Mariners fall to Zack Attack, lose to Phils 6-0

He’s Zack, stand back, class act, you can take it from me

Two Things Explain Today’s Game

A of all, the Mariners bullpen had a little meltdown for a five-run eighth inning. Tayler Suacedo was particularly rough, giving up hits to all three batters he faced, including two dingers. It was his fifth bad outing in a row, and he also allowed the runner he inherited to score, which has been a troubling pattern all season. He’s up to letting 52% of his inherited runners score, which is close to the bottom ten in the majors. League average is 33%.

And second-of-ly, the Mariners offense went quiet, but not in an embarrassing way considering they were facing Zack Wheeler. Given the general upswing the bats have been on, I’m not too worried about this. As I said in the preview, I think Wheeler’s been the best pitcher in baseball over the past five years. This isn’t the same as trying to squint and say, “Oh, but Nick Pivetta is actually a lot better than you’d think.” Zack Wheeler is so good that striking out just nine times in eight innings counts as a pretty good showing.

Two Things Ruined Logan Gilbert’s Outing

A of all, up until that eighth-inning meltdown, the only run of the game was Kyle Schwarber’s lead off home run. And, yes, it was very impressive, off the windows of the old Hit It Here cafe. But I’m afraid that off the windows just don’t do it for me anymore.

And second-of-ly, Nick Castellanos worked an incredibly pesky 15-pitch at-bat in the second inning. According to Magic Meyer, that was the longest at-bat against a Mariners pitcher in the pitch-tracking era (i.e., since 1988), and the longest at-bat in MLB this year. (Go figure that Castellanos’s next three at-bats were all one pitch each.)

Castellanos ended up harmlessly rolling over to Josh Rojas at third, but the damage to Logan’s pitch count was hard to overcome. It didn’t help matters that the bats went down on just seven total pitches in the next half inning, meaning Logan had to go right back out there.

But other than those blemishes, this was vintage Logan Gilbert. He was once again slider-first today, which made sense considering how tight it was. There’s a reason he kept going to it against Castellanos. The Phillies simply couldn’t pick it up today, and he got several called strikes on ones that were right over the plate. These are not mistakes; his slider is just good enough to throw it here on purpose.

He also had the good velo again on his fastball, which has been an encouraging thing to see despite how much mileage is going on his arm. All told, even with that annoying at-bat from Castellanos, Gilbert went through six innings against one of the better offenses in baseball, allowing just that single run, striking out seven and walking none, with 17 whiffs to boot (to Wheeler’s 14). These sorts of outings have become so routine from Gilbert that it can be easy to gloss over just how impressive they are. This is becoming an annual tradition where I recap a game in which he comes up just short of an elite opposing starter. But especially coming off one of the two abberationally bad outings of his season, it’s a line that gets Gilbert today’s Sun Hat Award, just like those other two performances. Yes, it’s his fourth of the year, but the Gilbert Sun Hat Awards will continue until the offense improves.

One note to keep an eye on is that he seems to be fading his cutter. Coming into this afternoon’s game, he’d thrown just four in his prior three starts. Today, he only threw four, all coming in his third time through the order. It strikes me as an odd choice considering how good of a pitch it is on its own terms and how much it seems to be helping his slider/four-seamer combo. It’s possible it’s just variation based on who he’s been matched up against, but I’ll be watching this closely in his next start.

Two Plays Were Fun

I don’t really have much to say about these back-to-back web gems from Víctor Robles, but if you missed the game, they’re the highlights you want to see. The first one is a genuinely nice play considering how far back he had to go. This is how he gets away with playing about 10 yards in front of where Julio usually roams. The second one was an easy play that he made look high effort because 40,000 people paid money to watch the Mariners get shut out today, so why not throw them a bone?