Logan Gilbert throws gem as Mariners bats stay hot to beat Orioles
BALTIMORE — The last two games have been tantalizing to the point where it might renew an optimism about the Mariners that started fading in late April and became absent in early June.
But it’s not the disproportionate results that make manager Scott Servais and his players want to believe that this is a sign of better days and games ahead.
No, it’s how they achieved the lopsided victories over the past few games, and the signs of it starting on the previous homestand, that make the Mariners believe they can start approaching the elevated expectations of this season.
They got a dominant outing from starter Logan Gilbert, while the offense made life miserable for starter Kyle Gibson, scoring five early runs off him and ending his outing after three innings, rolling to a 13-1 rout over the Baltimore Orioles
It was the second straight game where the Mariners scored double-digit runs, something that seemed impossible based on the early offensive struggles. Seattle pounded out 17 hits, including six consecutive run-scoring singles with two outs in the eighth inning.
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“It’s about beating their starter,” Servais said. “That’s the key to winning a series. We got off to a good start here. That’s a really good team. They’ve been playing really well. We came in and silenced the crowd. They have energy you can feel it in the ballpark. But it was our starting pitching and our hitting all night.”
A renewed focus on more competitive at-bats and making opposing starters work from their very first pitch, following a brief three-game hiatus, has been noticeable.
On Thursday, they scored 10 runs off Yankees starter Domingo German in 3 1/3 innings. On Friday, they put Gibson through his worst outing of the season, struggling to give the Orioles three complete innings, allowing five runs on seven hits with three walks and four strikeouts.
Gibson threw a whopping 86 pitches in his three innings with only 46 strikes. The Mariners grinded through their plate appearances against Gibson, making him work for his outs.
It was Gibson’s shortest start with Baltimore this season. He hadn’t allowed more than three runs in his previous six starts and it was just the second time this season he allowed more than four runs in a game.
Over their last 12 games, nine opposing starting pitchers have failed to go beyond five innings against Seattle. The Mariners are 6-3 in those contests. It’s a simple equation Servais can show his players.
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“Absolutely, and believe me, I am,” he said. “I think that the biggest thing is understanding the ebbs and flows of the season. We’re doing a lot of things right, and then you run into a Lance Lynn or a Gerrit Cole and you think, ‘Oh, this doesn’t work.’ No, we stick with the program. And I credit our guys for doing that.”
Conversely, the Mariners starting pitching has rebounded from a rough week on the previous road trip to return to its normal form.
With Gilbert’s outing of seven innings pitched, one run allowed on two hits with a walk and five strikeouts, Mariners starting pitchers have allowed three runs or fewer in their past 10 games and two runs or fewer in eight of those 10 games.
“I felt pretty good,” Gilbert said. “I was in sync. My body felt good going down the mound. I think when I’m at my best, my delivery is pretty effortless and just kind of smooth and easy. And that’s how I felt tonight.”
Gilbert survived a 20-pitch first inning where he walked the first batter of the game, aided by a timely double play to not allow a run. He wouldn’t allow a run until the seventh as he seemed to get stronger with each scoreless frame.
Using all four of his pitches almost equally, Gilbert kept the Orioles off balance and had retired 15 straight batters until Anthony Santander lofted a solo homer to right field.
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“It’s the evolution of starting pitching in this league, no matter how good your fastball is, it’s the secondary pitches that ultimately become the separator,” Servais said. “There’s a lot of players in this league with great fastballs, but the top-end pitchers have the secondary pitches.”
Gilbert admitted he couldn’t have been that pitcher even a year ago. He didn’t have the confidence or the precision in that pitch repertoire.
“I never could have done that even if I wanted to a couple years ago,” he said. “It helps a lot once the game actually starts. You can read swings, see what they’re doing and change on the fly if you need; where like a couple years ago, I pretty much did the same thing every time.”
Gibson didn’t have such efficiency. He needed 35 pitches to get through a second inning where the Mariners picked up a 1-0 lead on a sacrifice fly from Tom Murphy and left the bases loaded.
The outing fell apart in the third inning, starting with a leadoff walk who later came around to score on Eugenio Suarez’s one-out single through the left side. Kolten Wong followed with a sacrifice fly and Murphy crushed a misplaced sinker for a two-run homer deep into the left-field seats for a 5-0 lead. Statcast measured Murphy’s blast — his third homer of the season — at 418 feet.
Gibson wouldn’t come out for the fourth inning as Orioles manager Brandon Hyde went to his bullpen far earlier than expected.
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“If you take a look at our at-bats for the first two to two and a half months, we didn’t have a lot of those strung together,” Murphy said. “And now you see a couple of games where everything’s kind of strung together with everybody in the lineup.”
The Mariners didn’t let up against the Orioles bullpen. Teoscar Hernandez greeted Gibson’s replacement, Logan Gillaspie, with a solo homer over the wall in center.
But Murphy understands why Servais was frustrated in New York and criticized their lack of competitive at-bats early in games.
“I think in the past you’d see us do it like the sixth, seventh and eighth inning where the offense kind of turns around and magically we win a ballgame because we all put together really good at-bats,” he said. “Really, we’ve been trying to find that recipe where we could do it for a full game and hopefully we’re getting there.”
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Source: The Seattle Times
