TORONTO -- Just one win away from their first World Series appearance in franchise history, the Mariners will turn to their homegrown ace who has become a prominent face of the organization while embodying every aspect of their pitching philosophies.
Logan Gilbert has been tabbed to start Game 6 of the American League Championship Series on Sunday night at Rogers Centre, opposite Blue Jays rookie Trey Yesavage, in what will be a Game 2 rematch.
“Just to get to this point is amazing,” Gilbert said. “But to be the one to have the ball, you grow up dreaming of moments like this, and you don't know how many you'll get over the course of your career. Some guys never get this. So it's a really big deal.”
Both arms will be on an extra day’s rest, and for Gilbert, that could be particularly notable, as he was limited to just three innings and 57 pitches his last time out, having left with the game tied, after Julio Rodríguez crushed a three-run homer in the first off Yesavage.
The command struggles that led to Gilbert throwing pitches either over the heart of the plate for loud contact or offerings way out of the zone were likely a correlation to bouncing back after just two days’ rest. He threw 34 high-stress pitches out of the bullpen on Oct. 10 in Seattle’s 15-inning win in Game 5 of the AL Division Series vs. Detroit, which proved to be vital for Seattle to advance.
Gilbert has a career 3.25 ERA in the regular season with an extra day’s rest compared to a 4.44 ERA on standard rest. In these playoffs, he has a 2.45 ERA over 11 innings across three outings.
“That’s the playoffs, and that's kind of the fun of it, too,” Gilbert said. “But we're kind of creatures of habit, too, so it's nice being back in the normal routine and -- even pitching here last time and now coming back here, just a little familiarity.”
Now, Gilbert -- Seattle’s first-round pick in the 2018 MLB Draft -- will have the opportunity to lift the organization to a precipice it has never reached, as the Mariners are MLB’s only team that has never played in the Fall Classic.
Given how high the Mariners have soared since the Trade Deadline, it’s actually been a trying season for Gilbert, who was on the injured list for the first time in his career and then struggled to pitch deeper into games once he returned.
Gilbert exited an April 25 start vs. Miami with a right elbow flexor strain and missed the next two months, then he averaged 5 1/3 innings per start upon returning -- after leading MLB with 208 2/3 frames in 2024, when he was a first-time All-Star and emerged as one of the sport’s true workhorses. As the Mariners’ best starter last season, he earned his first career Opening Day assignment this year.
The game-by-game longevity challenges this season could also have a correlation to Gilbert blossoming into one of the game’s best swing-and-miss specialists in ‘25. After all, getting to strike three leads to deeper counts, and Gilbert ranked second in MLB to Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler with a 32.3% K rate (min. 130 innings pitched).
That type of pitching profile is ripe for October, where there are no holes in any lineup -- and especially Toronto’s, which stormed back into this best-of-seven round after the series shifted to Seattle. The Blue Jays outscored the Mariners by 15 runs (21-6) in Games 3-4 before Cal Raleigh and Eugenio Suárez authored two moments for the ages in the Mariners' Game 5 win.
The Blue Jays had a lower K rate (17.8%) and whiff rate (21.6%) than any offense in the sport, which should lead to a power-on-power matchup in Game 6.
“That’s a good point,” Gilbert said. “We have seen that a lot in this series. It's somewhere in the middle. I think you know the situation of the game, too. We never want to shy away from what we do, and getting good counts is huge, but also knowing there's some freedom to go to our spots when we have those situations.”
As for Bryan Woo, the Mariners obviously aren’t going to tip their hand on his availability after the 2025 All-Star threw two innings in Game 5. But given that Woo only threw 28 pitches, albeit high-stress, how he’s deployed will continue to be of immense intrigue.
“This is a time of year, again, where you're trying to go at your best against their best, and you see how that plays out,” Wilson said. “I think we've had some really good matchups here in this series, and I think that it continues to look that way as we go forward.”