Philadelphia Phillies at Seattle Mariners

Cal Raleigh homered again on Tuesday night, making it four over his past two games and five on the homestand.  And it wasn’t even the Mariners' most critical performance in a 4-1 win over the Phillies. No, this one was a George Kirby special -- featuring the utter brilliance, efficiency and overpowering stuff that shows just how high of a ceiling the uber competitive right-hander reaches on his very best days.  "He kind of strangled us tonight,” Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said. Kirby was backed by his batterymate early, as Raleigh yanked a solo homer off Phils workhorse Aaron Nola in the second inning. It was his fourth deep fly in a span of five plate appearances, coupled with his first career three-homer night in the series opener. Raleigh also homered on Friday, bringing his total for the homestand to five. Up to that point, through the season’s first four months, he had just 13.  No. 18 of the season erased a run that Philly manufactured -- on three straight singles in the top of the frame -- and sent Kirby cruising toward one of the most effective outings of his season.  His velocity was way up, touching 99 mph three times in the first inning and averaging a 1.3 mph overall uptick among the 37 fastballs he unleashed, to 97.9 mph.  His secondaries kept the Phils’ loaded lineup off the barrel, with 17 of the 20 batted balls against him under Statcast’s hard-hit threshold  (95 mph). He was as efficient as ever, never throwing more than 16 pitches in an inning and three times throwing fewer than 10. “Just a lot of work during the week of getting my mechanics where I need to be,” Kirby said. “And then kind of going in the game, just not thinking about and just let it flow and just be free -- and just let it eat the whole game.”