Logan Gilbert’s best start in a year leads Mariners past Houston 6-1

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - APRIL 12: Logan Gilbert #36 of the Seattle Mariners reafts during the seventh inning against the Houston Astros at T-Mobile Park on April 12, 2026 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images) | Getty Images

Logan Gilbert needed this game almost as much as I needed Logan Gilbert to have this game. I’ll admit I was nervous at the beginning when the game started with Jose Altuve hitting a line drive into centerfield. But things quickly turned around when Josh Naylor deked a move back to first base that sent Altuve scrambling back. When Altuve realized Naylor was faking, he loped back toward second, and at that exact moment, with Altuve relaxed and leaning toward second, Gilbert struck. It notched Gilbert just the second pick-off of his career, with Altuve caught so flat-footed he didn’t even try to get back. According to Gilbert, the move was planned and was called from the dugout, with Naylor’s deke, Cal’s read and call for the pick-off with a glove drop: “Basically, everyone else picked him off. I just threw the ball.”

Despite his limited role in the affair, it still elicited a huge smile from Gilbert, who thought it was his first in MLB, saying, “I was about to throw the ball out, but I didn’t know if that would like, look bad.” I think the moment might have served as a hardware reset for him because the rest of his performance was, in my view, his best since his breakout 2024.

The key, as I’ve been obsessing over, was Gilbert’s slider. He picked up his first strikeout today—against Yordan Álvarez—on an 89-mph slider with more bite than I’ve seen on a Gilbert slider in a year. It was the first of five whiffs against it on just eight swings, with another three called strikes, for a CSW% of 47%. He even used it to put five batters away, something he used to rely on it for in his best seasons.

Just as exciting as the slider was the bounceback in Gilbert’s four-seamer velocity, regularly sitting 96-97 all game, a mile-per-hour faster than he sat at for most of last year, even before his injury. And there may be more in store, as he usually gains most of his velocity as the season rolls along.

He only had two bad PAs all game. The first came against Isaac Peredes in the third, in which he got away with three inside pitches to the pull-happiest hitter in baseball. That’s a better bet in T-Mobile Park in April than at Enron Field where those pitches are liable to end up in the Crawford Boxes, but it’s bad pitching regardless. The sequence ended on a hit off a cutter (a Gilbert pitch I’m coming to hate again). The second bad PA did more damage but seemed like a flukier sequence. Despite his fastball being hot both before and after this at-bat, he was at 95 three separate times pitching to Yainer Diaz in the fourth, the final one being parked in the bullpens. But it was the only run Gilbert gave up all day.

Other than those blemishes, this was a vintage Logan Gilbert start. He was even efficient for the first time in what felt like forever, never taking more than 15 pitches in any of his seven innings. After a 2025 in which he struggled to put batters away, he was cruising today. It was the result of a real change in approach: In the run-up to today’s game, he focused on being more efficient, saying he tried to act as though “if they swing, it’s a good thing.”

He wanted to just stay in the zone “instead of just trying to out-stuff everybody.” I’m going to try to write about this later this week, but this totally tracks with when he struggled to put batters away last season. As a preview, I’m thinking my thesis will be: was the issue that all Logan’s tinkering made his arsenal too good?

But getting back to today, he probably even had some left in the tank after his seven innings, getting pulled at 85 pitches. It was the first time he’s pitched seven innings since Opening Day of last year. “Didn’t know it’d been that long,” he said after the game. “That doesn’t feel great.”

Of course, much as I wanted more out of him, the Astros were there to serve as a walking (pun intended) reminder of what happens when you don’t take care of your pitchers. After drawing 17 walks in the first two games, the Mariners offense started today in much the same fashion, facing literally Cody Bolton, who’d taken Hunter Brown’s place in Houston’s rotation. Brendan Donovan led off by reaching on a hit-by-pitch and Naylor walked to set up an RBI single from Randy Arozarena. They kept it going in the second, loading the bases on a trio of walks with nobody out. But just as they got Bolton on the ropes, he too left the game with the trainer. The back tightness that took him out today marks the seventh Astros starter with an injury issue.

The Mariners only cashed one of those runs in, but they kept getting opportunities, loading the bases again in the third, and scoring another pair of those runners on a Cole Young RBI walk and a Donovan sac fly. But despite having scored four, it felt like they were wasting a lot of chances, leaving nine runners on base through five innings. That’s enough LOBsters in the pot to make you nervous no matter how well Logan was pitching. I had to keep reminding myself they had, in fact, scored four times.

Things got even dicier in the sixth when Julio Rodríguez was thrown out at the plate. But they finally broke through on the next batter, when a Luke Raley double scored two, including Randy Arozarena losing his helmet rounding second but scoring from first.

The Mariners certainly could have scored more today given their eight hits and nine walks, but six was enough. Those nine walks bring their total to 26 over just 25 innings of offense against the Astros this series.

Josh Naylor earns today’s Sun Hat Award for providing a perfect bookend with an unassisted double play in the ninth, once again putting down a Jose Altuve who’d gotten too far off first base. This time it was Naylor’s turn to smile. As Gilbert put it, “Sometimes you can have fun out there. That’s OK.”