As he walked off the mound to the thunderous applause of 40,321 fans, all standing and all cheering at his performance, drowning out the blasting tones of Coolio’s “Gangsta Paradise” being played at the usual high decibels from the T-Mobile Park sound system, Logan Gilbert didn’t smile or exhale.
The cold sneer on his face remained despite the adulation. Walter, the ruthless alter-ego that Gilbert’s college teammates dubbed for his cold, intense mound presence, a fitting name similar to the infamous character Walter White in the show “Breaking Bad,” was still very much in charge of the situation.
To quote one of his famous lines from the show: “If you don’t know who I am, then maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.”
Gilbert — Logan or Walter — delivered another dominant outing in a season that has been filled with them. This time setting a personal record.
Using his wide array of pitches and vicious precision to put away hitters with two strikes, Gilbert fired seven shutout innings, allowing one hit — an infield dribbler — with no walks and a career-high 12 strikeouts to lead the Mariners to a 2-0 victory over the Padres on Tuesday night.
It was the 11th time Seattle has held a team scoreless this season and it was the team’s sixth straight victory, to improve 61-52 on the season. With the Blue Jays losing 1-0 to the Guardians, the Mariners moved to two games back for the third wild card spot.
“We’re rolling,” manager Scott Servais said. “We’ve won six in a row. The team is feeling it. The vibe is there. Well you gotta go out and focus on continuing winning series. I’m excited. Anytime you get to witness that kind of pitching, we are spoiled. These young guys continue to get better.”
Gilbert’s lone hit allowed came in the second inning when Xander Bogaerts hit a soft ground ball up the middle that didn’t have enough force to make it to the outfield. Second baseman Dylan Moore tried to make a backhanded stab but couldn’t come up with the ball. It was ruled a hit by the official scorer. It would remain the Padres’ only hit until Matt Brash gave up a double to Jake Cronenworth in the eighth inning.
After allowing the single, Gilbert retired the next 17 batters, including 10 strikeouts. He struck out six of the final seven batters he faced to close out the outing with fury and struck out Juan Soto three times, which no right-handed pitcher has done to the perennial All-Star slugger.
“It’s pretty cool,” Gilbert said of the career-high in strikeouts. “I didn’t even know till after. I didn’t know I was at 12 or whatever it is. It’s just a lot of practice and good execution and everything coming together. It doesn’t always turn out like this, but when it does, it’s pretty fun.”
He improved to 10-5 on the season and lowered his ERA to 3.85. And the Mariners have won his last six starts.
How intense was Gilbert after the seventh?
In the dugout after Gilbert finished the seventh, Servais asked him what he thought of his outing.
Gilbert’s reply: “It was okay.”
Servais was stunned and replied: “Okay? Dude, you can’t do a whole lot better. That was awesome.”
But Gilbert was just in game mode. And that mindset doesn’t leave until the final out.
“It’s pretty hard,” he said. “You are amped up and it’s a tight game and it matters a lot. You’re just going out there trying to compete every pitch, so it’s not like you just flip a switch and you’re out of it, especially when you’re out there for two hours just trying to find a way. I definitely appreciate what the fans did and standing ovation and all. That’s pretty special.”
Julio Rodriguez made sure Gilbert had a scoreless outing with three outstanding catches in center field, showcasing his immense athleticism and also the work he’s put in over the years to become a high-quality center fielder.
In the third inning, he took away a possible leadoff single from Garrett Cooper with a lunging/diving catch and roll on a soft liner to center.
In the fifth inning, he showcased his speed, racing down a line drive to the left-center gap off the bat off Cronenworth, which seemed like a sure one-out double off the bat.
But it was his catch in the fourth inning sandwiched in between those two highlights that will be replayed often for the rest of the season and for years to come.
It wasn’t so much that he robbed Fernando Tatis Jr.’s of a solo homer on his deep fly ball to center field, but it was how Rodriguez did it — with the showmanship and style of a professional wrestler.
Off the bat, Rodriguez was tracking Tatis’ deep fly ball, going back to the wall and just waiting to make his leap. He timed it perfectly, getting in the air and reaching up to make the grab.
But unlike his first homer-robbing grab of his career, which came in Baltimore in June and had him screaming and going crazy as he ran to the dugout, Rodriguez came down from his leap with no emotion, his glove at his side. He walked with his head down back from the wall. Most of the Padres fans in attendance roared in celebration, believing Tatis had his 20th homer of the season.
Tatis started to circle the bases again after pausing between first and second.
Second-base umpire Dan Merzel had not made a signal for an out or a homer and he was pointing at Rodriguez and screaming for him to show him the ball. Rodriguez knew he could no longer play coy and hide his accomplishment.
With an impish smirk building into a full grin, Rodriguez slowly lifted up his glove to reveal the baseball in his tan and black glove.
The crowd exploded in delight and Tatis just shook at his head at Rodriguez’s showmanship. Was this planned?
“It just kind of happened in the moment,” Rodriguez said. “Me and Tatis are really good friends so for him to be the one to hit it, I was like, ‘I got you.’ I thought everybody knew I caught it, but as I walking back I was like, ‘Ok, nobody really saw it.'”
On the mound, Gilbert’s stone-faced intensity was broken at the audacity of the moment and his centerfielder’s joy of playing the game.
“That was probably the coolest thing I’ve actually been on the field for,” Gilbert said. “It crossed my mind for a couple seconds because I thought he caught it, and I thought he was doing what he did. But after like two seconds, I thought, ‘well, nevermind, he would have shown it by now.’ It felt like 10 or 20 seconds later out there and then he finally shows it. It even got a laugh and smile for me out there which is kind of hard to do.”
The Mariners didn’t provide an abundance of run support for Gilbert despite myriad base runners against a collection of Padres relievers, who were combining in a bullpen outing.
Seattle got runners on base in the first four innings, including multiple runners in scoring position, and failed to cash in on the opportunities.
The most glaring failure came in the first inning after J.P. Crawford smacked the first pitch from “starter” Nick Martinez for a double and promptly moved to third base on Rodriguez’s hard single to left. But Rodriguez was thrown out trying to steal second, Eugenio Suarez struck out, Cal Raleigh walked and Teoscar Hernandez grounded out to the pitcher to end the inning.
The Mariners’ first run came in the fifth inning. After loading the bases on a walk from Moore, Crawford’s third of the game and a single from Rodriguez, reliever Ray Kerr, a former Mariners prospect, was called for a pitch-clock violation before throwing 3-1 pitch to Raleigh. The automatic ball resulted in a run-scoring walk and RBI for Raleigh.
Seattle picked up another run in the sixth inning. With two outs, Tom Murphy singled to center and Moore followed with a triple over the head of center fielder Trent Grisham to make it 2-0.