Pitching is a co-op game, and LoGi Bear is racking up the achievements.
In earning the Opening Day starter nod, Logan Gilbert rightfully was recognized this spring as the best starter on the Seattle Mariners. No mean feat, but 200+ innings of excellence will do that. On the first night of the 2025 campaign, the 6’6 slinger looked like his best self. 7.0 innings pitched, two hits, just the one run on his only real mistake, a punished slider to Tyler Soderstrom in the heart of the zone. Eight strikeouts without a single walk, with 16 whiffs on 47 swings, taking just 83 pitches. Brilliance, and brilliance that relied most heavily on a particular pitch that’s continued to evolve: his splitfinger changeup.
It’s not as though this was the only aspect of Gilbert’s game that was firing on all cylinders – his four-seam fastball was well-located all night, while his plurality pitch was in fact the slider, continuing the trend that came into focus a year ago. The few curveballs he threw went over well to boot, however it was the split-change that utterly flummoxed the A’s lineup. His usage of the pitch in particular reflected a few interesting things to watch for the season to come, and continued a theme from this spring, when Gilbert went to the pitch heavily in his last start of spring.
“A couple of splitters were really taking off, and it felt good the last game of spring training,” said Gilbert, who said he was also pleased with the depth on his slider in his last start, even in the thin Arizona air. “So I knew we were going to go to it quite a bit today. That was part of the game plan.”
As was discussed on the M’s TV broadcast, Gilbert felt comfortable throwing the pitch to righties all night. That’s been the case for a while now, as he narrowly threw more (208) splitters to righties a year ago than lefties (199), but by rate that’s still much more prevalent against LHH. On Thursday night, the splitty was front and center for much of the evening. Brent Rooker, for instance, had a nightmarish outing, thanks largely to misreading splitter after splitter as fastball out of the hand, leading to swings at unhittable pitches like this:
Rooker is a strikeout-prone hitter, but an excellent one. Affording him the opportunity to make contact is treacherous, so working out of the zone is key. It takes extraordinary movement on a pitch to get away with being in the heart of the plate against him, and it can be quite difficult to throw the split-finger with effective movement higher than the belt. But that’s what Gilbert did.
This was a mistake, as you can see Cal’s target was not “throw it down the middle 2-2,” but the pitch is so nasty it doesn’t matter. Shea Langeliers, Max Muncy, and Jacob Wilson were all additional righties who received splitters last night, with the first two striking out on them and the third narrowly fouling it off. Less strikeout prone JJ Bleday and potent power threats Soderstrom and Lawrence Butler got healthy doses from the left side, of course, again with the first two punching out and the third just weakly popping it up.
Gilbert was able to move out of the zone on Rooker and others with the split because he worked ahead of hitters all night. He threw the split exclusively in 1-2, 0-1, and 0-2 counts, using the slider or fastball to get ahead against the A’s, who took 12 of 23 first-pitch called strikes.
“It helps a ton getting ahead,” he said, “first pitch strikes, and then you have freedom to go to splitters as much as you want.”
Of the 21 splitters Gilbert threw, 14 were swung at, nine were whiffed on, three were fouled off, and two were weakly put into play. That’s the type of results closers would give several digits on their non-throwing hands (or throwing hands, shoutout Mordecai Brown) to achieve. Gilbert did it all night long.
I want to close with this image, because it tells the story in its entirety.
Baseball Savant
Gilbert threw his splitter all over the place. Inside to lefties, including the punchout of Soderstrom. Away from lefties, to punch out Bleday. In the strike zone, getting whiffs from Rooker and Langeliers. Out of the zone, earning whiffs and weak contact from Butler, Wilson, and Muncy. It was a masterful performance over a lineup that is not world-beating, but is certainly expected to be around a league-average crew at the plate. That’s some good split.