Gilbert's struggles mirror rotation woes in finale

ANAHEIM -- Logan Gilbert quite literally lost the grip on the final pitch of his outing on Sunday in what amounted to an all-too-real microcosm of a frustrating afternoon that put an end to an even more frustrating road trip.

Nearly two hours before the Mariners’ 9-4 loss at Angel Stadium went final, Gilbert unleashed a splitter that hit the Angels’ Taylor Ward on the back side of his left shoulder and knew immediately his day was done. He turned to the visiting dugout as he saw manager Scott Servais emerge with no outs in the fourth inning and exhibited a rare look of vexation.

The uber-competitive Gilbert saves his emotion for more prominent moments, and this was among his most frustrating.

“It was tough,” a visibly bothered Gilbert said postgame. “You want to do everything you can to help the team, especially in a game like this, trying to win the series. And yeah, it was terrible. A lot of people counting on me, [and] I just let them down.”

Gilbert, who was moved up in the rotation to make Sunday’s start but on regular rest, was ambushed for seven runs (six earned) for the second time in his past three starts. And it began from the get-go against an Angels team he knows all too well.

Ward ripped Gilbert’s second pitch of the game for a 411-foot homer and Zach Neto added another solo shot in the second, this one 421 feet, to mark Gilbert’s third multi-homer game of the year. But it was the successive ambush of base hits that proved more decisive.

Beyond the long balls, Gilbert allowed six additional hits -- three doubles and three singles -- and struck out only two. Even Mike Trout, who was in an 0-for-14 spell, broke through for a knock that led to him later scoring. Among the 16 balls in play against the towering righty, 11 exceeded Statcast’s 95 mph hard-hit threshold, a season high and one shy of Gilbert's career worst.

The culprit? Too many pitches on the plate, particularly his slider, which accounted for three of those hard-hit balls and were all middle-middle. Los Angeles put seven sliders in play for an average exit velocity of 96.8 mph.

“It was just bad execution, all the way around, pretty much everything,” Gilbert said. “But yeah, the slider over the middle of a plate, just easy to get right on it. … It’s just on me. I wasn’t able to make an adjustment out there.”

Seattle’s 2-6 road trip featured notable struggles from its starting pitchers, but this tough stretch actually dates back further, perhaps to May 26, when George Kirby surrendered a career-high-tying four homers.

Kirby had another tough start on Tuesday in San Diego, allowing a career-high 11 hits. Gilbert and Bryce Miller have now had two outings with at least seven runs in each. And while Bryan Woo rebounded in Saturday’s win, his MLB debut last weekend in Arlington also featured six earned runs. Even Luis Castillo’s 10-strikeout gem on Friday was marred by two costly mistake pitches that went for homers and led to a loss.

In this stretch, the Mariners’ rotation has an MLB-worst 6.38 ERA. They entered Sunday with an opposing slash line of .284/.341/.509 for an .850 OPS that was third worst before the Angels went 8-for-18 against Gilbert.

“There'll be days you maybe don't have your electric fastball or things like that, but you’ve got to figure out a way to work through lineups and give your team a chance, and we haven’t been able to do that,” Servais said. “We get behind early, big numbers early on, and then you're kind of swimming upstream.”

The bright spot to what’s been Seattle's toughest road trip of the year is that the offense showed improvement. One day after a season-high 16 hits, the Mariners had nine in the finale. But they came up with only one run during a sixth inning in which they loaded the bases with no outs and then reloaded them after Cal Raleigh flied out and Eugenio Suárez hit a sacrifice fly.

Swinging for the fences in that type of sequence has been what Servais and the Mariners have said has gotten them in trouble, preaching a “don’t try and do too much” approach. But the fact that it was necessary to get back in the game underscores where some of their starting pitching struggles stand.