What to expect from Start Number Two for Logan Gilbert

A bit of the shine has worn off over the last week from the Seattle Mariners calling up two of their top prospects. It isn’t necessarily the fault of Logan Gilbert and Jarred Kelenic, but it’s true nonetheless. It’s different for starting pitchers since you only see them every 5-6 games, so let’s take a look at what we can expect from Logan Gilbert in his second start.

If it weren’t for the Mariners, who hold a clear spot as the worst hitting team in baseball (A .199 team batting average.. THE TEAM IS UNDER THE MENDOZA LINE!!!), the Tigers could have an argument for the worst offense. They are hitting a lackluster .222 on the season, which is a bottom-five mark, which is where they rank in doubles, runs, and strikeouts, while ranking bottom-ten in home runs and walks.

With the Tigers being one of the worst offenses in baseball, what does that hold in store for Logan Gilbert?

Before we get started, remember that Servais and the Seattle Mariners brass are not going to let Gilbert go deep into games. Even if he is crushing the Tigers, sitting scoreless through five innings with just 70 pitches. You could see them take him out then. The word around the team, at least from what it seems like you can gather online, is that he isn’t going to pass 85 pitches for quite a while.

With the Tigers walking just under three times a game and striking out about ten times a game, can we extrapolate that into a start for Gilbert? I think so. If we take a look at how Gilbert finished out his start against Cleveland, I think we could be in for a solid performance from him in his second start. Something along the lines of…

Five innings, two Earned Runs, four hits, one walk, and six strikeouts. He will likely end up somewhere in the low to mid 70’s for pitches thrown with a line like that. Gilbert was a dominant strike-out guy in 2019 at West Virginia, K’ing 36 batters in just 22.2 innings. He struck out four batters in his last 1-1/3 innings against Cleveland, showing us that he can catch fire when he is comfortable.

I see it being similar to that Cleveland start, but with just a single mistake instead of two. Detroit doesn’t have the kind of weapons/ability that Cleveland did, as there aren’t really two guys in the lineup that compare to Reyes and Ramirez. If I had to make any change to the line above, it would be more strikeouts. I truly think that he is gonna have a crazy strikeout game within the next month, teasing double-digit K’s in a game.

The remaining question is whether he will get any run support. We can only hope, and I don’t feel like getting into it, as I would rather stay happy by thinking about how talented Gilbert is as compared to the Mariners lineup. The game starts tonight at 7:10 PM PST, and should be a great duel between the talented young pitchers in Gilbert, and Detroit’s Tarik Skubal.