The Seattle Mariners walked off the Cleveland Guardians tonight in a 4-3 win. But before we can talk about that we have to lay some foundation.
The Georgian architectural style from the 18th century — no come back, I swear this about baseball — was a type of neoclassical architecture that forwent towering pillars and decadent decoration. Typically reserved in ornamentation but still borrowing sensibilities from the styles of Greece and Rome, it’s most striking characteristics are an obsession with symmetry and balance.
Perhaps the most famous example of Georgian architecture in the United States is Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Notice how every element is evenly spaced and perfectly symmetrical, right down to the smaller buildings off to the side.
In fact, Georgian obsession with symmetry was to such an extent that functional doors on one side of a room are replicated on the other side by non-functional facades. Here’s an image of the famous Assembly Room from 2018. Only the door on the left hand side of the image actually goes anywhere. The one on the right is just decoration.
Now, if you’ve seen the box score for tonight’s Mariners 4-3 win over the Guardians, you’ll know why I’m bringing up this kind of symmetrical obsession. To Georgian eyes, this is a thing of beauty.
On the extreme edges, we have a delightful pair of 2-run innings serving as entryways to the interior. In-between them we have rows and rows of round, 0-run windows. And finally, as a tasteful decoration, a trio (centered on the midline, of course) of 1-run innings to break up the pattern a little bit. Add a clock tower and steeple and this box score would look like any town hall from the 1750s. But the symmetry goes even deeper than that. For instance: in the paths of both starting pitchers.
Mariners starter George Kirby did not have a typically dominant performance today. Uncharacteristically, he had trouble locating his fastball for a strike, and ended up issuing three walks, something he hadn’t done since 2023. It snapped the longest active streak of most consecutive starts of allowing two or fewer walks (68 (so close)). Fellow Mariner Bryan Woo inherited that streak and currently sits at 35.
While George struggled with fastball, his curveball was as good as its ever been, and became his favored pitch for the outing. “I really just had to kind of spot up my heaters tonight, though the curveball was awesome tonight,” he said postgame. “All my pitches are weapons, and I feel like I can throw them in any count or any situation… if you don’t have a good day with the heater, you gotta rely on some other things.”
Kirby battled in each of his five innings, throwing 20 pitches in the first, 18 in the second, 31 in the fourth, and 25 in the fifth. His only 1-2-3 inning was the third in which he induced three quick groundouts to retire the side on 9 pitches. He found himself deep into the count often, battling multiple hitters for 6, 7, and 8 pitches each. It was a laborious 5 inning start, the capper of which was this solo home run he allowed to José Ramírez who was slowly timing up the sinker all night.
But his opposite number, Tanner Bibee wasn’t having much better of a night. Just like Kirby, Bibee (which kind of sounds similar to “Kirby”) got stuck into a battle with almost every hitter he faced, although both the runs he gave up were in the first inning. The Mariners were finally on the good side of some babip luck as a soft line drive from J.P. Crawford and a bloop single from Julio Rodriguez (plus a pair of stolen bases) brought Cal Raleigh to the plate with two on and no one out. He managed to barrel up and pull an outside changeup from Bibee and bang it off the wall for an RBI. Jorge Polanco followed that up with a sac fly and the M’s came out of the inning with a 2-run lead.
Bibee wa able to lock in after his rocky start, though his pitch count kept climbing. After the second inning he was sitting at 46 pitches compared to George’s 45. But he was able to find something inside himself and managed to limp through fifth inning with 104 pitches and only two runs. Besides the two runs, the worst part of the night for Bibee was when he committed a disengagement violation against Randy Arozarena, failing to pick him off on the third move. Randy took his sweet time walking to second after that.
Gabe Speier took over on the mound after Kirby left the game and from one point of view he had a rough outing. But from another he saw the runs that Cleveland scored in the 4th and 5th and felt an overwhelming compunction to allow them to score a third for symmetry’s sake. He simply had no choice but to let Daniel Schneemann score from third on a wild pitch. But regardless of his motivations, the Guardians did take the lead.
Carlos Vargas, Casey Legumina, and Jackson Kowar all followed Speier in relief and each had great outings, with a J-Ram 2-out single allowed by Vargas the lone blemish on their collective performance.
Postgame, manager Dan Wilson emphasized the bullpen’s ability to get ahead in the count with strike one. “These guys really executed that so well tonight,” he said. “It was a big part of their success. They were in good counts, and when you’re in good counts it makes for a lot tougher of an at bat for those guys.”
Going into the bottom of the ninth inning, with a one-run lead and close Emmanuel Clase on the mound, the Guardians must have felt confident. After all, the previous 112 times they entered the ninth inning with a lead they had yet to lose a ballgame. But Seattle’s symmetrical sensibilities successfully surpassed Clase’s careful cutter-slider combination.
Dominic Canzone led off the inning with a single and was pinch ran for by Dylan Moore. A walk and a perfect sac bunt later and Moore was standing on third base. While he was pitching to Julio, Clase remembered that the last run Cleveland scored had come on a wild pitch. It was only symmetrically sensible, therefore, that he should allow a run in the same way.
And then, after Julio struck out swinging on a perfectly placed 101 mph fastball (seriously, don’t get mad at Julio for that), and Cal was intentionally walked, Jorge Polanco walked to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs. A grand slam home run would be a tremendously fun way to send the fans home happy. But it would make the box score unbalanced. Better to settle for a single. A win’s a win’s a win. But symmetry and balance?
That’s timeless.