Runs could be at a premium Friday at Cleveland when Seattle Mariners right-hander Logan Gilbert and Guardians righty Aaron Civale meet after the duo allowed a combined six hits when they opposed each other last week.
Civale (1-0, 0.00 ERA) was masterful in the initial meeting at Seattle, allowing two hits and a walk to go along with three strikeouts over seven innings in a 2-0 win on Saturday. Gilbert (0-1, 1.50) was nearly as good, allowing a run on four hits with seven strikeouts and a walk over six innings.
Gilbert is 1-2 with a 3.13 ERA with 20 strikeouts and two walks in four career starts against Cleveland. Civale is 2-2 with a 2.89 ERA with 25 strikeouts and five walks over four starts against the Mariners.
The Guardians opened the season with three victories in four games at Seattle, then took two of three against the host Oakland A’s, capped with a 6-4 win in 10 innings on Wednesday.
After Oakland scored four runs in the eighth to tie the game 4-4 to force extra innings, Andres Gimenez opened the 10th on second base. Myles Straw walked against Zach Jackson (0-1) with both runners moving up a base on a wild pitch.
Gimenez scored on Will Brennan’s groundout to shortstop before Steven Kwan’s RBI single to left scored Straw to make it 6-4.
Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase worked around a walk to earn his second save of the season. Eli Morgan pitched a scoreless ninth to pick up the win.
“I think we all felt like they’ll fight, they’ll compete, and they do,” Cleveland manager Terry Francona said. “And we’re not perfect, and we probably won’t be. But as long as they keep fighting, we got a chance.”
The Mariners head to Cleveland after being dominated by the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani in a 4-3 loss on Wednesday.
Host Seattle mustered just a run on three hits and struck out eight times in the first six innings, even when Ohtani was not at his best with four walks and two hit batters.
The Mariners took a 1-0 lead in the first, but the Angels scored two runs in the second and two more in the seventh to take a 4-1 lead. Seattle pulled to within 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh on Ty France’s RBI double and Eugenio Suarez’s run-scoring single.
Suarez and J.P Crawford each had two hits for the Mariners, while right-hander Chris Flexen allowed two runs on two hits with four strikeouts and two walks in five innings.
“Offensively, I thought we did a really nice job against Ohtani,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “That was the plan going in kind of grind through at-bats, get the pitch count up there. I think the thing that hurt us today a little bit, we made a couple outs on the bases and took us out of possibly some bigger innings there, when we did have a chance to score runs.”
–Field Level Media
