> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # George Kirby Gem Powers Mariners Series Win vs. Phillies - URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/seattle-mariners-kirby-gem-powers-series-win-philadelphia-phillies/ - Published: 2026-08-26T20:37:20.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T06:10:33.000Z - Author: Callaghan Bluechel - Tags: Analysis, Mariners, George Kirby, Dan Wilson, Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodriguez, Josh Naylor, Dominic Canzone, Jose A. Ferrer, Andres Munoz [Embed from Getty Images](https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/2292074197?ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com) It’s hard to describe how badly George Kirby needed the start he got on Tuesday night. On the other hand, it’s rather easy to describe how badly the Mariners need every win they can get this month and for the rest of the 2026 season. One win got the M’s to a 64-69 record. Matching their 90-win total from 2025 would require an impossible 26-3 run for the rest of the year, but luckily for the team, they don’t need that. In an embarrassing showing for the sport of baseball itself, 81 wins (17-12 over the rest of the year) would probably get them a division crown; a true heater of, say, 20-9 over the rest of the season would be an easy division clincher. The other way to look at things is that, even in a year where going .500 probably wins them the division, the Mariners - who had World Series aspirations before the season began - need to put together at least a light heater just to make the playoffs. The only way ahead is forward, however, and they got one notch closer on Tuesday with their 4-1 victory. ### George Kirby reached the eighth, a welcome respite from his recent form. “George was really the story today,” said Mariners manager Dan Wilson after Tuesday’s game. Kirby had been lit up from every angle in his previous five outings, giving up six homers and only striking out 13 while walking eight with a 7.13 ERA. This was even with a seven-inning, no-run outing among this stretch, but every other game had seen him get lit up Chicago-style: early and often. This was especially true on the road: seven runs in Texas, five in Houston, and six in Milwaukee had ballooned his ERA from 3.57 before the stretch to 4.18 after it. Even at home, the Rays had forced Kirby out of a game after five. For Kirby, a lot of it was the missing off-speed pitch. Between either splitters or changeups, ever since his 2025 injury that made him lower his arm angle, he hadn’t been tossing as many pitches that tailed away from left-handers. He had often tried to go to his sinker - which works decently well when it doesn’t drop as much and has more of a two-seam action - but especially recently, it has been dropping into the wheelhouse and turning into cannon fodder. This has been especially true with runners on, when Kirby often throws an in-between sinker that doesn’t get low enough to become a groundout but isn’t enough of a two-seamer enough to get over bats. The one run the Phillies scored on Tuesday was indeed such a sinker. With runners on the corners and one out in the second, Kirby fell behind Justin Crawford 1-0 and tried to get a double play to end the inning, only for Crawford to shoot it into center and put Philadelphia ahead 1-0. After that point, however, he started tossing the splitter to lefties with great effect. It was only ever an offering he threw underneath the zone - with four swings and misses and one foul ball being the only strikes on the pitch - but it did the job as he mowed down one Philly after another. “It’s one pitch for me that, the more I think about it, the worse it is,” Kirby said. “So, just kind of grip it and let it eat.” “It kind of just opens up the outside of the plate for me,” the hurler continued. “It’s good mixing the curveball, the sweeper off it, and it just makes my four much better.” From the final out of the second, Kirby got 15 straight batters out. Six of them were strikeouts (he logged nine on the day) and none of them managed a hard-hit ball. The hurler’s ruthless efficiency became clearer by the batter as he was on 59 pitches after five innings, 70 after six, and 79 after seven. Although there were lefties coming Kirby’s way in the eighth and Jose A. Ferrer was warming in the bullpen, the skipper let him back out to the mound. Kirby got the first two men out before a 2-2 curveball stayed up to Bryce Harper and he cracked it into center. Wilson went out to the mound and pulled Kirby, clearly at the perfect time despite boos from a crowd who wanted their hurler to go the distance. “Again, those decisions are difficult,” Wilson said, his words the same as in grimmer moments about bullpen usage, “But George was still seemingly fairly strong, but we just felt like that was a good opportunity there.” Ferrer quickly got the out to strand Harper and make Kirby’s 7 ⅔ innings of one-run ball official. As for the skipper, he probably pulled Kirby at the exact right time. While the splitter was Kirby’s most obvious shift, his decision to go away from his more recent kitchen-sink strategies and orient his pitching around the four-seam fastball was the true basis for his success. Sometimes, a hurler needs to kitchen-sink his way through a lineup, but if that comes to be expected (especially if there are situational or physical tells as to which pitch is coming), then reorienting to a fastball-heavy approach can have its benefits. Helping this was the fact that Kirby’s heater had plenty of zip on Tuesday, averaging 97.9 miles an hour compared to a season average of 96.6 miles an hour. ### Cal Raleigh continued his nascent heater, walking twice and belting another homer. Three home runs is no mean feat. In times where there are few lights on the out-of-town scoreboard, such performances can be remembered for years; see Reggie Jackson for more details. Raleigh’s trio of round-trippers on Monday hadn’t been as monumental as the Bronx straw that stirred the ‘70s drink, but they finally raised his OPS above .600 and provided a level of momentum he hadn’t seen in many months. Raleigh didn’t hit three more on Tuesday, but one was enough to knot the score with Philadelphia. Visiting starter Aaron Nola left a curveball in Raleigh’s wheelhouse with a 2-1 count in the second and the catcher torched it into the seats in right field, his 18th of the season and Seattle’s first run of the game. While Raleigh struck out once, he also walked twice, meaning that he went 1-for-2 in terms of at-bats and brought his average up to .169, finally higher than Chris Davis’ .168 in 2018 that has served since then as the worst qualified average in the modern era. He still has a long way to go, but the struggling catcher might finally have some light in his tunnel. At the very least, he has found something of a groove, though it’s unclear how long this will continue. ### Dominic Canzone capped off some late Mariners scoring to give Seattle the 4-1 win. The game remained knotted until the sixth. Kirby was dominating the Phillies in the top halves of each inning, while in the bottom halves, the Mariners didn’t get anyone into scoring position until the sixth. Luckily for Seattle, the man they got on base that frame was Julio Rodríguez. The annual second half heater hasn’t arrived for the center fielder - with his OPS still at .723 after Tuesday’s game - but he rolled a slow grounder up the middle and beat out Trea Turner’s throw to first with one away. With Josh Naylor at the dish, Rodríguez bolted for second, swiping his 17th base of the season. If he gets three more stolen bases this year (before Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. hits four more homers), he will be the first player in MLB history to begin his career with five straight 20/20 seasons. It’s likely both Rodríguez and Witt will reach the accolade, but the race to get there first is perhaps an underappreciated storyline of the 2026 season. Naylor cracked a single to bring Rodríguez home, though he wound up getting nailed trying to take second on the play. It was 2-1 for the hosts. Still, the Mariners were only up by a run. Ferrer started warming up in the bottom of the seventh and may have begun the eighth had the M’s not tacked on some more runs to their lead, but the traffic finally gathered against Phillies reliever Orion Kerkering. With one out, Kerkering hit Taylor Ward with a pitch before J.P. Crawford singled and Brock Rodden walked. Randy Arozarena popped out to foul ground to bring Dominic Canzone to the dish with two outs and the bags packed. The visitors brought in the left-handed Brooks Raley to get the platoon matchup against Canzone. Earlier in the season, this may have been a time for Seattle to bring in a right-handed platoon bat, perhaps a Rob Refsnyder or, with the current roster, a Patrick Wisdom. But Canzone, with a .386 on-base percentage against southpaws going into that at-bat, had long since earned the right to hit lefties. “When he’s warming up, probably about four or five batters deep, just trying to develop a plan with ‘Seitz’ (Mariners hitting coach Kevin Seitzer), and especially with runners on, just have an idea of, he’s probably going to try to spin me to death as they’ve tried to do all series,” Canzone said of his approach going into the at-bat. “So just trusting in that process and just trying to stay behind it.” As Canzone would go on to say, he was looking for things to drive up the middle against the lefty, knowing that the direction of the breaking balls would naturally take his hits in that direction unless they were hangers. Even in his strong 2025 season, his .641 OPS in high-leverage situations left a lot to be desired in the clutch. This year, however, Canzone now has an .856 OPS in high leverage, and the most recent addition was the single he slapped into left center on Raley’s third straight sweeper of the at-bat. Both Ward and Crawford came home to make it 4-1. And although Andrés Muñoz allowed a couple runners to reach base, he finished out the save without any runs coming across and the M’s took the second game of the series. ### On Deck Over the first five games of their current homestand, the M’s have been outscored 31-26 - but they have won four out of those five games. Starting Wednesday down two and a half games in the division to the Astros, they have a chance to sweep the Phillies and finish off a potential 5-1 homestand.