Here's When George Kirby Could Return to Seattle Mariners Starting Rotation

Kirby has been out since March 7 with shoulder inflammation. The 27-year-old has thrown six total innings at Tacoma, striking out nine and pitching to a 6.00 ERA. He's been in the neighborhood of 95-98 mph with his fastball and has felt well afterwards.

While the Mariners can't rush his return, they do need him back in the worst way, it seems. Seattle has lost four straight games, falling to 22-18. Furthermore, the starting rotation has been extremely questionable. Seattle starters have failed to go more than five innings in any of those four games and the pitching staff as a whole has allowed 32 runs across them.

The M's starters not going deep into games has created a situation where the mid-bullpen has been taxed, and that is one of the weaker points on the roster right now. In a perfect world, Seattle would get seven innings from the starters, and then turn it over to Matt Brash, Gabe Speier and Andres Munoz for some combination of the eighth and ninth innings.

The Mariners will be back in action on Tuesday night when they take on the Yankees at 6:40 p.m. PT. Max Fried will pitch for New York while Bryan Woo goes for Seattle.