came in that sixth inning, after Pete Alonso got on top of Kirby's elevated 97-mph fastball and hit it out to center field to break a scoreless tie.

"Man, I get (down) 1-0 and now it's game over," Kirby said, exhaling.

The Orioles would add two more runs off Kirby in the inning, and the 3-0 hole was more than the Mariners' thinned-out lineup could overcome.

Still, it has to be encouraging for the Mariners to hear their former All-Star talk so candidly about his ability to process such an outcome.

The club has long viewed Kirby as a pitcher with as much upside as anyone they've had come through their system in this era. The best version of this Mariners club has to include the best version of Kirby.

Kirby's emotional outbursts, though, have at various points in his career held him back, but he's acknowledged much of that, and he wants to learn, wants to grow, wants to evolve.

And maybe an otherwise nondescript mid-June Wednesday game on a gloomy day in Baltimore winds up being a positive step forward for Kirby in that regard.

"There's been a lot of moments come up this year, the last month, that are kind of like (a) fight-or-flight moment," Kirby said. "And I feel like I've been doing a good job of that mentally. Those results will start coming my way eventually, but I'm thinking about it the right way and doing the right thing."

Kirby threw a season-high 104 pitches, though he did also match his season high with three walks, something that has always frustrated him. Getting through a full six innings was important to help save the Mariners' taxed bullpen.

He was determined to get through (six innings), and you've got to love to see that," M's manager Dan Wilson said. "And I thought he did a great job of limiting as much damage there as he could."

The Mariners' banged-up lineup managed just two hits off Orioles right-hander Brandon Young, who threw seven shutout innings.

"Their guy was tough tonight," Wilson said. "I thought he had a good splitter going. He kept us off-balance. He was able to move (his fastball) around and just not give us anything to square up."

Mariners rookie reliever Domingo González, recalled from Triple-A Tacoma earlier in the day when Matt Brash (right lat strain) was placed on the 15-day injured list, had a rough return to the big leagues, giving up a grand slam to Jackson Holliday in the seventh inning to blow the game open.

That pushed the O's lead to 7-0.

The Mariners, playing with a fill-in infield again, didn't get a runner into scoring position until the eighth inning, after Young was out of the game.

Julio Rodríguez had an RBI ground out and Josh Naylor followed with an RBI double off the right-field wall, and the Mariners avoided a shutout.

Because they've been using a six-man starting rotation, the M's have been down to seven relievers. And with Brash and Cooper Criswell both landing on the IL this week, the bullpen is wearing thin, to the point that Wilson acknowledged the club might have to make another move to bring in a fresh arm Thursday.

"We'll talk about it here and try to figure out what we need to do," Wilson said. "It's been a tougher push here with some of the injuries and some of the things that have happened, but we'll be in good shape and ready to win tomorrow.

The Mariners (36-33) are 3-3 on this 10-day, 10-game East Coast trip, and they'll turn to Bryan Woo on Thursday to try win the series. The game is scheduled to air on ESPN.

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