Mariners go on the offensive, win 10-0

I am a craft beer lady through and through. Basically give me anything but an IPA, DIPA or TIPA with a silly name and I’m hooked. Luckily, I live in the smallest state in the country, and the craft beer community is as tight-knit as it gets — not to mention it doesn’t take that long to get to one of your favorites (although Rhode Islanders will tell you all about it will say anything more than 20 minutes away requires a packed lunch).

Although I’m not that far from them, I still prefer one in particular, right around the corner from where I live – the Moniker Brewery.

Moniker has practically become my second home. It’s the first place I take people when they visit and they’ve poured me a fresh Fuzzy Distance almost every time I walk in the front door.

Last weekend a new guest decided to visit the brewery, presumably to try a flight.

That’s right, the patron was a bird, and at this point I’m adamant that they got lost on the way back from Boston and are in fact the entire Baltimore Orioles team.

Whether it was George Kirby’s filthy sliders or the Seattle offense’s ability to find every gap in the infield, the Mariners made Baltimore look downright lost at sea tonight.

For George Kirby, tonight was starting to look a bit like his previous two starts where he gave up a total of 16 hits and 9 earned against Oakland and Boston. Luckily for him and the happy group of Elon friends and family we’ve come to love, things didn’t stay that way.

Despite Baltimore holding the 27th lowest walk rate in the league at 7.5%, Kirby gave up a walk just four batters in his innings. That walk turned out to be his only one that night, and it was immediately followed by a much better result – an inning-ending strikeout (which is absolutely better).

From there, Kirby focused on concocting the right combination of pitches to get seven more batters to strike out. Do you know what goes very well with a crisp craft brew? slider.

According to my calculations and also the help my glasses give me to actually see, Kirby threw his slider about a quarter of his outing.

This is a much tastier chart. Those four little red dots in the bottom right corner are all sliders that make up 4 of the 8 pitches that some Orioles punched out (sorry, PETA). Here’s an example that made Cedric Mullins a little dizzy.

Kirby finished his night with a respectable 6.0 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 0 R, 8 Ks. Atta Georgey.

We all know that a brewery that produces consistently, really Yes, really good pilsner or IPA (lol, not for me) or stout but for some reason nothing else can come close to the caliber their top beer is at. It carries its best beer as far as it goes, but in the end it doesn’t stake the support of anything else to truly make the brewery a success story.

Sound familiar?

Mariners fans should be familiar by now with the silly little trope that accompanies every good pitching performance by a member of our starting core.

If only the offensive could provide support.

We would have made it if we could even score two runs.

Just because our OC pitched a shutout doesn’t mean we have to pitch the other OC one too.

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Luckily, LUCKY, this wasn’t that game. I’m not sure what got into the team, but anyone reading this and knowing what it’s like to have a good supportive sports bra knows that for some reason the Mariners spent a lot of money and went for one have decided Nice.

The Mariners in retrospect:

• Had 10 runs of 13 hits
• Hit 3 doubles before the Orioles recorded their 5th of the day
• Taylor Trammell had FOUR RBIs
• All but one starter had at least one hit (sorry, JP)
• Batters 5-9 accounted for 9 of the 10 runs on the night

And all without a single home run. Just a good old little ball.

Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

Whether he’s eating, sleeping, breathing, smiling, laughing or joking around, the world is watching Julio. The 21-year-old fluorescent light that shone brightly in the clubhouse as he entered the clubhouse turns heads, so it’s only fitting that he had three of the more exciting moments of the game today.

Robbed #1 (who is Rob?)

Did that hit score the first run of the game? Yes. But was it a home game? Ask any ballpark that isn’t Camden Yards and the answer would be yes. But Julio ran out of luck at the Olympics trying to walk that field towards the all-new one billion foot outfield.

#2 Caught

need i say more

#3 Colored outside the lines

As Megan Corcoran put it so elegantly on Twitter“Baby’s first sputum!”

With the first game in the series on the books, the Mariners can say with confidence that they got off the plane at BWI a dream and a sweater desire to win. It was fun tonight but hopefully their opponent doesn’t get so lost on their way to the stadium before the next game.