Kirby sharp, Mariners, Giants play to 0-0 spring tie

By Ryan Divish / The Seattle Times

Mariners 0, Giants 0 at Peoria Stadium

PEORIA, Ariz. — That score is not a typo. The two teams played to a scoreless tie in front of a crowd of 8,973 in a game that took 2 hours and 11 minutes.

The Giants had seven hits and the Mariners had five hits.

The Mariners used six pitchers to cover the nine shutout innings while the Giants used just two — starter Alex Cobb, who worked five innings, and right-hander Sean Hjelle, who pitched four scoreless frames. Hjelle is the tallest active player in Major League Baseball, standing 6 feet 11.

Talented pitching prospect Bryan Woo made his Cactus League debut. He pitched two scoreless innings, showing a fastball ranging from 97-99 mph. After allowing a double to Lamont Wade Jr., Woo had runners on second and third with one in the fifth inning. He came back to strike out Wilmer Flores and got Michael Conforto to ground out to first to end the inning. Woo came back with a quick 1-2-3 sixth inning to end his outing.

“He’s got a really good fastball,” manager Scott Servais said. “It’s a very easy, very low-effort delivery. He’s still got things to work on with his off-speed pitches, but for his first time out there I thought he did great today. He handled himself really well. He got in a little bit of a jam there and pitched out of it.”

Player of the game

Making his third start of the spring, George Kirby worked three scoreless innings, allowing four hits with no walks and four strikeouts. After allowing back-to-back two-out singles in the first inning, he calmly struck out Blake Sabol looking to end the threat. He will likely make two more starts this spring.

Quotable

“You don’t see that very often in the Cactus League, certainly not at this time (in spring). A lot of good pitching obviously. I thought George Kirby was really good and the guys that came in after him in the bullpen were outstanding. They’ve been making a few of the adjustments that we’ve talked about with those guys with their usage and it’s showing up. A lot of good things on the mound, 75% first-pitch strikes, one walk, 10 punchouts, unfortunately, not enough offense and they had really good pitching today as well.” — Servais

On tap

The Mariners will be back at Peoria Stadium on Friday night as the visiting team in a matchup with the San Diego Padres. Right-hander Chris Flexen will get the start for Seattle also scheduled to pitch are right-handers Penn Murfee, Trevor Gott, Riley O’Brien and Casey Sadler. The Padres will start Shorewood standout Blake Snell. First pitch is set for 6:40 p.m. The game will not be televised. A live radio broadcast is available on Seattle Sports 710-AM and Mariners.com.