Mariners break Sunday Scaries, Logan Gilbert leads Mariners to series win to open second half

I’ll admit that after last night’s sagfest, which was demoralizing over and over again, I arrived today a little worried that the Mariners would open the second half with a series loss to a team from the Angels boring but not very good (currently). , with David Fletcher scoring ten points out of five singles with an expected batting average of .070 or something, and Ohtani doing yet something else to make baseball’s Twitter fun. I was encouraged by the fact that proficient pitcher Logan Gilbert was taking the mound, however, and that turned out to be the right instinct, as was the bet on this tweet proving itself once again so persistent that we should hang fairy lights on it.

Gilbert was excellent today, scoring a career-high nine strikeouts. He struck out five of the first six hitters he saw today on strikes, activating great speed on the fastball from the start:

Gilbert’s fastball settled into the 94-95 range as the game progressed, but he was able to pair it with his slider to get a total of 18 puffs on his courts today, near from the top of the standings with pitchers like Corbin Burnes and Carlos Rodón.

Whenever Gilbert got into trouble he was able to get out of it; after giving up back-to-back singles to José Iglesias and an ever-vengeful Jack Mayfield in the third, Gilbert rebounded with a smart throw at the top of the zone against David Fletcher, who has never encountered a first pitch than he did. not like, to get him out harmless for the second outing. He stepped on Ohtani, cautiously tanning around with the change, then headed straight for Jared Walsh with a steady regimen of 96 MPH fastballs to get him to hit the swing and finish the inning.

The Angels’ only extra-base hit today against Gilbert came in the sixth, when a sweaty-looking Gilbert began to fight his command, and was a “double” down the left field line of the. Taylor Ward’s bat at a whopping 86 MPH. Gilbert was then lifted with two runners in scoring position and one out. A weirdly shaven Chargois JT allowed Brandon Marsh to chase 97 into the zone for the second out, but then hooked a slider to José Iglesias to score those two runners, making Gilbert’s line a little uglier than he was. actually launched. If there’s one slowness to choose from with Gilbert’s performance today, it’s the two goals on Ohtani and two slaps as his drive slumped a bit late, but these are very, extremely minor slows to. to choose.

The Mariners gave Gilbert a good points cushion to work with – or really, the Angels gave Gilbert two free support points early on, when Jared Walsh mismanaged what could have been a double play late in the game. inning and instead gave the Mariners a 2- 0 lead. Luis Torrens extended his lead to 3-0 in the 4th with this solo shot as he continues to place himself absolutely in left-handed pitch:

Patrick Sandoval has been a sore loser in his last two outings against the Mariners, getting only one support despite a good pitch, and seemed to repeat that pattern today, so Ty France decided to fix that for him. by making it less hard. – luck and more, well, a loser, crushing that hooked curved ball for a three-point home run:

Of course, since this is Sunday’s game against the Angels, refereed by Joe West, the game took a dumb turn after Gilbert left. I will summarize it for you very quickly because Service Journalism. JT Chargois took one more in the seventh and Anthony Misiewicz, despite dropping an infield single to Ohtani whom he beat with ELITE SPEED (point out Twitter beats), took out the next two hitters. on takes. Drew Steckenrider also worked a clean run, although Joe Maddon decided to waste everyone’s time by contesting an out where the rider was clearly out. The Mariners were fortunate enough to add to the 8th, when Maddon brought in Andrew Wantz, who is in Wantz with an ability to hit the strike zone, and put in two runners brushing past Haniger and then piercing France into the helmet (scary sight, but he grabbed the helmet flap and Ty stayed in the game and even took another hit later). Two more forced marches in a run, giving the Mariners a 7-2 lead, then Joe Maddon brought in Jose Quintana to take on Jarred Kelenic as he seems determined to lower Kelenic’s batting average as much as possible, who of course has knocked out, as did Dylan Moore (before you got angry, DMo had a hit that day), which could have been an offensive blast for the Mariners.

It was really disappointing, as I saw enough bullpen collapsing at Angel Stadium to feel nervous at the very thought of a five-point lead before the ninth. Paul Sewald received the bottom of the ninth and had two strikeouts and two strikes on Ohtani when of course Ohtani played a ground deep in the zone (why yyyy put a ball there) for around 450 (ok well 419) feet, again the explosions and gasps of all the baseball media around the world, but also, as Grant said the other day, the Mariners have the final say, because Sewald rebounded to eliminate Max Stassi and win back-to-back playoffs. on the Angels. Oh, and to top it off, Sewald also ended David Fletcher’s streak of success (although Logan Gilbert really did the heavy lifting on it, hitting him twice and pulling him out on an easy pop-out. ), in a particularly delicious way:

For Mariners fans, of course. Not so much for Angels fans.

The Mariners will have a day off Monday before facing the Rockies at Coors Field on Tuesday night, hopefully to keep the good times going, and I’ll be enjoying the rest of this decidedly non-scary Sunday.