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.
