By Paul L. Taylor Posted on

Mariners avoid A’s sweep and Logan Gilbert avoids serious injury

The Mariners seal a walk-off 5-4 win in Wednesday’s finale, as Logan Gilbert is involved in a scary and bizarre incident in the first inning.

This has been an extremely unpredictable season so far for the Mariners. Every time you think they’re down, they’re up and vice versa. Just as they get one key player back from injury, another one goes down. Some players are playing better than expected, others worse, and so on. In many respects, Wednesday’s series finale versus the Athletics helped encapsulate the madness which has occurred up to this point.

The Mariners stood on the verge of being swept by an Athletics ball club who they had taken the season series off of in each of the past five seasons. However, in keeping with the unpredictable nature of the 2026 campaign they managed to secure a 5-4 walk-off win to salvage something, albeit from what is still an ultimately disappointing series.

The “Big Three” of Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodríguez and Josh Naylor stepped forward with three consecutive singles, including Naylor’s walk-off hit to win the game. But again, in keeping with the erratic nature of the year, this sequence of events was unexpected just by virtue of how poor the trio has been collectively thus far in 2026.

A play to sum up the unpredictable and almost surreal nature of this season

In any event, all that matters is that the Mariners did win and while concerns understandably remain, perhaps they can build on this. In addition, what’s arguably more important is that they seemingly avoided a series injury involving Logan Gilbert, who was involved in one of the most surreal plays you will ever see.

The play came in the top of the first, with the Athletics having got the first two men on base and Gilbert now facing Carlos Cortes. The outfielder hit a 107.8-mph comebacker directly at Gilbert, who instinctively put his hand up to protect himself:

For a moment confusion reigned for everyone including Gilbert himself, as he looked around to see where the ball had gone. Somehow it had ended up going inside his jersey in between his buttons and he pulled it out, with the assumption that it would be ruled a catch.

However, third base umpire Malachi Moore ruled the play as a base hit to load the bases, due to the rule that a catch has to be made by the hand or glove specifically. Initially shocked by the sequence of events, Gilbert then started to feel the pain from being hit by the ball and leaned over briefly, with M’s manager Dan Wilson and the trainers coming out to check on him.

If you know anything about Gilbert though, he wasn’t going to come out of the game and even though he subsequently allowed two runs, he made it through the opening inning. He would end up going 4.0 innings for his shortest outing of the season — as he allowed six hits, two walks and three earned runs — but you’re not exactly going to hold that against him. (Unlike the ball.)

Logan Gilbert shaken but not feeling too bad

Postgame, Gilbert confirmed he was okay and said the ball had hit him in the stomach. Discussing what happened, he said:

“At first I was like, it happened so quick I wasn’t sure what happened. And then, I mean it hurt after that a little bit. So I had to take a second. … I’m bleeding here (on my left wrist). I don’t know how that happened. Like, maybe the ball hit there. It happened pretty quick, so I wasn’t … I don’t know why.”

People were clearly impressed — and quite rightly so — that Gilbert was able to remain in the game. Asked how he was able to gather himself and keep going, he said:

“Well it was early, so you kind of (have to). You can’t come out in the first inning. And it didn’t start off great, so I was just trying to find a way to keep attacking. They were swinging it pretty good, but I didn’t want to shy away. It was just … I was going to try to be aggressive and they were swinging it, so.”

Gilbert was initially frustrated about not getting awarded the out on the comebacker, but also objective about the whole incident, grateful that he didn’t break anything. He said:

“I didn’t know the rule and at first I thought I was pretty fortunate that it was a catch, but I guess it wasn’t a catch. But at the same time, if they hit it like 110 off the bat I don’t really feel like I deserve an out there. … It was just like a blur. I mean, I thought it was coming from my face for a second, so all things considered, it could have been worse. Didn’t really get a bone or anything. Just a little bit of pain.”

Logan Gilbert just thankful the Mariners were able to win

Ever the consummate teammate, Gilbert was happy the Mariners were able to get the win despite his adversity on the mound. He said:

“Yeah, it was huge. I think the way we did it, too. (To) show a lot of fight and find a way to get it done when I didn’t get off to a great start, but we found a way to come back at the end. So, it says a lot about our team when we’re able to do stuff like that.”

The Mariners are off on Thursday, as they fly out for a six-game road trip which begins on Friday in St. Louis. Gilbert’s next start is currently scheduled for next Tuesday in Minnesota, and the hope is that he’ll still be able to make it following Wednesday’s bizarre and scary moment.

Photos court​‌esy of Tim Rogers Photography

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