Mariners rookie George Kirby was in the zone on Wednesday.
The 24-year-old Rye, NY native opened an afternoon game with the Nationals at T-Mobile park by throwing an MLB-record 24 consecutive strikes.
“I looked up at 15 or 16, and I was like ‘Oh, man,’” said Kirby, who allowed one run in seven innings in the Mariners’ 3-1 loss to the Nationals. “I just felt really good. I wasn’t scared to put it in the middle of the plate today.”
Kirby became the third pitcher to hit 20 straight strikes to open a game, besting Joe Musgrove’s previous record of 21 set in 2018 with the Pirates. Braves hurler Ervin Santana reached 20 back in 2014.
Going in the record books is “pretty cool,” Kirby said after the loss, in which he finished allowing eight hits and one earned run over seven innings. He threw 85 pitches on the afternoon — 69 for strikes — tallying eight strikeouts and, unsurprisingly, no walks.
“I’ve never seen anybody go out and throw 24 straight strikes to start a game,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. “That’s as good as you can get. I got to the point where, the first ball he threw, I was actually getting a little nervous. You gotta throw a few balls — they just kept swinging at every pitch. Credit to him, his stuff is just that good.”
He became the third faster pitcher in Mariners history to reach 100 career strikeouts, with his 18 starts trailing only Michael Pineda (17) and Felix Hernandez (16).
A first-round pick in the 2019 MLB Draft — and a fan of the Yankees — Kirby has a pretty simple approach to the game that served him especially well on Wednesday.
“Just throw strikes, do well,” he said. “That’s the name of the game.”