Mariners look for the money, shut out Astros 5-0

Operation Crimson Sky for Lōgun

Pretty much every doctor in America can tell you about Willie Sutton, which is surprising because Sutton was neither a medical researcher nor a victim of a famous accident or disease. No, Willie Sutton was a bank robber who stole almost $2 million over four decades and escaped from prison three times. And doctors know him for an apocryphal quote. Asked why he robbed banks, he supposedly said, “Because that’s where the money is.” Despite later denying that he ever said that, he did write in his autobiography that he would have said it. Doctors have repurposed this as something they call Sutton’s law, and it guides them in their diagnoses: Go where the money is. If there’s a most likely diagnosis, you should probably run that test. Start with the obvious.

I bring this up because it’s how the Mariners shut out the Astros tonight.

Whether you consider Framber Valdez an ace or not, he’s definitely close enough, and he’s roasted the Mariners throughout his career, limiting them to a .283 wOBA entering tonight. The way he’s done that is the same way he does it to everyone, using his sinker-changeup-curveball combination to keep the ball on the ground. But the Mariners had consistent traffic tonight by turning Framber’s strength into a weakness. The game plan, executed up and down the lineup, was to anticipate those dropping pitches and stay on them just a little longer. If they could wait for them to get deeper into the strike zone, they’d stand a better chance of getting the ball in the air and thus reaching base. Go where the money is.

That strategy worked, as they waited that crucial split second longer before swinging and racked up nine hits in 5.1 innings. Nearly every batter recorded one of those hits, and seven of those nine were hit by a right-handed hitter to the right side of second base. That’s where the money is against Framber. They came up with a plan and executed, a rarity for this offense. It was especially encouraging to see the new guys get in on the action. Jorge Polanco showed some elite bat control on a sinker and was driven in by a Mitch Garver double to the right-center wall. And Luis Urías hit his 420-footer to lead off the next inning.

One of the only two hits that went to the left side was Framber’s last pitch of the night, and we’ll forgive Cal Raleigh for ruining the narrative by pulling the ball for his seventh Beef Boy Bomb of the season since it was already his third of the year hitting from the right side of the plate, which isn’t usually his power side.

On the other side of the ball, Logan Gilbert pitched a beauty, allowing just two hits over eight innings. We talk a lot about Gilbert’s evolution and his development of a more complete arsenal. It’s famously allowed him to go from one of the most fastball-heavy pitchers to one of the least. But he’s not really a kitchen-sink kind of pitcher. The way he operates is that he usually leans heavily on one particular secondary on any given day, weighing the opponent’s scouting report against which pitches are feeling good on that day. Today, that secondary was the slider, which he threw 34 of, attracting seven whiffs and five called strikes. In some of his other starts, it’s been the splitter or the cutter, but he held those back today, throwing only one or two the first time through the order.

Gilbert’s heavy use of the slider mirrors how he tore through the Astros last July. It’s where the money is when Logan faces Houston. If you’ve got something that works, use it. Consider the obvious.

And having saved those other pitches is what allowed him to go so deep into the game, as he mixed it up much more the third time through the order, something that’s been a problem for Gilbert in the past. Facing Yordan Álvarez for the third time, for example, Gilbert struck him out on four pitches: slider, splitter, cutter, curveball.

That was the first time Gilbert retired Álvarez, who had bunted for a base hit in the first inning. The absurdity of that hit almost lived in infamy as Logan went all the way into the seventh inning before allowing a second hit. It made Jeremy Peña’s laser into a center come as somewhat of a relief, since I don’t know that I could have lived with Gilbert throwing a one hitter consisting of a bunt from Yordan Álvarez. Peña’s hit was erased by a double play that ended the seventh with Gilbert at 80 pitches and with a Maddux in his sights. But a couple long battles to open the eighth spoiled that idea, and Scott Servais felt comfortable pulling him after eight strong innings.

Gilbert did allow an atypical four walks today, but the fact that he only surrendered two hits isn’t an accident. The average exit velocity off him tonight was only 83.2 mph, a remarkably low number for someone whose fatal flaw has been a failure to manage contact.

And then there’s the scoreboard. Eight innings of shutout ball takes the rotation’s hot stretch into historic territory. They’ve now gone 21 starts in a row without allowing more than two earned runs. The last team to do that was the 1917 White Sox. The only team on record with a longer stretch is the 1915 Washington Senators with 22. The Mariners starters have allowed 20 earned runs over those 21 starts. So forgive me for repeating my last recap, but if that’s not worth a Sun Hat Award for Logan, I don’t know what is.