SEATTLE -- Logan Gilbert rarely sports a wide smile on the mound, but Sunday certainly called for it.
The Mariners’ Opening Day starter let down his uber-competitive alter ego for a brief blip during the first inning of a 6-1 win over the Astros, when nabbing Jose Altuve for one of the more well-executed pickoffs you’ll see.
And aside from the levity of it, that moment quietly went down as a turning point in this one -- despite how early it took place and how the final score might’ve suggested this was a comfortable win from the get-go.
Altuve was dancing back and forth on his lead while Gilbert was in his stretch, and Josh Naylor keenly took note. The first baseman deked Altuve by pretending that the pickoff was coming, which prompted Altuve to retreat to the bag. Then, once Altuve realized it was a fake-out, his guard came down and he hopped back out into a lengthier lead, from 8.2 feet to 11.8 feet.
In those microseconds, Cal Raleigh signaled to Gilbert that they had him. The backstop dropped his glove straight down while in his crouch -- at which point Gilbert fired to Naylor and left Altuve standing in no-man’s land.
It was a three-player mouse trap, and adding even more to the cunning coup was that two pitches earlier, Altuve was 90 feet from scoring. Or so everyone in the building thought.
Altuve had just taken off for a stolen-base attempt, then advanced to third when Raleigh’s throw sailed into center field. But home-plate umpire Clint Vondrak called interference on himself after Raleigh’s throwing hand hit the official’s mask as he prepared to release the ball.
That bang-bang play took place on the same pitch that Gilbert struck out Yordan Alvarez in a full count, dispatching Houston’s best hitter -- and even better, with a runner on base. Then after the pickoff, Gilbert generated a flyout to Isaac Paredes that ended the inning and sent him off and running.
He wound up completing the seventh, after his offense went to work against Houston’s battered pitching staff, which sustained another injury.