George Kirby grounds Braves, Mariners strikeout 16 times in 3-2 loss

George Kirby kept the Braves on the ground for seven innings, but the Mariners struck out 16 times while watching an early lead slip away.

Andrés Muñoz allowed the go-ahead homer to Matt Olson in the ninth inning Tuesday, giving the Braves a 3-2 win. The Mariners had gotten out to an early lead on a two-run home run from J.P. Crawford in the third. But they picked up just one more hit the rest of the way, rarely threatening while, again, punching out 16 times.

The highlight of the game, however, was another strong start from Kirby. It’s been a weird season for him so far. He’s walking more and striking out fewer batters than ever, but he entered the day with a 56.5% ground ball rate — the fifth best in baseball. His 2.84 xERA suggests the approach has been working, but even he’s not quite sure where all the grounders are coming from.

“Guys are just kind of hitting them on the ground, honestly,” Kirby said after the game. “I think that’s just kind of what happens when you try and get strike one. You’re in the zone a lot throwing quality strikes. So, the more ground balls, the better. Helps me go deeper in games and eventually get the swing and miss when I needd it.”

Here’s how his first pass through the order went:

1st inning: Groundout, groundout, strikeout
2nd inning: Groundout, single, groundout double play
3rd inning: Strikeout, weak fly out, ground out

The plot below doesn’t reflect Tuesday’s outing, in which Kirby posted a 65% ground ball rate, but it’s clearly a trend. We’ve simply never seen this type of contact from him before.

The other, less-fortunate trend for Kirby in the early going is a noticeable dip in effectiveness on the second turn through the order. He entered the day with a stellar 2.79 FIP on the first pass and a less flattering (but not terrible) 4.21 FIP on the second.

That issue “technically” cropped up again in the fourth inning. Ozzie Albies and Olson picked up back-to-back singles, and Mauricio Dubón doubled them home to tie the game at 2-2. The contact wasn’t particularly hard, and it was mostly on the ground, so it’s not like he was getting rocked.

“I don’t think they made any good swings in that inning,” Kirby said of the fourth. “I thought I executed really well, it just kind of found a hole. So I’m gonna keep doing my thing, keep inducing weak contact, and those will eventually go my way off the bat.

“It was so random, how it went off the bat. I threw that ball four balls off the plate. I don’t even want to talk about that one. That was just ridiculous,” he said of the fluky double from Dubón, hit at just 66 mph down the right field line.

Kirby mixed his pitches effectively throughout the game, helping keep a great Braves’ lineup off balance. He really leaned on his sweeper, throwing it 36% of the time — the most he’s thrown in a game this season. He was even throwing it 30% of the time to lefties, or about double his rate from his previous seven starts. He was clearly trying to back door the pitch, starting it way outside before scraping the outer part of the zone.

It often worked. In his final at bat of the game, Kirby started Mike Yastrzemski with a changeup right over the center of the plate, which he was clearly not expecting. Then he threw a biting hook that Yastrzemski chased at his toes. Kirby followed with two 96+ mph fastballs up, and Yastrzemski fouled them off. Then came the sweeper, looking like a fastball way up and away before landing right on the outer black for a called strike three.

“Tonight Garv did a good job establishing the outside to lefties with the sweeper, getting them to lean over and then attacking with heaters and then crowding them with spin. So, got a a lot of good weak contact…We game-planned to steal them back-door. I feel like that’s always been a good pitch of mine, I can get it there whenever I want to. And then with two strikes, I was able to get it down below the plate when I needed to. I’m always working on that pitch, trying to get some swings and misses.”

The paired pitches tool from FanGraphs illustrates just how tough it is for a batter to offer at that backdoor pitch:

Kirby’s final line was seven innings, six hits, one walk, four strikeouts, and a 65% ground ball rate. It’s sixth time in eight starts Kirby has gone at least six innings, and he’s now two-thirds of an inning short of Max Fried for the most in the majors.

“As a starter, I want to go as deep in the game as possible and give my team the best chance to win. So if it’s ground balls, great, strikeouts, awesome, if it’s a little bit of both, even better,” Kirby said.

Jose Ferrer came on in the eighth with the game stilled at 2-2. He delivered another impressive outing: strikeout, strikeout, pop out. He lowered his FIP to 2.31 in 18 innings, making him one of the top 15 relievers in baseball this year. Hhis role is only going to increase with Gabe Speier and Matt Brash each on the injured list.

Dan Wilson turned to Muñoz in the ninth with the game tied 2-2. He hung a slider not quite middle-middle but clearly within the reach of Olson, who deposited it over the center field wall at 110 mph. It was a leadoff homer that gave the Braves a 3-2 lead, which wound up being the final score.

It was the third home run Muñoz has allowed this season and raised his ERA to 6.00. He also picked up two more strikeouts to raise his K/9 to 15.00. He has a 3.81 FIP and 2.34 xFIP. This pesky homer problem crops up from time to time with Muñoz, mostly because he’s a reliever. A few bad outings looks like a streak when they come one inning at a time. The stuff continues to look dominant. I’m not worried.

Then there’s the Mariners lineup. Again, they struck out 16 times Tuesday. Cal Raleigh returned at DH after three days dealing with “general soreness” in his side, and he struck out three times. Julio Rodríguez, Randy Arozarena, Mitch Garver, and Cole Young each struck out twice. Crawford also struck out twice, but he did this as well:

It’s the second homer in as many nights for Crawford, who swatted a tremendous go-ahead blast in Friday’s 5-4 win. He’s clearly seeing the ball well right now, drawing walks, avoiding strikeouts, and elevating to the pull side. Yes, the defense is worse than ever and unplayably bad — not an ideal for a team with several other DHs. But in general, Crawford remains with the team because he’s a solid hitter who can occasionally get scorching hot. His contact quality has outpaced his results most of the season, and the results are starting to come.

That’s the only positive thing to say about the offense Tuesday.

The Mariners will look to take the series Wednesday afternoon, with Bryan Woo facing Martín Pérez. The Braves have not lost a series in 2026.

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