Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 8-15-19 Locked on Mariners Ep. 5: Mariners lose 3-2, and Andy throws it back to 2001

Episode Date: August 15, 2019

The Mariners squandered a lot of opportunities in their 3-2 loss to the Tigers, Host Andy Patton talks about that and also hosts his first throwback Thursday segment, in which he reminisces about his first MLB game as a fan from the September of 2001.Intro: The Man Who Stole the World - NirvanaOutro: Sleep - Allen Stone Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What is up Mariners fans? I'm Seattle Sports Media's utility infielder Andy Patton, and you're listening to the Locked-on Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. The Mariners weren't able to complete a season sweep with the Detroit Tigers, falling three to two on Wednesday despite solo home runs from J.P. Crawford and Daniel Vogelbach. I'll recap the game in segment one, and then coming up in segment two, I will kick off the first throwback Thursday in Lockdown Mariners podcast history. I'll be discussing the first Mariners game I ever went to, a September 7th, 2001 game against the Baltimore Orioles. Finally, we'll continue our daily tradition of celebrating

birthdays for former and current Seattle Mariners. There are six birthdays to celebrate today. Stay tuned and find out who. The Mariners dropped an absolute heartbreaker to the Tigers on Wednesday night, three to two. If you guys remember earlier in the season when the Mariners beat the Tigers twice on walk-offs, I think this was a little bit of redemption in that regard. Technically, the Tigers did not win on a walkoff, but there were a ton of missed opportunities. Chances where the Mariners could have pulled this thing off, and they just weren't quite able to get over the hump in order to do so. Marco Gonzalez didn't have it. I mean, he technically, I don't know, for those of you play fantasy baseball, if you use quality starts, he technically got what's called a quality start,

but I don't think a lot of fans or Marco himself would necessarily call this outing quality. He did throw six innings. He did give up three earned runs or less. He gave up exactly three. earned runs. He walked one. He struck out six, but he gave up 11 hits. And that's kind of just been the story with Marco lately, really his whole career, but particularly lately. He's not a big strikeout guy. Six strikeouts in six innings is above average for him. He's got a 6.87 strikeouts per nine on the year. So, you know, I mean, he doesn't have a lot of velocity. You know, he relies a lot on his cutter and his changeup. It doesn't have a huge spin rate on his fastball. So he's a guy who gets hit around a lot. He limits damage. He's got 2.25 walks per nine is good. His 0.8-9 home runs per

nine is exceptional, especially in this league with the juice balls and everything. It's very impressive to have a home runs per nine under one, but he just gets hit around a lot. I mean, 11 hits in six innings is not going to get it done, and he nearly escaped this game with much less damage. He loaded the bases with nobody out in the second inning, was able to get a strikeout, was able to get a pop-up to first baseman Dan Vogelbach, and then Victor Ray, as, as, the unlikely hero for the Tigers. He hasn't really been having a great season, but he managed to knock a two-run single

and brought a couple guys in. So almost able to pull that off for Marco, which would have led to a Mariners victory. That's not the only almost situation that happened in this game. The Mariners had bases loaded in the sixth inning. Dan Vogelbach struck out. That would have, you know, had he been able to put the ball in play, the game would have definitely gone a little bit differently.

seventh inning. Mariners had the tying run on second base. Malick Smith got picked off at first base on a back pick from rookie catcher Jake Rogers. Keaum Brockton also got thrown out in this game at second base and I think, I don't know. I don't know that this is the case for sure, but I think a lot of times you're like, oh, you know, it's a rookie catcher. We want to test him. I hope, sincerely hope, that the Mariners did their homework on Jake Rogers because he is a gold glove caliber catcher coming out of the minor leagues. He came over in the Justin Burlander trade. That's how the Tigers got him in the first place, and he was pegged as a, this is a

defense first catcher. We're not sure if he's ever going to hit in the major leagues, and he didn't, he hasn't hit very well since he's come up. He's got a couple home runs, but he is a stud behind the plate. He's got a cannon arm. And if the Mariners didn't know that going into this game, they know now because, you know, they, Brockston and Malick Smith are very fast. And it's really, you can't win a game by giving away,

giving away runners on the base paths, even against a team like the Tigers who are barreling towards potentially one of the worst seasons in major league history, if you give up two runners on the base paths and strike out with the bases loaded, most games you're probably going to lose. Edwin Jackson, we've been talking about him. He had a good start, five innings, only gave up the two runs. Yeah, it's been impressive to watch Edwin Jackson for the Tigers so far. He only had two starts for him, but they both look good. Like I said before, he had a few outings with Toronto earlier in the year, and he did not look

good. So struck gold with him right now. He's pitching well. Like I said, the Mariners were a lot closer to score and a lot more runs in this one, but they just weren't quite able to get over the hump. They had two solo home runs, one from J.P. Crawford, one from Dan Vogelbach. Those guys have obviously both had solid seasons. Vogelbach has been an absolute monster. J.P. Crawford struggled a little bit. He's been playing better lately, but it was nice to see both those guys get on the board. It just wasn't enough. Needed to have runners on base. Vogelbach, needed to time his home run a little bit differently, you know, he strikes out with the base is loaded, but it's a home run with nobody on. That just, that feels like a pretty

classic Mariners story. So, so it's a bit of a bummer. It would have been nice to beat the Tigers seven times this year. They'll have to settle for hopefully six and one. They got them again tonight. They're going to have Spencer Turnbull on the mound for the Tigers and likely Tommy alone on the mound for the Mariners. They're going to have an opener beforehand. Matt Whistler didn't throw today, so a very good chance. It will be him. It was him last time. So hopefully the Mariners can pull a win-off in here and go six-and-one against the worst team in baseball. But yeah, it's just, it was one of those frustrating games, you know, a mid-August game where you had most things go right, but just not enough things. And you can't leave guys on the bases.

You can't give away runners on the base path. So tough one, but they'll come back and have a good chance to win tomorrow with Tommy Malone on the bump. Excuse me, today with Tommy Malone on the bump. Last thing to note, before we move on to segment two, Felix Hernandez looked very solid in his rehab outing with the Everett Akosaks against the Tri-City Dust Devils. He threw four innings. He only gave up one hit. He struck out eight. Obviously, he's playing against kids who have been out of college for less than two months. A lot of young, 18, 19, 20-year-old kids. But still, it's great to see the king throw well. Obviously, the main thing. The main reason this outing happened was just to see his health. Is he healthy? I would say striking out eight over four innings with only one hit. He's probably pretty healthy. They don't have a pitch count on here.

I'm not sure exactly how many pitches he threw, how many they wanted him to throw. But really good sign for him going forward. Hopefully, opportunity for him to be back in the Mariners maybe by the end of the month. I'm guessing they'll want him to have one more rehab start, probably in AAA and Tacoma, get him up close here near the fans, keep him up here near the fans. If he does well in that start, I think there's a chance we could see him. the next time he can pitch after that. I don't know if the Mariners are going to bring him into the bullpen

or if they're going to put him in their rotation. You know, they're not playing for a whole lot right now, so I think it'd probably be in their best interest to have him come out into the rotation and, you know, bring some fans in. I know he's certainly not the pitcher he used to be, unfortunately, but a good opportunity for the fans to come out and see Felix two or three times before the end of the season. So kudos to Felix.

Happy to see him throw well in this game and hoping we'll see him up in Seattle sometime soon. Coming up next, I'll talk about Cal Ripkin Jr.'s final series at Safeco Field and my first professional baseball game, which took place in September of 2001. Plenty of birthdays to celebrate today, including two guys who are still playing, although not with the Mariners. Before we do that, though, let's throw up back with our first throwback Thursday segment in Lockdown Mariners' podcast history. September 7th, 2001. That was the first Mariners game that I got to go to.

I lived in Portland when I was growing up, and we didn't have a whole lot of opportunities to come out to Mariners games. I was just on the verge of turning 11 at that time. The Mariners had a hot young rookie named Ichro Suzuki. They were the best team in baseball, without a doubt. They were barreling towards 116 win season the most in baseball history. It was a really, really, really fun time to be a Mariners fan. For me, I'll never forget entering the stadium for the first time.

I remember walking towards our sea. We were in center field bleachers, and my first opportunity to see the entire field. And it was, I mean, truly like a cathedral. I could not believe that this stadium, it felt like an entire city just built around a baseball field. It still feels like that a little bit. For those of you who go to games frequently, it's pretty amazing. But as a 10-year-old kid, it absolutely blew my mind. Of course, I was obsessed with Ichero.

Of course, I was obsessed with Mike Cameron, as most fans. were at that time. I loved Edgar Martinez. I loved John Olerud. I was a left-hander, so I loved Jamie Moyer. This was one of the most fun teams in baseball history. I truly believe that, and certainly in Mariners' history, and getting an opportunity to go to a game that year was unbelievable.

So I'm going to tell you a little bit about what I remember from that game, and I also have the box score in front of me. I have not looked at it yet. So my plan is to tell you a little bit about my memories from that game, things I saw, things I remember seeing that maybe my memory is a little fuzzy. It's been 18 years. So we'll see how accurate some of that stuff is. We're going to look through the box score a little bit, see some things that maybe I don't remember. And talk about it was a big victory for the Mariners in one of the greatest seasons in baseball history. So I remember the final score was 10 to 1.

It was 10 to 1 Mariners. I remember Mike Cameron hitting a home run because like I said, I was a huge Mike Cameron fan, so that was a lot of fun for me. And I remember it was Cal Rip and Jr.'s last series at Safeco Field. I believe it was the first game of his final series at Safeco Field in Seattle. And it's become a lot more popular now with Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter. And in the NBA, obviously, Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade and Dirk Novitsky last year. They had these kind of going away tour type things, their final season, you know, where they go somewhere and they get some trophy or some kind of award, you know, wave and smile at the fans because they know it's the last time they're going to be there.

I don't know that it was as in vogue back then as it is now, but I do remember distinctly that the Mariners painted all of the bases with an orange number eight in honor of Cal Ripkin. So for those people who think that this is a brand new thing, it's not. The Mariners honored Cal Ripkin Jr. in his final series. That was also the year, I think it was the year, yeah, it was the same year that they had the All-Star game in Seattle, and Cow Ripkin Jr. got pumped to, you know, 80-something-mile-hour fastball

from Chano Park that he hit over the fence for a home run, kind of his last hurrah as an all-star. And that had happened in Seattle just, you know, barely two months, not even two months before then. So kind of a lot of sentiment around Ripkin in Seattle at that time. And I remember, you know, as a 10-year-old kid, I was obsessed with baseball. And so I knew all about Cal Ripkin. I knew that he'd broken the games played record and knew, you know, it was impossible to be, you know, to be a kid in the 90s and 2000s and not know, you know, a whole bunch about Cal Ripkin. obviously. So it was really cool to get to see that. Apparently he signed autographs for about 45 minutes.

I missed that. I did get an autograph from Arthur Rhodes, which I still have today. I'll treasure that forever. That was awesome. Probably in hindsight would have gone after Ripkin instead, but you know, 10-year-old me was loved the left-handed pitcher. So got a chance to see Arthur Rhodes. He was playing long toss with somebody. I want to say Armando Benitez, but I'm not sure if that's right. but I remember that they were throwing the ball probably 300 feet back and forth to each other. The 10-year-old me was just mesmerized by that. But anyway, yeah, it was a 10-to-one game. Mike Cameron hit a home run.

I'm pretty sure that Paul Abbott was on the mound for the Mariners. I remember that because I know it was a left-handed pitcher, and I'm pretty sure I'd remember if it was Jamie Moyer, so I'm going with Paul Abbott. Those are the big things that I remember. I don't remember how Edgar Martinez did. I don't remember obviously the Mariners scored nine other words. runs in that game, so I'm not sure how those happened. But I'm going to pull up the box score now and kind of see a little bit of a blast from the past. Let's see how this game went. So let's

see. First thing I see is there is 45,797 fans. Haven't seen a crowd like that too often anymore at T-Mobile Park, unfortunately, although a couple years when the rebuild's going along strong, hopefully we'll start seeing crowds like that again. The oil only had two hits. They had one run on two hits. It looks like the, oh, the run was scored on a solo home run from Brian Roberts. He was playing a shortstop. Man, this, for those of you don't, maybe don't remember Brian Roberts was a all-star second baseman for the Orioles for quite a while. I just pulled up his page here. Yeah, looks like he, yeah, he was, that was his rookie year. So it was his first season in the big leagues. He was playing shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles, and he hit a home run in 2001 against the Mariners.

Who knew? two home runs yet that year. He went on to make two All-Star games, led the league in doubles twice, led the league in steals once. So pretty solid career for Brian Roberts and got to see maybe his first career home run, first or second career home run. So 10-year-old me did not see that come in at the time, but that's cool. Ripkin went out for four.

That's a bummer. Didn't strike out at all, at least, I guess. But at the time of this game, he was only hitting 258. So, yeah, as much as people remember that All-Star Game Home Run, Ripkin really kind of limped towards a finish line, unfortunately. Best player on the team, it looks like, was either Jeff Conine or David Sagi. Former Mariner David Sigey, he was hitting 301 at the time, although he went 0 for 2. The only other hit was Brady Anderson, who went one for two in the game. For the Mariners, Ichiro went three for five.

Not surprising. Each row hit, you know, 350 that year, had a monstrous rookie season, as everybody knows. Edgar went one for two with two walks. That seems about right. John Olerud went two for three with four runs scored, one RBI and two walks. Another great game for him. Classic. Brett Boone hit a home run.

Also not surprising. He had 37 of them that year. This was number 34. One for three with three RBIs. Mike Cameron, two for four with the home run that I mentioned before. He had a couple other RBIs as well. David Bell went two for four with two RBIs. Man, this team was fun, wasn't it?

Ichero, Edgar, Olerud, Boone, Cameron. This game Tom Lampkin started behind the plate, but I know Dan Wilson was their starting catcher. Mark McLemore, always one of my favorites. He went 0 for four on this one, but he was starting at shortstop. So I think Carlos Guyan was typically their shortstop, so he might have just been getting a day off there.

But, yeah, yeah, this was a really fun game in a really fun season. yet Paul Abbott started 15 and 3 after this game. My goodness, he had a 4.13 ERA and he was 15 and 3. Pitcher wins are dumb. It's not the most valid way to evaluate a pitcher. I've always believed that. I mean, eight innings, one earned run, four walks, four strikeouts. Clearly he had a great game.

He deserved to win. I'm not saying that he doesn't, but when you have 15 wins with the 4.13 ERA and this year, I think, you know, Spencer Turnbull is pitching for the Tigers tomorrow. he's three and ten with an ERA that's under four. So, you know, it doesn't always, they don't always equal each other. It doesn't always add up. Obviously, Mariners fans are very familiar with this.

When Felix Hernandez, it was very controversial that he won the Sy Young Award when he did with a losing record, despite the fact that he was very clearly the best pitcher in the American League, but the Mariners just weren't winning games behind him. Anyway, there's a fun little blast from the past for you all. September 7th, 2001, a heck of a game for the Mariners, heck of a season for the Mariners. a heck of a time in baseball. A lot of stars for that is very fun to get to see Cal Ripkin's first game of his last series.

Hoping for better time for the Mariners soon. I know that sometimes throwback Thursdays can be a little depressing with the state of the current franchise, but we'll get there. There's a lot of promise in the minor league system, and I'm really excited about what's coming with this team going forward. And, you know, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that they're going to win 116 games anytime soon,

because that's pretty much impossible, but I'm looking forward to the future when we have 45,000 people in the crowd again and our winning games 10 to 1. We got six birthdays to celebrate today, five former players and one former coach who has a ton of local ties. We're going to get to that right after these messages.

All right, y'all, today is August 15th, and we got five former Mariners players who are celebrating birthdays today. First one up is former mariner Gerard Dyson, who is turning 35 today. Gerard Dyson spent most of his career with the Kansas City Royals, but he came over to Seattle in 2017 when he was 32 years old. Dyson, who's known as a speedster and a center fielder, he had 251 with five home runs and 28 stolen bases in his one season in Seattle. He was a fine free agent signing.

They were a team that was trying to contend. They wanted a guy who could hit at the top of the order and steal some bases and score some runs. and he more or less did that. I think, you know, he had a 324 on base percentage, which is a little lower than what you'd want out of a leadoff guy, but that's kind of, that had been him his entire career, you know, looking back 328, 326, 324, 340. Like, he wasn't really, he didn't draw a lot of walks.

He still doesn't. I think they got pretty much what they would have expected out of him. And then he spent the last couple years in Arizona. He's doing almost exactly the same statistics this year with the Diamondbacks. So, you know, pretty close. consistent career for him, had one nice year in Seattle, we'll take it. So happy 35th birthday to Gerard Dyson. Next up is left-hander Oliver Perez. Oliver Perez is turning 38 today. He's still in the league. He's with the Cleveland Indians. He's actually having a very solid year. He's thrown 32 innings

out of the bullpen with them. He's got a 2.81 ERA. He had a 1.39 ERA for the Indians last year, so they've gotten two very good seasons out of him. Perez came up as a starting pitcher and was starter for about nine years before he took an entire year off with an injury and came back with the Mariners in 2012. The Mariners were the first team to just commit to him being purely a reliever, a left-handed, a leugie, a left-handed one-out guy. And he was really successful at it. His first season in Seattle was in 2012. He threw 29.2 innings. He had a 2.12 ERA. He had a 24 to 10 strike-out to walk ratio. He was solid. He didn't throw a lot of innings, but he was solid. And then he came back in 2013 at age 31, and he threw a lot more innings. He threw 53 innings. Not quite as

productive. He had a 3.74 ERA, but he had 74 strikeouts to 26 walks. That's very solid. He had a 12.6 case per nine. Four point four walks per nine is not great, but still, you'll take the left-handed guy who can come in and strike out a whole bunch of guys. That's pretty solid. You'll take that. He's bounced around the league quite a bit since then before he landed in Cleveland over the last two years, but it's always fun to see guys reinvent themselves. You know, so many starting pitchers who, especially when they get towards the end of the line, you know, they're guys who spent the majority of their career as kind of four or five back-end rotation starters and they convert into bullpen pieces and become really good. Ian Kennedy is a guy. He's

the Royals closer this year. He's been really, really good. But Norris just a few years ago, he did it. I think there's a lot of guys who teams want them to be starters because inherently having a good starter is more valuable than having a good reliever. But at some point, you've got to cut the court and turn guys into relievers. And the merit. Mariners made the right decision when they signed Oliver Perez and turned him into a reliever, and it's still paying dividends for teams now. You know, he's, when he was 28 years old and coming off a 6.80 ERA season with New York Mets, I think there's a lot of people who thought his career might be over, and he's played

eight more years since then. So good, so good on him. Good for you, Oliver Perez. Enjoy your 38th birthday. Next up is the name that only the true, true degenerate Mariners fans are going to remember. His name is Aaron Sheffer. he's turning 44 today. Aaron Sheffer played in four games for the 1999 Seattle Mariners.

He was a reliever. He threw 4.2 thirds innings. He only gave up one run, although he gave up five actual runs. So he had some defensive issues behind him, it sounds like. Four walks, three strikeouts. Yeah, just one of those guys. You know, everybody, there's always guys who have the cup of coffee. He can at least tell his kids and his family that he pitched in the major leagues.

So good for you, Aaron Sheffer. enjoy your 44th birthday. The last Mariners player who's celebrating a birthday today is Jeff Hewson. Jeff is celebrating his 55th birthday. He had himself an accomplished 12-year career. He was primarily a utility infielder. He played for a bunch of different teams, but he spent the 1998 season in his age 33 season with the Seattle Mariners. He only appeared in 31 games for the team.

He had one home run, four RBIs, one stolen base. He hit 163, so pretty clearly not a great fit for him here. in Seattle. He was much better than next year with the Angels, and then he finished off his career with the Cubs in 2000. You know, another one of those guys. Mariners love their utility infielders. Didn't pan out for Houston here in Seattle, but, you know, it happens. Happy 55th birthday to Jeff Houston. The final one is this guy never actually played for the Mariners, but he served as their hitting coach for a while. He was their head coach in AAA Tacoma for a little bit, and then he was their third base coach, I believe, last year, and that's Scott Brocious. So Scott Brocious is turning 53

today. Brocious came up with the Oakland A's. He spent seven years with them. Then he spent four years with the Yankees. He was an all-star and a gold glove winner. He was also a postseason hero. He hit one of the most famous home runs in Yankees history. But Brochus is from Oregon. He's from Rex Puttenham High School in Milwaukee. He went to Linfield College in McMinfield, which is the same college as my wife. He also was a coach there for a while. He coached there for eight or nine years as their head coach. And he was coaching there when the Mariners hired him and brought him into coach over in Tacoma. And like I said, he came up and was a hitting coach for them for a while. I don't think he's still doing that. I'm not actually sure where he is nowadays. But a guy had a very

accomplished career, good coach from around the area, spent a little time with the Mariners. So I thought we'd celebrate him a little bit today as well. So happy 53rd birthday to Scott Broches. Tomorrow's podcast, I will recap tonight's series finale against the Detroit Tigers, and we will have our first stat cast Friday segment, where I will do a deep dive on someone on the Mariners using advanced stats. Once again, I'm Andy Patton. You can find me on Twitter at Andy Patton, S-E-A. You can find the Lockdown Mariners podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, and go Mariners.