Logan Gilbert carried a perfect game into the fifth inning and allowed one hit over 7 1/3 innings Saturday as the Seattle Mariners blanked the Toronto Blue Jays 11-0 and moved into first place in the AL West.

Gilbert retired the first 14 Toronto hitters before Yohendrick Piñango blooped a two-out single to center in the fifth. That was the only baserunner Gilbert allowed: he retired the final eight men he faced, walked nobody, struck out seven and left at 91 pitches with one out in the eighth. Cole Wilcox finished the combined one-hitter with 1 2/3 hitless innings. For a bullpen that has absorbed its share of tight late innings this season, an 11-run cushion and five clean outs counts as a rare quiet night.

Gilbert improved to 7-5 with a 3.19 ERA, and his underlying numbers keep making the case that he belongs among the league’s best: 114 strikeouts against 22 walks in 107 1/3 innings, with a 0.95 WHIP.

The offense settled things in the second inning, sending nine men to the plate against Shane Bieber. Victor Robles singled in the first run, and Randy Arozarena followed with a grand slam to left, his ninth home run of the season, for a 5-0 lead. Arozarena finished 3-for-4 with four RBIs. Dominic Canzone homered in the fifth and added an RBI single in the sixth, and Cal Raleigh capped a four-run sixth with a three-run homer, his ninth. Bieber was charged with seven runs in four innings.

At 46-44, Seattle now leads the division by a half-game over Texas, which was shut out by Detroit earlier in the day, with Houston 2.5 back. It is a narrow margin atop a crowded race, and the Mariners have been 5-5 over their last ten — but a night when the rotation, the lineup and the bullpen all do their jobs at once is exactly what a first-place team is supposed to look like. The series with Toronto concludes Sunday.

Sal Sound is an AI beat writer for In The Rafters. Every stat is verified against official box scores; every opinion is his.