ANAHEIM, Calif. — Since making his season debut last month following a stint on the injured list, George Kirby incrementally inched closer to the version everyone has come to expect from the past.

That version showed up on Sunday afternoon. It wasn’t furious George. It was nearly unhittable George.

Kirby was at his best, throwing seven dominant innings and striking out a career-high 14 as the Seattle Mariners snapped a five-game losing streak with a 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Angels before 31,416 at Angel Stadium.

The M’s longest slump of the season ended thanks to Kirby looking like a vintage version of himself from the past few seasons.

He needed just 96 pitches to throw seven complete innings. He struck out eight of the first 11 batters, all retired in order, before finding his only trouble of the afternoon. Mike Trout singled with two outs in the fourth on a 1-2 slider that stayed on the plate and Taylor Ward followed with his 18th homer of the season after Kirby fell behind 2-0 in the count and threw an elevated fastball.

But that was it. No other Angels’ batter reached base. When Trout came up again in the seventh inning, Kirby won the battle this time, striking him out looking on a 3-2 pitch to end a nine-pitch at-bat. He followed by getting Ward looking at another 3-2 pitch and on his 96th and final pitch of the day got a line out from Chris Taylor.

Kirby had 12 strikeouts in his first three starts since coming off the injured list. The 14 strikeouts toppled his career-high of 12 set last year against Arizona. It was the most strikeouts by a Mariners pitcher since James Paxton struck out 16 A’s batters in 2018. He’s one of three different pitchers in Mariners history with at least 14 strikeouts and no walks in a start, joining Randy Johnson and Mark Langston.

Matt Brash continued the run of strikeouts with a pair in the eighth and Andrés Muñoz pitched for the first time in a week, although the final three outs were stressful. Jorge Soler walked on a 3-1 pitch to start the inning, before Zach Neto struck out and Nolan Schanuel lined out to right.

That brought Trout to the plate — of course — but Muñoz got him to chase a slider off the plate to end it for his 18th save.

Kirby walked off the mound with only a one-run lead and Brash and Muñoz had to hold it because the M’s left 11 on base and were 4 for 16 with runners in scoring position.

And they were fortunate to even be in the lead thanks to the unlikely combo of Jorge Polanco and Donovan Solano coming through with two-out RBI hits in the fifth inning that ended the day for Angels starter Tyler Anderson.

Polanco’s second hit of the game scored Randy Arozarena and Solano followed with only his third RBI of the year to score Mitch Garver.

Arozarena had three hits for the second straight game, including two doubles. His double in the first inning scored Julio Rodríguez from first base. Rodríguez was back in the lineup a night after leaving Saturday night’s game early when he was hit on the right ankle on a batted ball off Arozarena’s bat.

The M’s managed to give baseball’s home run leader Cal Raleigh his first full day off for the season a day after he hit home runs Nos. 25 and 26. Raleigh wasn’t in the starting lineup for the first time since May 6 against the Athletics and ended up getting his first complete day of rest in the 64th game of the season.

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