Mariners win eighth straight behind George Kirby gem, move to half-game back from Astros

The Seattle Mariners are the hottest team in the American League and on the verge of becoming a division leader.

With a 1-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday, the Mariners took their eighth straight game and moved to a half-game back of the Houston Astros, who are currently playing the Boston Red Sox for first in the AL West. Should the Astros lose, it will be a tie atop the division with a month and a half to go.

The Mariners had previously trailed by as many as seven games in early July.

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The big turning point was the MLB trade deadline, when Seattle picked up the Arizona Diamondbacks’ corner infield with separate details for third baseman Eugenio Suarez and first baseman Josh Naylor, plus Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Caleb Ferguson. The Mariners are 10-1 since the deadline passed on July 31.

It was Naylor who came up big on Tuesday, delivering the only RBI of the game with a single in the first inning.

Of course, the more valuable player for the game was starting pitcher George Kirby who struck out seven, walked none and allowed only three hits in seven scoreless innings on 87 pitches. Eduard Bazardo, Gabe Speier and Andrés Muñoz combined for two more scoreless innings out of the bullpen to finish off the shutout, the Mariners’ ninth of the season.

A rough stretch for the Astros has coincided with the Mariners’ surge. They might have added at the deadline too with their Carlos Correa reunion, but a 2-8 stretch in late July and early August opened the door for Seattle and they had to place All-Star closer Josh Hader on the IL with a shoulder strain Tuesday.

With a month and a half left in the season, the AL West is shaping up as a dead spring between the division’s standard-setter of the past decade and the upstart with the AL MVP favorite plus plenty more young talent. For now, Seattle can definitely say momentum is on its side.