George Kirby was in the strike zone – perhaps too much.
The Toronto Blue Jays had 18 hits, including five home runs, all within the first three pitches of an at-bat in a 13-4 rout of the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday night that pulled them to 2-1 in the AL Championship Series.
Eight of those hits came off Kirby, who hadn’t yielded that many hits in a start since 3 September.
“I’m never going to stray away from what I do well, and that’s get ahead and be in the zone,” Kirby said. “And they had a lot of comfortable at-bats tonight.”
Kirby gave up a tying, two-run homer to Andrés Giménez in a five-run third on an inside fastball and two-run double to Daulton Varsho on an up fastball.
George Springer homered on a sinker in the fourth and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on a slider in the fifth.
Alejandro Kirk added an opposite-field, three-run homer to right off a fastball from left-hander Caleb Ferguson in the sixth as the Blue Jays joined Tampa Bay in Game 4 of the 2020 World Series as the only teams to homer in four straight postseason innings, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Addison Barger connected in the ninth on a Luke Jackson fastball.
“When a lineup starts combining hits together like they were, it gets contagious,” Ferguson said. “Guys go up there and just get the best swings off. So, a lot of times it goes your way, and tonight it went theirs.”
Toronto had four runs and eight hits as Seattle swept the first two games in Canada.
“I wasn’t really executing when they got the guys on base,” Kirby said. “They’re really aggressive when that happens.”
Seattle’s pitchers were sixth in the AL with a 3.87 ERA and had a 3.29 ERA in the Division Series against Detroit. Ferguson expressed confidence they quickly will return to form.
“If there’s one thing we’ve done since I’ve been here,” Ferguson said, “we bounce back together well as a team and we respond well when we kind of get smacked in the face a little bit.”
