GLENDALE, Ariz. -- On Monday afternoon in Glendale, Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Logan Gilbert pitched two innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It was a fine outing. Gilbert hit 97 mph with his fastball and delivered a nasty splitter to Hyeseong Kim. The stuff looked crisp, and Gilbert didn't give up any runs. But he walked two and gave up a hit, needing a double play to get him out of one of the two innings.

Again, perfectly fine, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish that Gilbert just went 1-2-3 both innings and carved through the lineup. 

But after listening to Gilbert speak following his outing, I was reminded of something: We all need to look at the spring training outings for these starters through a different lens. It's not just about results. These guys really do have a plan that they are working on.

As I discussed on the most recent 'Refuse to Lose' podcast:

"We talked with Logan Gilbert in the locker room, and he spoke exactly about what he's trying to do in this outing and what exactly he was trying to get out of it.

And he said, 'Look, the first outing is kind of a differentiation between what I've been doing, right? When you're in the bullpen, you're just trying to make very good pitches. The counts don't really matter. So here, the count matters, and so it's kind of a mental adjustment for me there.' (paraphrasing) But he also said that he knew he was only throwing 2 innings, and when you're only throwing two innings, he said, 'Look, I wanted to try to work on everything in those two innings, everything I've got in two innings." He said explicitly, 'I know that how I pitched some of these hitters in this game against the Dodgers are not how I would have pitched guys in the regular season. It was about working on my pitches, not necessarily sequencing the best group of pitches to get this specific hitter out.'

In his own words, here's what Gilbert said after the performance:

Yeah, switching to compete mode like you're talking about and trying to get into good counts and knowing that that's what matters the most. There's still a little bit of, like I said, trying to just force pitches in in two innings to get whatever you want, but it felt like we still took it serious, but got our work in and it'll continue that way.

So again, we have to take these results with a grain of salt. The same can be said for George Kirby on Tuesday, who gave up a hit batter and a double in the first inning against the Chicago White Sox. Both those mistakes came on splitters, which is a pitch that Kirby only threw 2.7 percent of the time last season, and something he's clearly working on.

It's not necessarily what he would have done in a regular season matchup. And when we evaluate these Cactus League performance, we all have to recognize that. Myself included.

J.P. Crawford is battling a sore shoulder which has kept him out of the lineup the last few days.

Remember to join our MARINERS on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other Mariners fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that's free too