George Kirby (baseball)

George Joseph Kirby, born on February 4, 1998, is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball. He grew up in Rye, New York, played baseball and basketball at Rye High School, and pitched at Elon University, where he was named the 2019 Colonial Athletic Association Pitcher of the Year. The Mariners selected him with the 20th overall pick of the 2019 draft, and he made his major league debut on May 8, 2022. He was an All-Star in 2023. Kirby is known for his command: he has the highest strikeout-to-walk ratio and the second-lowest walk rate among qualified starting pitchers since 1950, and he holds the record for the highest strikeout-to-walk ratio through a pitcher's first 50 major league starts. In August 2022 he set a record by throwing 24 consecutive strikes to start a game.