Logan Gilbert shines as Mariners hand beat-up Astros third straight loss

SEATTLE – Amass a pile of base hits? Nine was enough.

Smash some home runs? Not required.

Walk-off heroics? Not necessary.

All the Mariners needed to do on Sunday afternoon was continue to grind out at-bats, allow the erratic Astros pitchers to issue free baserunners and avoid getting too greedy at the plate to find a third straight victory at T-Mobile Park.

The Mariners took advantage of a beat-up and ball-throwing Astros’ pitching staff early in the game, added on runs in the middle innings and didn’t waste the best start of the season to date from Logan Gilbert to roll to a drama-free 6-1 victory over Houston.

Seattle will have a chance at a rare four-game sweep on Monday afternoon in the finale of this weekend wraparound series vs. its American League West rival. The Mariners will send right-hander George Kirby to the mound while the Astros, who have lost seven straight games, will go with right-hander Mike Burrows.

“Another great ballgame for us,” manager Dan Wilson said. “Doing more of what we talk about, and stacking those at-bats together, getting a lot of free baserunners today, which, you know, we were able to cash in on and especially late in the game.”

For the third time in their last four games, the Astros had a starting pitcher fail to give them two innings of work due to injury. Right-hander Cody Bolton, a Mariners reliever briefly in 2024, was making his second start out of the bullpen for Houston on the road trip. Bolton allowed a run in the first inning and exited the second inning with upper back tightness after walking the first three batters he faced to load the bases.

On his 42nd pitch of his outing, Bolton fired a 95-mph sinker that Brendan Donovan fouled off to fall behind 0-2. Bolton grimaced and walked around the mound, clearly in discomfort. Astros manager Joe Espada and an athletic trainer came to the mound immediately. After a brief conversation, Bolton was removed from the game.

“It was that area where he got hit with the line drive (in his previous outing),” Espada said. “It just tightened up on him. I went out there and asked him because I saw him moving his shoulder and he just said the area was tightening up on him.”

Houston turned to right-hander Jayden Murray, who was recalled from Triple-A Sugarland on Saturday, to pick up some innings.

Murray finished off the at-bat with Donovan, striking him out. He also struck out Cal Raleigh for the second out. But he walked Julio Rodríguez to force in a run to make it 2-0 before retiring Josh Naylor.

The Mariners continued to add runs, picking up two in the third inning off Murray with Cole Young working a bases-loaded walk and Donovan’s sac fly to right to make it 4-0.

Seattle tacked on two more in the sixth on Luke Raley’s double into the right-field corner. Raley had three hits on the day with a pair of doubles. After dealing with an oblique strain all last season, he’s back to full strength and the results are noticeable.

“It feels really good,” Raley said. “Obviously, it was a struggle last year. I was fighting it all year, long after it happened. Just to feel healthy and … it’s not on my mind. To have that behind me is a really good feeling.”

Five Astros pitchers combined to cover the eight innings, giving up eight hits, walking nine batters and hitting two. The Mariners probably should’ve scored about 10 runs with all the free runners, but they went 3-for-15 with runners in scoring position and stranded 12 runners. Still, they managed to get at least one run in four of the six innings with multiple baserunners.

“Everybody’s been having pretty good at-bats, just drawing our walks, getting hit by pitches, just any way to get on base, and then we’ve been doing the job at the plate, and getting runs,” Raley said. “I think maybe the previous week we kind of got out of our approach and were maybe being a little bit too aggressive at the plate. This is what we expect to do at the plate and the at-bats we expect to have.”

Meanwhile, Gilbert delivered his most efficient and longest outing in over a year. He pitched seven innings, allowing one run on four hits with a walk and seven strikeouts. It was the first time he’d pitched seven complete innings since opening day of the 2025 season.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” he said. “I didn’t know it’s been that long. That doesn’t feel great, but it’s nice to keep going and get back to that. We talked about it like two days ago. So it’s nice that we put the plan in place and did it, and hopefully more of those to come.”

Gilbert, Cal Raleigh and pitching coach Pete Woodworth had a brief meeting before the start of the series, going over a few aspects of his previous outings and planning ahead.

“We talked about forcing contact,” Gilbert said. “My stuff’s good. I have plenty of options. It’s just really that, quicker at-bats sometimes are good. It’s almost treating it like, if they swing, it’s a good thing. If they hit it, we win, instead of just trying to out-stuff everybody. If they swing, sometimes it’s a hit, sometimes it’s not, but just continually doing that usually puts us in a pretty good spot.”

This isn’t a new concept. It was more a reminder.

“It’s what we always (want) to do, everybody here, the whole organization, me especially,” Gilbert said. “We always talk about it. If they swing, who cares? If they hit it, who cares? We’re just gonna stay on the attack and see what happens. Sometimes you can try to control every outcome. And today it was a little bit more just like, be aggressive, and it is what it is.”

Only three times did he get to three balls in a count. The first three-ball count came in the first inning when he struck out Yordan Álvarez on a 3-2 slider.

The second three-ball count came in the fifth inning. Gilbert fell behind 3-1 to Yainier Diaz and fired a fastball on the inside half. Knowing that he’d be challenged with a fastball, Diaz was ready, yanking it over the wall in left field for a solo homer.

In the sixth, with the Mariners leading 4-1, Gilbert gave up a leadoff double to Jose Altuve to bring Álvarez to the plate. With first base open, the Mariners didn’t want to make a mistake over the plate. Álvarez walked on four pitches, bringing Isaac Paredes to the plate as the tying run. But his ground ball to third base was turned into a quick double play as Donovan touched third and fired across the diamond to end the inning.

“Punch-outs are great and that’s the ultimate (goal),” Wilson said. “But if you can get a guy out on four or five pitches instead of six or seven pitches, that helps immensely down the line. He was very efficient attacking the zone, being aggressive.”