referring to his outing against the Angels on September 14th<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a great pitch the last couple weeks. I knew I wanted to make a little adjustment with it\u2026It was as simple as just turning my fingers a little bit,\u201d said Kirby, who said he felt like he\u2019d lost the feel for the pitch some, especially the back-door sinker. \u201cSometimes all it takes is a new grip. You see one move and you\u2019re like, okay, I\u2019m back, and you have confidence with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Can a sinker move like a wiffle ball? Let\u2019s find out together:<\/p>\n
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 Hern\u00e1ndez, hitting well below the Mendoza Line, falling behind 3-1 before leaving a fastball on the inner half of the plate Kik\u00e9 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\u2014one on the curveball and one on the four-seamer, both swinging\u2014to close up shop.<\/p>\n
That inning dinged Kirby\u2019s 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 Su\u00e1rez kind of\u2026watched go by him. Hey, I get it, Geno, there\u2019s no need to be diving for anything in meaningless games, especially because he\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019d later score on an absolute rocket from Julio Rodr\u00edguez (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.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Eduard Bazardo was the first one out of the Mariners\u2019 \u2018pen 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s splitter. Big bummer. (Not to the media in the press box, who cackled with glee at every ugly swing Sasaki elicited.)<\/p>\n
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\u2019s choice, who worked his way to second and then hustled home on a Dominic Canzone single. It\u2019s 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\u2019t real, but Dom\u2019s wRC+ for September is 222. Deuces are wild and so is Canzone, who was sporting a \u201cMangia!\u201d(\u201ceat!\u201d) t-shirt with his signature Italian-hand-gesture celebration on it pregame. When you\u2019re at T-Mobile, you\u2019re family.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2014although Leo battled him to a full count, bless this pest\u2014and 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 Su\u00e1rez, who struck out on five pitches, not one of which was in the same zip code as the zone (how sad).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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\u2019s a cliche that\u2019s born itself out, though, as the Mariners pushed things to the very last pitch tonight, ultimately coming up short.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s a strange new world, but tonight I feel right at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tonight the atmosphere at T-Mobile Park felt like when your parents have a party and invite a bunch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,38487,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-344853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mariners","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-mariners","13":"tag-seattle-mariners-game-recaps","14":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115275088818037723","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}