For an April evening in Seattle, this was about as good as it gets for a baseball scene. Dare we say, the setup was just about perfect.
The roof was open at T-Mobile Park on Friday, and a 67-degree sunshine greeted the red-hot Mariners in their return home from a feel-good, 10-day East Coast road trip.
What could go wrong on a night like this?
Just about everything, it turned out.
Logan Gilbert, the Mariners ace, exited the game after three innings with an arm injury, an ominous turn of events for the Mariners in their eventual 8-4 loss to the Miami Marlins in their series opener Friday night.
Gilbert, as durable as any pitcher in baseball the past four seasons, had thrown 29 pitches over three flawless innings, helping the Mariners take a 1-0 lead after a Dylan Moore homer.
But the mood in the ballpark shifted quickly in the top of the fourth inning when Casey Lawrence, the Mariners’ journeyman reliever, took the mound in Gilbert’s place. No explanation was immediately given.
About 20 minutes later, the Mariners provided an official update on Gilbert: right forearm tightness.
After the game, Gilbert indicated he would likely have medical imaging done on Saturday to determine the extent of the injury.
“I felt it a little bit warming up,” Gilbert said. “Just never really went away. Sometimes you just get going and it feels a little better. Tonight, it just didn’t.”
In the dugout before the start of the fourth inning, Gilbert said he tried to make a case with manager Dan Wilson and head trainer Kyle Torgerson to go back out to the mound to throw some warmup pitches, to see if he could loosen up his forearm.
His plea didn’t go far.
“It didn’t get a ton worse, which is good,” Gilbert said. “Dan was just adamant about trying to do what’s best — hopefully [it’s] nothing serious and long season, and that kind of stuff. … I was trying to see if I could go back out and throw some warmup pitches to see how I felt. But they didn’t think it was a good idea. Probably for the best, in the long run.”
Gilbert said he has felt similar stiffness in his forearm at times in his career.
“Sometimes early in the year, I feel like there’s just a hump you’ve got to get over,” he said. “And I felt like I was almost at that point. There’s been little bumps and bruises, and April can be tough as you get some stressful pitches and just get over the hump. It’s nothing too crazy concerning. But it usually goes away — it just didn’t really go away.”
On Friday, his average fastball velocity was 94.6 mph, down from his season average of 95.6 mph.
Notably, he said he didn’t throw any split-fingered fastballs Friday — a pitch some believe can add stress to a pitcher’s forearm. Gilbert has been throwing that pitch more regularly early this season — 24% of the time, up from a 13.4% usage rate in 2024.
He did add he didn’t feel tightness in his forearm when he threw his slider Friday, which he took as an encouraging sign.
But he also said he’s been trying to push through some discomfort for the past couple weeks.
“This last week or two, I was taking it really easy, just trying to get over the hump. Nothing crazy out of the norm,” he said. “Usually on start day, you get some adrenaline, you feel good and it goes away. Like I said, it just didn’t really get to that point.”
Gilbert has not missed a start since making his mariners debut in May 2021, and he led the majors in innings pitched last season, and made his first All-Star appearance.
He has exemplified everything the Mariners want in a modern pitcher, earning his reputation as a staff ace — as one of the game’s premier workhorses.
“I don’t want to make it like a pity party about myself, but I take a lot of pride in that,” Gilbert said. “It’s kind of how I want to be known, eating innings and being dependable and being healthy. You can’t control all that, but I’ve been healthy and never really came out of a start. I think this is first one when I came out [because of injury].
“Like I said, it’s not all about me, but … first time, it’s kind of tough. But, you know, I’ve got a lot of faith. God’s got a plan. I trust in that. I think it’ll be all right. I think it could be a lot worse. So we’ll see what happens.”
Lawrence, pressed into action, pitched well under the circumstances.
The Marlins scored six runs in the fifth inning to take a 6-1 lead, but all of those runs were unearned after Moore misplayed a slow groundball at second base with two outs in the inning.
Jorge Polanco hit a three-run homer off Miami’s Cal Quantrill in the sixth to pull the Mariners within 6-4. It was Polanco’s fifth homer of the season.
The Marlins stretched their lead to 8-4 in the eighth inning when rookie Agustin Ramirez hit a two-run blast to center field off Lawrence. It was Ramirez’s first MLB homer.
The Mariners arrive back in Seattle around 10 p.m. Thursday after a cross-country flight from Boston, following their first series victory at Fenway Park since 2014.
That capped a 6-3 road trip through Cincinnati, Toronto and Boston that pushed the Mariners into a tie atop the AL West.
