Marco Gonzales ready to ‘set the tone’ again this season as Mariners ace

Marco Gonzales’ second Opening Day start for the Seattle Mariners will be drastically different from his first.

Last March, he took the field as the club’s ace for the first time in the Tokyo Dome in Japan, with more than 45,000 lining the stands to watch the Mariners and beloved icon Ichiro Suzuki play the A’s.

Friday night, and more than 16 months after that win — his first of a club-leading 16 last season — Gonzales will take the hill as Seattle’s ace again when the Mariners open their season against the Astros.

But, there will not be thousands of fans in the seats in Houston. There won’t be any. The only people watching live from inside Minute Maid Park will be the Mariners, the Astros, essential team and stadium staff and a limited number of media members.

The landscape of Major League Baseball has been completely changed this season by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead of setting out to match the 34 starts he made last year, which tied for the major-league lead, Gonzales maps out for 10 in this shortened 60-game regular season.

When he steps on the mound Friday in Houston, he’ll see vast emptiness around him, and the only crowd noise he will hear will be pumped through the stadium speakers.

But, always a competitor, the 28-year-old left-hander will refuse to let the changes deter him from what he intends to do — win Game No. 1.

“It’s a huge honor — one that I do not take lightly,” Gonzales said this week on a video call with reporters about starting on Opening Day for the second consecutive year. “I’ve been given the responsibility to kind of set the tone for this squad and for this season.

“Whether it be short, whether it be weird, I know one thing’s for sure — I’m going to go out and compete to the best of my ability, and do the best to set the right example for our guys and go win some ballgames.”

Gonzales was Seattle’s most reliable starter last season, finishing 16-13 with a 3.99 ERA for a ball club that had no other pitcher record double-digit wins. He posted career highs in wins, starts, innings (203) and strikeouts (147).

He was one of the few stabilizers the Mariners had in their clubhouse as they stumbled to a 68-94 record and fifth-place finish in the American League West, and that paired with his promising production the previous year — he went 13-9 with a 4.00 ERA in his first full major league season since Tommy John surgery sidelined him early on with St. Louis in 2016 — was enough to solidify a $30 million contract extension that keeps him in Seattle through at least 2024.

“The thing about Marco is he’s a great competitor,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said this week. “Whether he goes out there with his ‘A’ stuff that night, and all of his pitches are working or not, he’s going to give you everything he’s got.

“ … I feel like every time he goes out there, you know what you’re going to get.”

Gonzales plays perhaps the club’s most important role as its tone setter, and his tempo in games and fearlessness attacking the strike zone provides a “great example” for the rest of the rotation, Servais said.

He is one of two holdovers from last year’s starting rotation — Yusei Kikuchi, entering his second season with the Mariners after making 32 starts in 2019, is the other — that brings in four new regular pitchers for this year’s six-man mix.

Former Mariners first-round draft pick Taijuan Walker has returned to Seattle following his long recovery from elbow surgery while with the Diamondbacks, and the Mariners also picked up Kendall Graveman, another pitcher looking to reboot his career after Tommy John, last winter.

Gonzales understands that journey back from surgery, and has bonded with both Walker and Graveman over the mutual experience.

“When you go through something like that that removes you from this game, and you’re given that new perspective, I think it’s a bonding experience for sure,” Gonzales said. “We’ve all been through kind of a different process with it at different times of our careers, but overall I think it’s given us a new sense of motivation and appreciation for the things that we can do being on the field.

“I’m really excited for those guys. I remember that time of my career when I was itching to get back, and what that first start in the big leagues after surgery meant to me, so I can’t wait to celebrate with them.”

Gonzales has also seen growth in newcomers Justus Sheffield and Justin Dunn, who each made several starts for Seattle as rookies late last season, and will make up the back end of the Mariners rotation.

“I don’t think we could have put together a better group for this season,” Gonzales said. “I think everybody is competitive and got their own swagger and doing it their own way. The energy that this group brings is different, it’s motivating, it’s inspiring. …

“We’ve learned a lot together so far, we’ve grown a lot, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of these guys do.”

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