Mariners drop pair of split squad games started by Gilbert and Castillo

Bats quiet in pair of losses home and away

Today’s games featured an intriguing pitching matchup: the Opening Day starter for the past two seasons, Luis Castillo, and the newly-minted 2025 Opening Day starter, Logan Gilbert. Sadly, neither pitcher earned a win today, as the Mariners were defeated at home by the Padres and on the road by the Giants.

Home game:

On a day when he was given some disappointing news, Castillo once again proved why his nickname is “The Rock,” pitching three scoreless innings and generally looking very Luis Castillo-ish. “I feel 95% ready to go” said Castillo postgame.

The Padres got to Castillo in the fourth, when Gavin Sheets blasted a solo homer in a 1-2 count, picking up a slider and getting it up in the wind blowing out to right field. Oscar Gonzalez and Connor Joe followed with back-to-back doubles, scoring another run, but got two outs thanks to some sharp infield defense from Ben Williamson on a tricky slow roller and an ably fielded sharply hit ground ball to Bliss, ending with a four-pitch strikeout to Tirso Ornelas where Castillo got him chasing after a slider. Castillo hit the “rock” pose afterwards, just as Mariners have seen him do so many times; the model of consistency.

Castillo came out in the fifth inning and retired his first two hitters, one on a strikeout on the changeup, before Eduard Bazardo came in and got the final out of the inning.

The Mariners hitters looked overmatched by Padres starter Michael King early, striking out four times in the first three innings. The Mariners finally got a run off King in the third thanks to Ryan Bliss, who followed up an excellent inning-ending defensive play with a sharply struck leadoff single (107.6). Miles Mastrobuoni followed with a walk, and Ben Williamson flew out (also with a triple-digit exit velocity), moving Bliss to third, who later scored when Victor Robles beat out a would-be double play (he was later caught stealing to end the inning). So King should be fine as long as he doesn’t have to pitch against the 2025 Tacoma Rainiers.

With the lid off on the offense, Randy Arozarena blasted a game-tying home run off King in the fourth. As Arozarena, who was out signing autographs for fans in left field pregame, ran down the third base line towards home plate, he made the “home run” signal at the fans sitting behind the Mariners dugout, who happily made the sign back at him.

And then in the fifth it was Bliss again, doubling off King and ending his day and eventually scoring, putting the Mariners ahead 3-2.

But the lead was not to last. The Sheets-Gonzalez-Joe trio ganged up on Bazardo again for the tying and go-ahead runs, albeit with some bad batted ball luck for Bazardo. Adonis Medina gave up another pair of runs in the sixth, although again, he wasn’t helped out by some shaky infield defense (not you, Ben Williamson. You are perfect.*) And finally, Josh Fleming gave up another pair of runs to make it 8-3 in the ninth.

*Williamson is perfect, at least in the field. He played almost the whole game and handled everything that came at him at third, making a nice read on a tricky hop, and also fielding a poor throw from Shintaro Fujinami on a steal attempt, picking the off-target throw and then contorting his body to get the tag down. If the bat comes along just a little, there’s a real big-leaguer there.

The Mariners will try to earn a win for the weekend tomorrow at Goodyear against the Reds. Game time is 1:05 PT.

Away Game:

In the away game, the Mariners got on the board early, but not through any fault of Logan Webb—or at least, not through any fault of his pitching. Donovan Solano reached on a Matt Chapman throwing error (!), Dominic Canzone reached on a ground ball back to Webb, and Dylan Moore reached on another Chapman throwing error (!), allowing a run to score. Then Webb made an error on the pickoff attempt, allowing another run to score. Thanks?

Logan Gilbert was sharp in his first inning, but struggled a little in the second, giving up a solo home run to Heliot Ramos and walking Patrick Bailey before getting Wilmer Flores to ground into a double play. That was fortuitous, as the next hitter, Jerar Encarnacion, doubled, before Gilbert was able to strike out Tyler Fitzgerald to end the inning. Ramos got to Gilbert again in the third, hitting a two-RBI double that scored LaMonte Wade Jr. and Willy Adames, who had both reached on singles that deflected off infielders.

Gilbert had a clean inning in the fourth, thanks to Heliot Ramos not being due up in the inning, ending his day. The Giants then opened it up against Carlos Vargas, with Willy Adames hitting a two-run homer to make it 6-2, an even more insurmountable deficit for the Mariners offense, which was only able to scrape up those two runs on errors.

The Mariners offense couldn’t get anything going, but at least the deficit didn’t grow, thanks to clean innings from lefty Austin Kitchen and Sauryn Lao. I still believe in Austin Kitchen. To my fellow Kitchenettes, stay strong.