Kyle Gibson
By WARREN MAYES
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Catcher Pedro Pagés hit a two-run homer off Logan Gilbert in the eighth inning, helping the St. Louis Cardinals top the Seattle Mariners 2-0 on Saturday night.
“I’m just living my dream,” Pagés said. “I’ve worked so hard for this. I’m going to keep grinding and I’m going to enjoy it.”
His teammates certainly enjoyed it.
“It was so cool. The dugout loved every second of it,” St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said. “To come up with that homer there, that was awesome to see.”
Greenfield’s Kyle Gibson struck out nine in 6 2/3 innings for St. Louis. He gave up three hits and three walks.
“Pedro and I had great plan going in,” Gibson said. “A great plan is great but you can’t execute it then it doesn’t matter. We were able to keep them guessing and throw all pitches to both sides of the plate and that’s usually a recipe for success for me.”
Gibson was lifted with two runners on in the seventh. JoJo Romero came in and walked Moore before retiring Julio Rodríguez on a grounder to shortstop.
The nine strikeouts tied a season high for the 36-year old right-hander. Gibson fanned nine in a seven-inning outing at Detroit on April 30. In his last two starts, he has thrown 13 2/3 innings and given up just one earned run, while striking out 15 and giving up just eight hits.
In the eighth inning, Jordan Walker was hit by a pitch before Pagés connected for his sixth homer, a drive to left-center on a 1-1 slider.
“In that last at-bat, he started me off with a cutter and then went to a curveball. I thought I’d see a slider right there and he ended up throwing that pitch and I ended up getting a good swing on it,” Pagés said. “It’s a lot of fun going out there helping the team considering how that guy was throwing against us.”
Gilbert (7-11) struck out 10 while throwing a two-hitter for his second career complete game. He threw 101 pitches, 65 for strikes.
“I left one out over the middle there at the end,” Gilbert said. “That’s how it goes. He put a good swing on it. It was a really competitive ballgame. You throw like 40 good ones and at the end of the night we’re talking about one of them. That’s baseball. You just tip your cap and move on.”
Andrew Kittredge (4-4) pitched one inning for the win, and Ryan Helsley handled the ninth for his major league-leading 43rd save in 47 opportunities.
Dylan Moore hit a two-out bloop single for Seattle in the ninth, but Helsley struck out Rodríguez swinging for the final out.
Cal Raleigh had two of Seattle’s five hits.
“It’s a tough one to lose, especially with such a great outing by Logan,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “We hoped it would have gone the other way.”
Gibson (8-6, 4.20) is slated to start for the Cardinals on Saturday, Sept. 14 at Toronto against Blue Jays’ right-hander Yariel Rodriguez (1-6, 4.61).
