SEATTLE -- Logan Gilbert seethed at himself when pacing off the mound after his night ended with two outs in the seventh inning. He’d just walked his first batter and ended the Mariners’ franchise-record streak of 35 innings without a free pass, and given that runs were hard to come by on Tuesday night at T-Mobile Park, all baserunners loomed large.

Meanwhile, Julio Rodríguez stood confidently in center field, having just made a remarkable catch into the left-field gap, covering 93 feet in 4.9 seconds -- almost overrunning it. He knew more action could be coming, given that former Mariner Jake Fraley had wheels on first base and all-world speedster Elly De La Cruz was stepping to the plate.

Indeed, De La Cruz walked and represented the tying run after Andrés Muñoz relieved Gilbert. But in a power-on-power matchup pitting defense against speed, Rodríguez returned for his second act when cutting down the Reds’ shortstop with an 89.5 mph throw as he was attempting to go first-to-third on a sharp single.

The throw reached third baseman Josh Rojas just before Fraley crossed the plate, saving a run, and helping the Mariners hold on to a 3-1 victory, which secured their first series win of 2024. But it took every last out to do so, after Ryne Stanek loaded the bases to put the go-ahead run on first before Tayler Saucedo closed the door by inducing a flyout to -- guess who -- Rodríguez for the 27th out.

“Thank God for Julio,” Gilbert said.

Though Rodríguez is off to a slow start at the plate, he’s still been among the most valuable defensive center fielders, and Tuesday was the most illustrative example why.

“I know that they have the stat, defensive runs saved," Mariners manager Scott Servais said. "I don’t know how many runs he saved tonight. It seemed like four or five of them."

On the catch near the wall, Rodríguez raced with a sprint speed of 29.3 feet per second (27 is league average and 30 is elite) and yanked in the 102.1 mph liner from Spencer Steer straight out of the air. On the liner in front of him, he made the throw to nab De La Cruz off balance, while Cincinnati’s 6-foot-5 shortstop surged his sprint speed up to 29.9 ft/sec.

“On the throw, I knew Elly is fast,” Rodríguez said. “I knew that he’s an aggressive runner. So as soon as I caught the ball, I'm just looking up to third because it was a little bit to the side and I knew that he might try something. So, I would rather be prepared for that than being caught asleep.

“On the other one, I just had to run out there and go and get it. I had to jump to slow myself down a little bit, so that’s why I caught it a little bit behind my back.”

Rodríguez also recorded just his second multi-hit game of the year, via a pair of singles, to go with two strikeouts, an encapsulation of slow progress with room for improvement.

“We're being really committed to our plan,” Rodríguez said, “and that's something that we want to continue to keep working on and keep stressing on.”

Hits were hard to come by, given the 51-degree temperature at first pitch and that both Gilbert and Cincinnati’s Hunter Greene possessed power fastballs and swing-and-miss secondaries.

But Gilbert outlasted Greene after Seattle’s bats grinded the former No. 2 overall Draft pick to 98 pitches through the fourth inning -- marking the first time this season that they chased a starter that early in consecutive games.

An RBI double from Jonatan Clase, who made his debut on Monday, in the fourth inning, a bases-loaded walk from Mitch Garver in the fifth and an RBI single from Mitch Haniger in the sixth gave Gilbert plenty of cushion given the way he’s pitching -- now having allowed one earned run or fewer in three of his four starts. Gilbert advanced to 30-0 for his career when being the pitcher of record and receiving at least three runs of support.

He’s also allowed just 21 baserunners in 27 innings this year, with just four walks to 100 batters he’s faced. Mariners pitching coach Pete Woodworth made sure to inform Gilbert good-naturedly, but only after Rodríguez saved the day.

“It just speaks to what we do here,” Gilbert said. “And also I think the way that people bought in -- because anybody can say 'dominate the zone, attack, win 0-0 [counts],' stuff like that. But there's a lot of buy-in here.”