After years of dreadful drafting and developing, and a couple of ill-fated drafts under Jerry Dipoto’s early tenure, the Mariners started turning things around in 2018, a draft that produced the two major contributors to today’s statement win over the Athletics: Logan Gilbert and Cal Raleigh, each of whom enjoyed record-setting days in an 11-4 win.
Coming off one of the worst starts of his career on the road in Philadelphia, Logan Gilbert took the mound with some extra fire, much to the ill fortunes
of the A’s hitters unlucky enough to be in Walter’s swath of destruction. It was obvious Gilbert was working with some extra-special tools from the jump, when he hit 97.1 on his four-seamer against leadoff man Nick Kurtz en route to striking him out on a slider that made me write in my notes “NASTY.”
The slider was indeed Nasty-with-a-capital-N today, and a heavy contributor in his career-best 13 strikeouts and 25 whiffs, a mark that leads all of MLB handily today. Gilbert said postgame he’d been focusing on trying to get back to a “north-south” mindset, which was evident in the way he hammered the bottom of the zone with his slider and splitter, which accounted for 11 of his strikeouts, all but one swinging. This is not to sell short his fastball, which was also very good, living up in the zone with good ride and carry with almost a full extra tick of zip, averaging 96.1 MPH.
He drew high praise from his catcher, as well, although with some qualifications, because Cal Raleigh is every bit the perfectionist Logan Gilbert is.
“He was doing a really good job getting on top of his pitches today, working that downhill angle,” said Cal postgame. “Nothing was flattening out today. The fastball had good life on it, good carry, was staying true. The slider had good bite, straight down not side to side, and not leaking like it has been the last couple innings. He threw…some good curveballs too. Left a few up. [That pitch] wasn’t all there today. And obviously the split was very wipeout.”
We love a catcher who hits bombs and knows his way around a compliment sandwich. But in all sincerity, Raleigh said it was meaningful to be able to catch Gilbert’s career day.
“It’s been a tough year for him in general, having to fight an injury and come back and try to find that feel in the big leagues is really tough. So it’s been a tough year for him but he’s been really good. He’s put together quality starts through injury, through not having his best stuff at times. And today I’d say it was the most consistent and best stuff I’ve seen out of him all year, for sure.”
Of course, the other side of the battery had a career day as well, perhaps on a slightly bigger scale than Gilbert’s personal career milestone. Athletics starter Jacob Lopez was coming off a string of starts where he’d struck out 8, 9, and 10 batters, and the two runs he gave up in his last start against the Twins broke a streak of four straight starts without giving up an earned run. But the Mariners got to him immediately, starting with Randy Arozarena lashing a cutter that wound up middle-middle into left field for a leadoff single. Cal Raleigh then equaled the number of earned runs Lopez has given up in the month of August with one swing of the bat, a history-making shot that tied him with Salvador Perez for the most home runs by a primary catcher in MLB history:
There’s been some consternation about how Lopez, a soft-tossing lefty, has bamboozled so many MLB hitters, running a strikeout rate that ranks among the game’s best. Cal certainly didn’t look fooled on that 91.7 mph fastball that wound up right in the Big Dump zone. 110.9 off the bat, 448 feet later, the Mariners were up 2-0, but weren’t able to add on after that despite an Eugenio Suárez walk, and a home run from Jacob Wilson in the top of the second—he ambushed a first-pitch fastball on the plate from Gilbert and snuck it just over the left-field fence, the only ding on Logan’s day—cut the lead to just one run.
Enter the unsung hero of the day, Jorge Polanco. Polo has a talent for working a long plate appearance that ends in a walk, and he wore out Lopez over nine pitches to lead off the second. Lopez was able to rebound to get his next two outs, getting J.P. Crawford to line out and Victor Robles was called out on a slider well outside, but Arozarena got a handle on a first-pitch slider away to cash in an RBI double. Then it was time for the Big Dumper to lay an ambush of his own. The Mariners have had issues with hitting lefties lately, especially lefties with changeups. Lopez has a changeup, but it’s not a good one; its run value of -2 makes it the least valuable pitch he throws. That didn’t stop him from trying to sneak a changeup past Cal to steal a first-pitch strike, and it didn’t stop Raleigh from demolishing the pitch to left-center for a historic home run.
It was a homer so momentous that even the praise-adverse Raleigh had to come out for a curtain call (a curtain Cal?)—if only because his teammates pushed him out there. “I didn’t want to look dumb if I went out there,” he said postgame, in what would sound like false humility if you didn’t know him well enough to know it’s not an act.
“He’s the type of player and person that like—this is who you want it to happen to,” said Gilbert, the player in the organization who knows Cal best. “He works harder than anybody, gets banged up more than anybody. You saw, like I gave him a couple today on some of those 0-2 pitches and he doesn’t say a word.”
“He’s just great. Great player. Great person. The kind of guy that it’s really easy to root for.”
With how Gilbert was pitching, the Mariners probably could have let up there, with Gilbert enjoying five whole runs of support. Instead they decided to make up for all that lack of run support they’ve given him all at once, continuing Lopez’s nightmarish day. Perhaps rattled by being consigned to the role of background star in highlight videos that will play on loop on MLB TV for eternity, Lopez utterly lost the handle on his pitches. He walked Julio Rodríguez on five pitches, four of them noncompetitive, and then repeated that exact sequence with Suárez, walking him for the second time already after walking just three batters in all of August. Josh Naylor flew out to end the second, but the Mariners were right back at him in the third like a buzzing fly. Mitch Garver walked to lead off the inning—Lopez actually threw two competitive pitches in the at-bat to four noncompetitive ones, so, progress?—and then Polanco turned on a cutter for a single. Lopez then walked J.P. Crawford on four straight, giving him six walks on the day, a new career high. Trying to get a quick out, Lopez put a first-pitch fastball on the plate for Victor Robles, who extended his hitting streak with a line-drive single that brought in a pair of runs and an unceremonious end to Lopez’s day.
Eduarniel Nuñez didn’t find things much better; he started out by hitting Arozarena on the arm guard to re-load the bases, still with none out. Julio made sure Randy’s sore arm wouldn’t be in vain, parachuting a fly ball into center field to bring in another pair of runs. That made it 9-1, if you lost track. Josh Naylor likes binary numbers, though, so he doubled to make it 11-1. Bleeps and blorps, things of that nature.
The Mariners wouldn’t score again, but with a healthy lead built up and Gilbert dealing, they wouldn’t need to. Gilbert lasted six innings, ending on a strikeout of Tyler Soderstrom to give him his career-high 13th K. The lower-leverage bullpen took it from there; Carlos Vargas was shaky, giving up two runs—one on a hit by pitch with the bases loaded—on three hits and a walk, and at one point the Mariners had Bazardo up warming because things were going so poorly. But Vargas, unlike Lopez, recovered from his command outage to get Shea Langeliers to ground into an inning-ending double play, keeping Bazardo safely on the shelf for the day. Tayler Saucedo worked two innings to close the game, giving up a run on a leadoff double followed by a pair of groundouts, and flashed a little of the old Sauce, getting Brett Harris to chase after a changeup for a strikeout. These are the kind of low-leverage confidence-building innings we like.
Speaking of low leverage, with the Mariners ahead by a touchdown, Dan Wilson was able to get some of his infielders off their feet for the final two innings. Pregame, Dan Wilson was asked what the plan was at backup shortstop and third base with Dylan Moore cut loose and mentioned that “Cole has definitely played some short, Donny[van Solano] can play third base as well, so I think we’re in a good spot there and we’ll keep assessing as we go.” The Mariners’ big lead made some of that assessing possible today, as Solano took over at third and Young at short for the final two innings. No balls came Solano’s way (thankfully), but Young had two chances, including the final out of the game. He made that play, and also this more difficult one, showing off some nifty range but not lessening concerns about his arm:
That’s nothing a little Perry Hill can’t fix, right? Seems like just a matter of getting a better base under him before he releases the ball and pointing his hips towards his target (I forget the 6Fs sometimes but I know that one is Fire).
“He made some really nice plays,” said Dan Wilson postgame. “He’s played there before, and it was apparent he was comfortable.”
Young hopes to be the latest Mariners’ draft success story. Today the 2018 Draft came up in a big way for the Mariners, featuring two players who came up through the system together: rooming together (one of my earliest memories of the two is of Cal being annoyed by Logan’s attempts to learn the ukulele), honing their craft together, and now winning together.
“The whole thing’s cool,” said Cal. “Just with where we’re at, the fact that we’re both still doing it here, and we’re just continuing to prove ourselves at this level. It’s been a lot of fun. And obviously he’s a great friend, great teammate as well, and to see him doing stuff like that, it’s really cool. We probably didn’t think we’d be doing this when we were roommates back in High-A.”
His batterymate begs to disagree.
“The ukulele playing,” said Gilbert. “That’s what started all of this.”
