Mariners’ George Kirby set to face Tigers’ Troy Melton in AL Division Series opener

SEATTLE — In the postseason for the second time since 2001, the Seattle Mariners are turning to a starting pitcher with a little playoff experience for Saturday’s AL Division Series opener against the Detroit Tigers.

George Kirby, who started the 18-inning, 1-0 loss to Houston that ended the Mariners’ last playoff appearance in 2022, will be on the mound opposed by Troy Melton, a 24-year-old right-hander with 16 games of major league experience.

“George has the ability to kind of slow things down in some ways,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson, who picked Kirby over Luis Castillo, said Friday. “The way he approaches it, he finds the ability to slow the moment down, slow time down a bit and go and do what he does.”

Kirby also made a memorable start in Game 3 of the 2022 ALDS, tossing seven shutout innings against the Astros.

Kirby, a 27-year-old right-hander, pitched the first seven innings of a game the Astros won behind Jeremy Peña’s 18th-inning homer off Penn Murfee. Kirby went 10-8 with a 4.21 ERA and 137 strikeouts over a career-low 23 regular season starts. He missed most of the first two months of the season with right shoulder inflammation, and settled into a groove from June onward.

“It takes a little bit, you know, just to kind of trust your body again and have that same sort of confidence,” Kirby said.

Coming off a three-game win over Cleveland in a Wild Card Series, the Tigers will rely on Melton for the opener of the best-of-five series because reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize and Jack Flaherty started against the Guardians. Melton started the season at Double-A Erie, was promoted to Triple-A Toledo on June 5 and made his big league debut on July 23. He threw 45 2/3 innings for the Tigers with a 2.76 ERA.

“Honestly, if I could have drawn it up, this is what I would be doing,” Melton said. “So, it’s pretty cool looking back on it, though, of how fast that really has happened. When I started the year in Erie, I definitely didn’t want to finish the year in Erie.”

Melton was a fourth-rank pick from San Diego State in the 2022 amateur draft.

“I’m pretty even-keeled as it is,” he said. “Once you get out on the mound, the job is the exact same. You want to get outs as fast as you can, as much as you can. So, it kind of makes it easy when your mentality, it doesn’t change for me at all.”

Ripping Raleigh

Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh makes his second playoff appearance, this time after hitting a major league-best 60 homers. Raleigh and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge are the top candidates for AL MVP.

“He has been so valuable to us, and that predates his season, this breakout,” Seattle president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said. “He could hit 50 homers next year and you’d be like, ‘Huh.’ Anything’s possible. He turned himself into a superstar, and the world got to see it. And he is now maybe one of the faces of Major League Baseball, and that’s a remarkable thing to have happen.”

Raleigh was among four Mariners to hit at least 26 home runs this season. Julio Rodríguez topped 30 for the second time in his career while Randy Arozarena hit 27 and Jorge Polanco had 26. (Eugenio Suárez, who totaled 49 homers this season, hit 13 for Seattle after being traded by Arizona.)

Tested Tigers

Detroit wasted a 15 1/2-game AL Central lead and lost 12 of its last 15 games, forcing it to qualify as a wild card.

“It doesn’t matter at this point that we stumbled,” two-time All-Star outfielder Riley Greene said. “No one’s going to look back and say that we stumbled because it doesn’t matter. It definitely made us closer. We grinded through it, and we’re here now.”

Tigers manager A.J. Hinch seconded Greene’s assessment.

“I think if anything, it challenged the distractions that come with the peaks and valleys of a season,” Hinch said. “We were on quite a journey to start the season. We raced out, we have this big lead and we (got) a lot of love and a lot of attention and a lot of power rankings.”

Randyland

Arozarena has played in 33 career postseason games, including 28 with the Tampa Bay Rays. He’s hit .336 with 11 home runs and an 1.104 OPS in the postseason.

Vest’s best

Reliever Will Vest was designated for assignment by the Mariners in July 2021 with a 6.17 ERA in 32 relief appearances. He cleared waivers and was returned to the Tigers, who had lost Vest in the Rule 5 draft.

Vest had 23 saves this season with 75 strikeouts in 68 2/3 innings. He pitched the final 1 2/3 innings of Thursday’s Wild Card Series clincher.

“I’m sure the Mariners would love to have this version of Will Vest right now, but how many years ago was that? Three, four years ago?” Hinch said. “He’s grown a lot, he’s matured a lot. He’s been optioned to the minor leagues since after being in the big leagues.”