No major-league pitcher this century has accomplished what George Kirby did when he was 16 years old.
In 2014, as a sophomore at Rye (NY) High School, Kirby threw 153 pitches in the sectional championship game against Lakeland High. No pitcher in the majors has thrown that many pitches in a game since Colorado’s Pedro Astacio in 1999. No one in the last decade has reached within 20.
“We were probably at 115, 120, but his competitiveness was like, ‘I’m not coming out of the game, Coach, I won this game,’ so I put him back in for the seventh inning,” said Mike Si Bruno, who coached at Rye for 16 years. “He gave up a couple of hits and then hit the side.”
It was without doubt, Bruno agreed now. He was supposed to take out Kirby. But there were no pitch limits back then, Kirby’s parents said it was great — and, well, it was George Kirby. You can’t take the ball away from George Kirby.
Regardless of what he said after the Tampa Bay start earlier this month.
“To hear those comments and knowing him from high school, it was like, ‘That’s not George,’†Bruno said. “We don’t know where that came from. He’s just a guy who always wants the ball, doesn’t want to go out, always wants to be the guy who wins the game. So it’s unfortunate that he’s being marked down so little now. This is definitely not fair. “
Ah, yes: those comments. In facing the Rays on Sept. 8, Kirby allowed a game-tying home run to René Pinto in the seventh inning in an eventual 7-4 loss for the Mariners, who have gone 8-15 this month as they try to return to the postseason. After the game, he said he shouldn’t have pitched in the sevenththat 90 pitches to six is ​​enough.
For many observers, this is proof that the modern game has softened. Kirby, 25, was widely mocked, especially by former pitchers on X, the platform then known as Twitter: Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling, Mark Mulder and Derek Holland, Huston Street and Jered Weaver, and on and on. Kirby knew he was wrong, and talked about it that night with Mariners manager Scott Servais, coaches and teammates. she apologized to the public the next day.
“We knew at that moment that he was not unflappable — that he was, in this place, a young player who needed to experience these things and grow,” said Jerry Dipoto, the Mariners’ president of baseball operations. “But that’s not his mindset — ever. This guy will literally fight you in the dugout to get back there. He is the one who is disappointed when we talk about skipping the start or going to six people (rotating) for a week so they can rest. He’s the one who’s usually more vocal about, ‘Hey, we don’t need this anymore, let us talk.'”
Kirby continued to pitch in high school, going 23-0 over his final three years, then becoming a first-round draft pick of the Mariners out of Elon in 2019. He continued to pitch in October, which capped his rookie season with the save in the Wild Card Series clincher in Toronto and then blanked Houston in seven innings in the Division Series. Through Sunday, he had pitched enough this season to rank in the top 10 in the American League in innings pitched (178 2/3) and ERA (3.58), while establishing himself as the best in control. pitcher of the game.
That, more than a regretful postgame comment, makes Kirby truly unique. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no pitcher in major league history issued fewer walks in his first 54 starts than Kirby, nor posted a better strikeout-to-walk ratio. Kirby allowed just 40 walks with 294 career strikeouts, an average of one walk for every 7.35 innings pitched.
“He’s wired to want to throw strikes,” Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh said. “I’ll just go back there and get caught. He has incredible command, and you don’t see that, especially nowadays. A lot of guys with velo try to get their best stuff up, but he does a good job of hitting his spots.
Kirby’s fastball averages 96 mph, according to FanGraphs (via Sports Info Solutions), and he throws it 61.4 percent of the time. Only three qualified pitchers in the majors — Justin Steele of the Chicago Cubs, Mariners teammate Luis Castillo and Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler — relied heavily on the fastball through Sunday, and none threw strike pitches. zone more often than Kirby (57.2 percent. , per Statcast).
“When I got here in ’19, the biggest thing that stuck with me was, like, 94 percent of the time you throw a first-pitch strike, you either get the ball back or it’s gone,” said Kirby before a game at Citi Field in early September.
“It’s very kind of you to just be in the zone, so since then I’ve always lived that way. You know, it’s hard to hit, so I’m going to try to beat you in the zone. I don’t want to waste pitches and get deep counts. I want to finish you off, three freakin’ heaters right away. “
At Elon, Dipoto said, Kirby stood out as “the perfect Mariner” prospect; as a junior in 2019, he issued just six walks in 88 1 â„ 3 innings. That summer, with the Class-A Everett AquaSox, Kirby didn’t walk anyone in 23 innings. If the minor leagues resume after the canceled 2020 season, it will be nearly two calendar years from Kirby’s last walk.
Of course, there is a difference between control and command. Prevention is simply throwing strikes; The command is hitting the spots. “I’m not really going to try and throw it up the middle,” Kirby said, but the Mariners have been preaching it in the lower minors as a starter kit for the style of pitching they want to cultivate.
The organization wants prospects to attack their first pitch, Dipoto said, even if it’s a fastball up the middle. Over time, it will become a more nuanced message: Use your best pitch and hit the spot where you throw strikes most often. But it’s always about strikes.
“It’s easy to talk about it, but you get the players’ attention when you hold yourself accountable for it and you follow through on it,” Servais said. “And we track it every day, and we remind our players about it every day. And not just players, coaches, everybody within the organization, we track it from the first time they put on a Mariner uniform until they get here and play in the big leagues for a while. It’s so important. And that’s never going to change. That’s who we are. That’s our foundation.”
To that end, the Mariners give their pitchers a “shove score” after each outing to measure their skill at throwing pitches. (“You don’t want to feel like you’re screwing it up there,” Dipoto explained. “You’re pushing your best stuff.”)
Kirby had several perfect scores, Dipoto said, including a playoff start against the Astros, when he walked no more and scattered six singles over seven innings. The score is a point of emphasis for beginners, even if they do not understand the method.
“They’ve got some smart guys out there that know what they’re doing and come up with all the formulas and stuff,” starter Logan Gilbert said. “I don’t even know what it has to do with it. But I go there between each start, look back at my last start, the shove score and a lot of other numbers. I’ve tried to simplify it where it’s not just a ton of useless information — What’s concrete? What do I need to fix? What is the lowest hanging fruit? — and just work on that.â€
The Mariners lead the majors in first-pitch strike percentage, at 64.8 through Sunday, with Gilbert also in the top 10 in the AL for lowest walk percentage. Kirby has the best ratio, naturally, at 0.9 walks per nine.
Kirby’s athleticism allows him to change his mechanics, the key component of command. He played several sports growing up — football (quarterback), basketball (shooting guard), soccer (defender) and golf — and Bruno said Kirby always had a smooth, fluid delivery that made pitches seem to jump. from his hand.
Teammate Robbie Ray taught Kirby to be a two-seamer last season, and Dipoto says that gives him eight fastball options: two- and four-seamers on all fours. corner of the strike zone. Kirby also throws sliders, curveballs, splitters and changeups, shaking his glove in front of each pitch to hide his grip.
Not that he cared much about the hitter.
“I’m not worried about who’s in the box,” Kirby said. “I’m going to go with my strength and I don’t care about his strength or anything. I know my stuff is good enough to beat him, so I think it’s just about confidence, and not just being afraid of getting hit. Because you’re going to get hit sometimes – guys filling the zone – but most of the time you’re going to make plays.
Nine years ago, Kirby went deeper in one game than any major leaguer would allow. He’ll never do it again — no big-league pitcher ever will, it seems — but his fearless approach to craft, his instinct to always challenge whoever he faces, should be in someday Kirby will be more popular among the elderly.
“In a lot of ways he’s a throwback,” Dipoto said. “And he’s as competitive as any of them have ever been.”
(Top photo: Brace Hemmelgarn/Minnesota Twins/Getty Images)