The Seattle Mariners head into Tuesday night's series opener with the San Diego Padres on the heels of a four-game sweep of the division rival Houston Astros.

As a result, the Mariners are now just one game under .500 at 8-9 and right back in the thick of the early season race.

While much of the conversation out of the Astros series (rightfully) centers on the breakout of the M's offense, it can't be overstated just how important the Sunday start from Logan Gilbert and the Monday start from George Kirby were.

Both pitchers were outstanding, with Gilbert going a full seven innings to get a win, and Kirby also getting a win in 7.2 dominant frames. But the importance of their performances goes beyond just the box score brilliance.

They've helped reshape the entire pitching staff at a critical time.

Heading into Friday night's game against Houston, the Mariners were staring down the face of 13 games in 13 days. By nature, that type of stretch is going to take a toll on your bullpen.

Add in the fact that the Mariners needed to use Eduard Bazardo, Andres Munoz and Matt Brash in consecutive games Friday and Saturday night, and the bullpen was certainly already taxed early on in this series.

Finally, as we've talked about numerous times, the bullpen has only one moveable piece (Cole Wilcox), so it's not like the Mariners can easily call up reinforcements when the bullpen gets overworked.

Enter Gilbert and Kirby, who saved the bullpen immense pressure heading into this now-nine game in nine day stretch. Juxtapose that with the Astros, who were forced to have their bullpen cover large swaths of game time over the last four days. They will be feeling the affects of that for days.

As the Mariners open up the series with the Padres, they'll do so with Munoz and Bazardo on a full two days rest. We also haven't seen Gabe Speier since Friday night, meaning he's got three full days under his belt.

That's a big deal as the M's go after a solid Padres team that enters play at 10-6.

These two teams certainly know each other well, as they saw each other numerous times in spring training. They share the Peoria Sports Complex.

The latest edition of the 'Refuse to Lose' podcast is out, where we break down the sweep of the Astros, the offensive breakout and talk about some future roster questions involving Luis Castillo, Emerson Hancock, Colt Emerson, Leo Rivas and Dominic Canzone.

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