HOUSTON — As he walked off the mound after the eighth inning and approached the visitors’ dugout, Mariners starter Logan Gilbert knew the answer before he even made the request.
“One more,” Gilbert asked Scott Servais, hoping for a chance to pitch the ninth.
The Mariners manager, waiting at the top step of the dugout entrance, shook his head.
“You’ve done your job,” Servais told one of his emerging aces.
“When he’s waiting on the top step, it’s never a good sign,” Gilbert said later in the Mariners clubhouse. “He shut it down pretty quick.”
Gilbert had indeed done his job after 96 pitches, carving up the Astros lineup for eight shutout innings and extending a historic streak of Mariners pitching in a 5-0 victory over their American League West foes Saturday evening before a crowd of 34,205 at Minute Maid Park.
A night after what might have been their most demoralizing defeat of the season — a 5-3 late collapse in the series opener Friday — the Mariners (18-15) bounced back with what Servais called their most complete game of the season.
It wasn’t quite a complete outing for Gilbert, but a day before his 27th birthday he delivered everything the Mariners could have hoped for.
Gilbert allowed just two hits, with four walks and six strikeouts over a season-high eight innings, improving to 3-0 in seven starts and lowering his season ERA to 1.69, fifth-best among all MLB starters. His 50 strikeouts are tied for the AL lead.
“We had to win today. It was very important,” Gilbert said. “I’m just trying to give us a chance.”
Over their past 21 games, Mariners starting pitchers have allowed 20 earned runs. What’s more, their starters have allowed two runs or less in each of those 21 games, the longest such streak for an MLB team in 107 years.
The 1915 Washington Senators (22-game streak) and the 1917 Chicago White Sox (21-game streak) are the only other teams to ever have a similar such streak.
“It’s pretty special,” Gilbert said. “It’s exciting when it’s your turn because you want to just keep it going.”
Behind Gilbert, the infield defense turned three double plays — ending the fourth, seventh and eighth innings — and Luis Urias and Cal Raleigh each homered to give him all the offensive support he would need.
“It felt like everybody was clicking tonight, so I’m happy I could just do my part to help us,” Gilbert said.
Gilbert is 31-0 in his career when Mariners hitters provide him with at least three runs of support.
“It helps me catch my breath (between innings) and gives me a lot of confidence to try to fill it up (in the strike zone),” he said. “It gives me freedom to do what I want to do and trying to just keep the momentum that they already built.”
Through his first six innings, the only hit Gilbert had allowed was Yordan Alvarez’s first-inning bunt.
Jeremy Peña added a sharp single up the middle in the seventh inning. On the next pitch, Gilbert got Yainer Diaz to hit a grounder to Urias, who started a 5-4-3 double play to end that inning.
After issuing a walk in the eighth, Gilbert got another inning-ending double play to end the inning, and he punctuated that with an emotional fist pump into his glove.
“Logan’s on a roll,” Servais said. “It’s as good as we’ve seen him at any point.”
Mariners hitters and offensive coaches had their usual pregame hitters meeting at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in one far corner of the visitors’ clubhouse.
The Mariners had faced Astros lefty Framber Valdez 13 times over the past few years; they knew what to expect this time, and knew what they wanted to do.
Seattle’s hitters executed the game plan better than they have all season and, in turn, set the standard on what’s possible for this embattled lineup.
“You have to be very disciplined … but we kept keeping the pressure on him,” Servais said. “The number of hits we got to the opposite field tonight — fantastic. Credit to our guys. That’s what we need to do night in and night out.”
Jorge Polanco and Mitch Garver hit back-to-back doubles off Valdez — both to the opposite field — in the fourth inning, laying off his nasty curveball and forcing him to get pitches up in the zone. That pushed the Mariners’ lead to 2-0.
Urias hit his third homer of the season in the fifth inning, a 420-foot blast off Valdez to straightaway center field. That made it 3-0.
Raleigh hit a towering blast out to left-center field on a 3-2 pitch in the sixth inning, scoring Ty France and ending Valdez’s outing. It was Raleigh’s team-leading seventh homer and helped him bust out of a recent funk.
“It was a pretty good (plan) today. We kept it simple and didn’t really stray from it,” Raleigh said. “We took our knocks the other way, and I think that’s the biggest thing you saw today.”
The Mariners remain the only team in MLB that has not allowed an opposing starting pitcher to complete seven innings.
Mariners hitters came into Saturday seeing 4.06 pitches per plate appearance, No. 2 in majors behind Yankees (4.07).
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