4 Mariners who have surprised us this year

Logan Gilbert - 13-5, 3.61 ERA, 167 IP, 171 K's (9.2 K/9), 30 BB's (1.6 BB/9)

The Mariners pitching staff is anchored by Luis Castillo and George Kirby, but where their strength lies is in their depth. Coming into this year their rotation went Castillo, Kirby, Ray, Gilbert, and then Marco Gonzalez with Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo waiting in the wings. With injuries to Ray and Marco everyone was forced to step up. Gilbert has really stepped up with an injury plagued and young staff. He is 2nd in innings pitched only behind Castillo and significantly cut down on the walks while improved the strikout numbers. His fWAR is top 15 in baseball and is right there with Luis Castillo.

His ERA and xFIP are right there with George Kirby as he has shown to be right there, maybe just a tick behind Kirby and Castillo at the top of the rotation. After losing Ray, a workhorse that has averaged over 190 innings pitched the last 2 years, they needed someone to step up and eat innings and be a constant in the rotation. Gilbert has developed a splitter that has made him much more effective this year and he has surprised us all with his consistency (completing 6+ innings in 18 of his 26 starts this year). Gilbert is the #1 on probably 2/3 of the rotations in all of baseball and has taken steps forward to show just how valuable he is to this rotation.