4/7/23

Mariners 5, Guardians 3

(Cleveland, OH) Just ten days after the Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Guardians opened the season against one another, they will play for the final time of the 2023 regular season. Game one of that three-game series also served as the Guardians home opener on Friday afternoon as Logan Gilbert and Aaron Civale faced off in a rematch of a 2-0 Cleveland win last Saturday. This time there would be more offense and a different result as the M’s outlasted Cleveland and spoiled the Guardians home opener with a 5-3 victory.

Early in the game it was Cleveland doing what Cleveland does best and that is putting together good at bats and landing some early body blows. Three straight one out singles loaded the bases for the Guardians with newly acquired power hitter Josh Bell coming to the plate. Logan Gilbert would record a big strikeout for the second out. He would not be able to escape the inning with no damage done. A wild pitch kicked away from Cal Raleigh which allowed Andres Gimenez to score from third and make it 1-0 Cleveland after an inning of play. Gilbert got Oscar Gonzalez to strikeout swinging to minimize the damage from the early threat.

Logan Gilbert clearly did not have his best stuff on Friday and it started really showing in the 3rd. A walk to Amed Rosario and a two out single for Josh Naylor had the Guardians threatening once again. Josh Bell came through this time for Cleveland as he roped one into right field for a base hit. Rosario scored easily from second but Teoscar Hernandez came up throwing and recorded an assist by getting Naylor at third to end the inning and again make Cleveland settle for just one run but the Guardians still led 2-0.

Walks have hurt Mariner pitching in the early going this season and a one out walk to Andres Gimenez would continue that trend. With two outs, Gimenez stole second after getting an unbelievable jump on Gilbert. Myles Straw capitalized on the opportunity with a hard groundball past J.P. Crawford and into left field. Gimenez scored easily and it was 3-0 Cleveland headed to the 5th.

Then, it was the Mariners turn to find some offense. Cooper Hummel would start the rally with his first hit as a Mariner to leadoff the 5th. J.P. Crawford would let Hummel run as the Mariner shortstop lined one into the left field corner. Hummel had more than enough speed scoring from first without a throw on Crawford’s second double of the season to get the Mariners on the board trailing 3-1. Ty France picked up Crawford with a base hit to left and all of a sudden the Mariners deficit was trimmed to 3-2.

After a tremendous catch by Teoscar Hernandez turned into a 9-3 double play to end the bottom of the 5th, the Mariners kept the momentum rolling in the top of the 6th. Jarred Kelenic would record his second double of the season and advanced to third on a wild pitch. With the tying run on third and two outs, J.P. Crawford came up big again. On the seventh pitch of the at bat, Crawford hit a line drive to the gap in right center. His second double of the game and third of the season allowed Kelenic to walk home and tie the game at 3-3.

Aaron Civale was then pulled and Nick Sandlin took over in relief for Cleveland with Julio Rodriguez coming to the plate. Rodriguez also saw seven pitches and did damage on lucky number seven. A slider just above the knees was driven high into left field and became a souvenir as Rodriguez got his second home run of the season. The two-run shot gave the Mariners their first lead of the game at 5-3 and made Julio Rodriguez the fastest Mariner to ever record 30 career home runs, doing so in just 140 games.

After Logan Gilbert was only able to go four innings, the bullpen took over and as a unit had their best outing of the season. Penn Murfee, Trevor Gott, Matt Brash, Andres Muñoz, and Paul Sewald pitched the final five frames and it never felt like Cleveland was going to score. In those five innings, the relievers gave up just one hit and one walk while striking out seven Guardians. The most important number was the no runs allowed by Los Bomberos as Paul Sewald finished off the dominant performance by striking out Will Brennan to give the Mariners the 5-3 win.

Seattle (3-5) will now try to earn their first series win in 2023 in game two of the three-game series on Saturday at 3:10pm. It will be a rematch of last Sunday’s pitching matchup as Marco Gonzales (0-0, 7.20 ERA) will look to lower his ERA in his second go around with the Guardians. Cleveland (5-3) will give the ball to Cal Quantrill (0-0, 7.71 ERA) will look to do the same after struggling against Seattle in his 2023 debut.

Matt’s Takeaways

THIS! This is the bullpen that we expected to see this season. They were absolutely dominant and outside of a scary flyout by Jose Ramirez, it felt like Cleveland was done as soon as the M’s took the lead. Matt Brash is just pure filth and we all know that by now. The duo of Penn Murfee and Trevor Gott have gotten off to a scorching start while Muñoz and Sewald improve with every outing. When you can trust your bullpen to be a lockdown unit, you can shorten the games and your rotation can have all kinds of pressure off of their shoulders. This is the best I have felt about a win so far this season. Let’s see if the boys can wrap up this series and maybe even a sweep this weekend.

Notable Performances

Mariners

• Julio Rodriguez- 2-5, HR, 2 RBI, R, SB
• J.P. Crawford- 2-4, 2 2B, 2 RBI, 2 R
• Logan Gilbert (ND)- 4 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 SO
• Bullpen- 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 SO

Guardians

• Amed Rosario- 1-3, 2 R, BB
• Myles Straw- 1-3, RBI
• Aaron Civale (L, 1-1)- 5.2 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 5 SO

elisportsnetwork.com