Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Logan Gilbert has played in baseball’s biggest stadiums, but Tropicana Field is the one that always brings him back to where his dream began. 

Before taking the mound Saturday against the Tampa Bay Rays, the Wekiva High School graduate reflected on the hometown that shaped him, from afternoons at Apopka Little League fields to the winding path that carried him from an overlooked high school pitcher to one of Major League Baseball’s top starters. 

Gilbert, who graduated from Wekiva in 2015, spent his entire childhood in Apopka and still returns home during the offseason. His family continues to live in the area, and whenever he drives through town, one stop still catches his attention. 

“I drive by Wekiva on the highway all the time and peek over trying to see if they’re practicing,” Gilbert, 29, said while sitting in the visiting dugout at Tropicana Field. 

For Gilbert, Apopka wasn’t simply where he grew up. It was where his love for baseball took root. 

“Apopka Little League was a huge part of my life,” Gilbert said. “So many practices and games, and that was a lot of time we spent up there.”  

Gilbert’s journey to the major leagues was anything but conventional. 

A late bloomer on the mound, he finished his senior season as Wekiva’s team MVP but was far from a top national recruit, ranking No. 500 among high school pitchers, according to Perfect Game. Rather than leave the state, he committed to Stetson University in DeLand, where his career began to take off. 

Under former Stetson pitching coach Dave Therneau, Gilbert developed into one of college baseball’s most dominant pitchers. He earned ASUN Conference Pitcher of the Year honors in 2017 and 2018 and led NCAA Division I in strikeouts during his junior season. 

“I thank the coach,” Gilbert said. “[Therneau] was a really big part of me becoming an actual pitcher, learning how to pitch, throw curveballs, these different things. I think my sophomore year I started to break out a little bit, and I didn’t really know what I was doing until he just coached me.” 

Seattle selected Gilbert with the 14th overall pick in the first round of the 2018 MLB Draft. After playing at three levels of the minors in 2019, Gilbert did not play in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. After only one start at AAA in 2021, the Mariners called him up to make his major league debut on May 13, 2021. 

Gilbert has been a mainstay in Seattle’s starting rotation ever since.  

The 6-foot-6 right-hander quickly established himself as one of the most dependable starters in one of baseball’s top rotations, helping Seattle break a 20-year playoff drought in 2022 and then win a division title in 2025.  

Gilbert earned his first All-Star selection in 2024, when he led the league in innings pitched and finished sixth in the Cy Young voting.  

In a career already full of big moments on the field, Gilbert points to a moment off the field that stands above the rest. 

“The draft in itself was our proudest [moment] because we were at Stetson, all my teammates were around, my parents were next to me, my girlfriend at the time, wife now, was there,” Gilbert said. “So it was really like everybody in my life right there, and it kind of solidified going from like a late bloomer, to good in college but kind of small school still, and then it kind of solidified that this thing is for real.” 

Gilbert credits much of his competitive mindset to growing up in Apopka, where youth and high school sports have long been a source of community pride. 

“They take sports seriously in Apopka,” Gilbert said. “Even when I was growing up, I was like 4 or 5 when they won the Little League World Series on the U.S. side and played Japan in the finals. Then my first baseball coach was the coach of that team, Bobby Brewer. Since the time I was little, sports are huge, baseball’s huge, high school athletics are very serious and very competitive. So that’s kind of been ingrained in me since I was little.” 

The relationships he built at Wekiva remain just as important, even years later.  

“A couple of my best friends are guys I played with at Wekiva baseball,” Gilbert said. “We took things seriously. We practiced hard, but we also goofed off and just had fun. The fall weightlifting and the winter conditioning, just the whole year-round part of it. You go to school together, you practice together. You have really, really tight relationships with those guys.” 

Returning to Tropicana Field also reminded Gilbert of being the kid in the stands. Long before he wore a Mariners uniform, he made trips to St. Petersburg to watch future major league stars. 

“I come here, and people are probably tired of me saying it already, but I’ll point out where I was in the stands,” Gilbert said. “I remember I was sitting back there watching Jacob deGrom in 2015. I remember watching [Evan] Longoria. I think he hit a bomb down the line. As a kid, you kind of look up to these people and dream that that could be you one day. Hopefully the next generation in Apopka is doing the same thing.” 

Saturday’s start gave Gilbert another opportunity to pitch in front of family, friends and coaches who helped shape his career.  

“I’m glad it lined up, because two years ago I didn’t get to pitch here,” he said before listing the people who would attend. “My in-laws, my brother and his in-laws, the pitching coach at Stetson, the head coach that was at Stetson, people I grew up with. It’s kind of like every chapter of my life. It’s pretty cool.” 

Gilbert treated the hometown crowd to a major personal milestone in the second inning, when he became the fifth pitcher in club history to strike out 1,000 batters. He joined vaunted names including Felix Hernandez, Randy Johnson,Jamie Moyer and Mark Langston, reaching the mark in fewer innings (944) than any of them.  

“That’s a big deal,” Gilbert told mlb.com after the game. “Being so close to home, if I’m not going to get it in Seattle, this is the next-best place, and I had a lot of people out here.”  

Gilbert pitched into the seventh inning but shouldered the loss against the Rays, who have the best record in the American League. Still, he entered this week’s All-Star break ranking in the league’s top 10 in ERA (3.32), strikeouts (119) and innings pitched (114).  

Gilbert has already accomplished goals that once seemed distant for a lightly recruited pitcher from Wekiva, but his next goal is even bigger. 

“Cy Young would be cool one year, right?” Gilbert said with a smile. “That’s a very lofty goal, but might as well shoot for it.”  

In the meantime, Gilbert is soaking up the journey and not taking anything for granted.  

“Right now, I’m just enjoying every day,” he said. “You don’t know when it’s going to be your last, and five years have already gone really quickly.”