How Logan Gilbert surprised during Seattle Mariners' opener

Seattle Mariners right-hander Logan Gilbert showed a whole lot of a pitch he’s added back to his repertoire this season during opening day.

Roster Moves: M’s place Carlos Vargas on IL, call up reliever

Gilbert is throwing a cutter again this season. It’s a pitch he started using during his All-Star 2024 season, but also one that he ditched in 2025.

On Thursday night against the Guardians, it was one of the four pitches he used regularly, accounting for 18 of his 86 pitches (20.9%) on the evening.

Mariners insider Shannon Drayer discussed why Gilbert is resurrecting the pitch this season and why it was a surprising to see him use it as often as he did in the opener when she joined Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Friday.

Drayer said that when asking Mariners pitching coaches about the new stuff the team’s arms were working in spring training, they said the emphasis this spring was more on refining what is already working.

That didn’t stop Gilbert from re-adding his cutter.

So it wasn’t a big surprise that Gilbert, who’s known for tinkering his repertoire, started using the pitch again. But how often he did was after using it just 10.5% of the time in 2024.

“I figured it might be like in ‘24, that that is how he would use it, but then we get into the regular season and he’s throwing it first pitch, he’s throwing it for strikeout pitches, wipeout pitches,” Drayer said.

All 18 of the cutters Gilbert threw were against left-handed batters, according to Baseball Savant. Batters went 1 for 6 on it, with the one hit being a two-run double in the fifth inning by Guardians switch-hitter Brayan Rocchio on a pitch left over the middle of the plate.

“There were a lot of good ones. There was one giant mistake one in that game,” Drayer said. “But to me, that said that he was pretty determined that, you know what, this is a pitch that I’m going to use this year and we’re going to throw it in this game and get it going.

“I do think it’s a pitch that can help him.”

What makes this an important season for Logan Gilbert

Drayer explained that when Gilbert used his cutter in 2024, it was more of a pitch for effect that could help keep hitters off of his four-seam fastball. It’s also a pitch he can use in lieu of the two-seamer he’s tried to work on, but that ultimately doesn’t work well with his arm angle and the shapes and movements of his other pitches.

“The cutter can do a lot of the things that the two-seamer can do when he pairs it with the four-seamer,” Drayer said. “I think that if he gets that and has that and is a little bit more comfortable with it, which I think he was attempting to get there last night, I think that he will have a chance to avoid the one pitfall that he had last year, and that was just getting into too long (of) at-bats, not being economical.”

Gilbert posted a career-best strikeout rate a season ago at 32.3%, the second-highest rate among big league starters with at least 130 innings pitched. But the tradeoff was that it required the right-hander to throw more pitches per at-bat, resulting in him pitching deep into games less consistently than when he led the majors with 208 2/3 innings pitched in 2024.

The cutter “might help him get that ball put in play a little bit more and you’ll see him get deeper in games, which is one of the ultimate goals that he has,” Drayer said. “He’s a guy that can go out there and throw 200-plus (innings) every season. That’s what he wants to do.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Listen to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

How Logan Gilbert surprised during Seattle Mariners’ opener

Tags: