Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 9-16-19 Locked on Mariners Episode 24: Will Felix Hernandez be a Mariner in 2020?

Episode Date: September 16, 2019

The Seattle Mariners took two out of three from the Chicago White Sox over the weekend, winning their two games on walk-off victories. Host Andy Patton discusses the two triumphant wins, while also taking questions for his mailbag Monday segment. Patton talks about Felix Hernandez's future with the team, and the probability that another father-son duo will hit back-to-back home runs, like Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. did 29 years ago. 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 Lockdown Mariners podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. The Mariners took two out of three from the Chicago White Sox over the weekend, including back-to-back walk-off victories. I'm going to talk about that in segment one. And then in segment two, as it always is at the start of the week, we will have our Mariners Mailbag Monday segment.

Today, I'm going to answer a question about Felix Hernandez's future in Seattle, and a question about the Griffey family. Finally, we have 11 Mariner birthdays to celebrate from over the weekend, including a Hall of Famer and multiple members of Seattle's magical 2001 team. Stay tuned to find out who. But first, make a memory that lasts a lifetime and let the Vivid Seats app help you get your favorite live event. Enter promo code kickoff at checkout to receive a discount of up to $100.

All right, do you guys all remember the time? Tiger series from a couple of months ago. I think it was in late July when Detroit came to town. It was a four-game series. And every other game was either a blowout or a walk-off win. I think Malick Smith walked off two games in that series against the Tigers. This series felt a a little bit like that. Obviously, the White Sox and Tigers are similar in the sense that neither team is very good. They're in the AL Central, obviously. This series wasn't quite as pronounced. All three games were pretty close. and the White Sox won one, which the Tigers were not able to do.

But, yeah, kind of the same vibe, really close games all the way throughout. One of them was 2 to 1, one of them was 11 to 10, one of them was 9 to 7. So you're kind of all over the board over the weekend. As I usually do, I'm going to go through them all one by one. We can kind of talk about some of the good things we saw, some of the maybe not so good things we saw. The first game was the loss. It was a 9-7 loss to the White Sox. This happened on Friday.

Just not a well-pitched game, really on either side. Dylan Covey pitched for the White Sox. He looked bad. But Yusay Kukchi looked worse. He only made it two and a third innings. He gave up 10 hits, five earned runs, one walk, just one strikeout, a couple of home runs. I think he got tagged by Jose Ibrahimineau. Oh, no, sorry, Eloy Haman has hit one in the ninth inning.

It was Adam Engel who got him for the second home run. Yeah, I feel like I've been, I've beaten a dead horse talking about Yusayakuchi. He's got the stuff to succeed. You know, when he's locating his fast-pull up, bringing his breaking stuff down, we saw the complete game shut out against the Blue Jays earlier in the year. He's put together some solid starts, but now he's sitting at a point. We have 5.46 ERA, 6 and 10 record. I mean, it's just, it hasn't been there for him.

And this game was a good example of why he's way too hitable. When he's located in the middle of the zone, he just, you know, he doesn't have overpowering stuff. He was never a guy who was projected to have a war. powering stuff. When the Mariners signed him, he was a guy who we can slot into the middle of the rotation, and he's got enough pitchability and kind of feel. Those are the words that you hear scouts use a lot. He's got enough of that kind of stuff to be successful. And I don't think that they're wrong. I'm not belittling those scouting reports. I just, we haven't seen it consistently

at all. And he's still relatively young. He's 27. It's his first year in the major leagues. I think there's kind of a reputation around a lot of Japanese pitchers that they kind of come over and they succeed right away. And that has been the case of a lot of them. Master Hiro Tanaka, Yu Darvish, Hideo Nomo, is the first one, even Shohayotani before he got hurt. And so I think like when these guys struggle right away, it's kind of, I was like, oh, he's just bad. I don't think that's the case here. I think that Kikuchi's best days as a major league pitcher are ahead of him. But I also don't think that he's ever going to be Master Hiro Tanaka and anybody who thought that he was was ill-informed. They didn't read his scouting report close.

enough. Anyway, the rest of the game was okay. Wade LeBlanc didn't look good, but that's because Wade LeBlanc is bad, so that's not exactly earth-shattering information here. Only through two innings, gave up three earned runs. The rest of the bullpen was okay until Austin Adams gave up a home run in the ninth inning to Eloy Jimenez, but Brennan looked okay, Matt McGill looked good, Eric Swanson continued to be very good. So some positive things there. I think there's a couple bullpen pieces in there that I think could be names that Mariners fans will still know in 2021. It might still be around. Swanson in particular, and I think it's encouraging to see these guys pitch a little bit better down the stretch than they did earlier in the year. The Mariners

scored a lot of runs in this game. They scored seven runs. Didn't have any home runs. Just manufactured a lot of runs. Malik Smith stole a couple of bases. He had himself a nice night. Dee Gordon and Tom Murphy each had two hits. Omar Narvias had three hits. He had a really good weekend overall. We'll get to that a little bit later. Shedlong, same thing. He also had a good weekend. He went two for four in this one with two RBIs. But just, you know, just a tough one.

When you get down to the sticks really early in the game, the White Sox scored in each of the first four innings. Yeah, that's not going to, you know, it's not going to get it done. Even though the Mariners scored three in the first and four in the – or excuse me, three in the first and two in the fourth, you still can't give up runs in all of the first four innings of a baseball game would expect to win.

The Mariners had a much, much better game on Saturday. this is one of the most fun games of the year. I happen to be there, which maybe enhances my memory of the game, obviously, but Itro was given an award before the game. He was recognized. It was a bobblehead night for him. He gave a speech on the field in English, which everybody loved. He was talking about how much he cherished his time in Seattle.

He talked about what it means to be a professional. It was awesome. And then you got vintage Felix Hernandez on the bump. What could be more fun than that? Felix seven innings pitched. five hits, one earned, one walk, four strikeouts. Yes, you'd like to see a few more strikeouts from the king, but I don't see anybody who's really complaining about this one.

If anything, the complaints that you see is that it was vintage Felix to a fault in the sense that he threw seven innings, gave up one earned run, and did not get a win, which has unfortunately been the story of his career in a sense. I saw a stat that Felix has the third most, or tied for third most games with seven innings pitched or seven or more innings pitched, one or less earned runs, and you got a no decision. It's kind of been the M.O. for his career, unfortunately. The Mariners did win this game.

They won two to one. They won in the extra innings. So it's not like, you know, for Felix himself, who has never been somebody who's particularly concerned with those numbers, I think he's just happy as team won and that he had a lot to do with it. But it was, I mean, we're going to talk a lot more in Segment 2 about Felix's potential future in Seattle. but I don't think it's crazy to say that this could be the last quality start we see from Felix

Fernandez in Ameri's uniform. And if it is, what a way to go out. The rest of the game was solid. Shed Long had a nice night. He had a home run. That was his third big league home run. A lot of the rest of the hitting was not so great. J.P. Crawford, Kyle Seeger, and Kyle Lewis combined to go 0 for 14 with five strikeouts. That is not good, not what you want from your two, three, and four hitters. Omar Narvaez would have joined them except that he happened to hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning, a home run that hit the yellow line and was reviewed, and they weren't sure, and they ended up deciding that it was a home run, and so it was kind of one of those weird delayed celebrations where they celebrated it at first,

and then they waited, and then they actually got to celebrate. But he deserved it. This is 21st home run. I've spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about Tom Murphy, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the reason this is the best-catching combination in Mariners history has a lot to do with Tom Murphy, but it has a lot to do with Omar Narvaeus. He's hit in about 280. He's got a 350 on-base percentage, 21 home runs. He's having a a monstrous season. It's been really, really cool to see the Mariners have two very, very legit catchers. Mariners' final game was also a walk-off win, but in a very different fashion. Saturday's

game was a two-to-one game. This one was an 11-10 game. Saturday's game was determined on a walk-off home run. Sunday's game was determined on a walk-off. Sunday's game was determined on a walk-off bases loaded walk from Tom Murphy. Not exactly how you expect a game to end, but I'm sure the Mariners and all the Mariners fans out there will happily take it. The more exciting play at the end of the game was not the walk-off walk, but it was rather a three-run home run from Kyle Lewis in the eighth inning. That's much more fun.

The Mariners had a really odd offensive game. They scored, they didn't score until the fourth inning, but then they scored five runs in the fourth inning. Then they let the White Sox score eight runs in the fifth inning, which is not great. Then they stormed back, scored five runs in the eighth inning, thanks to Lewis's home run. So it was 10 and 10 going into the ninth inning, and then Mariners managed to load the bases, Tom Murphy draws a walk, and there's your ball game. So, yeah, a lot of the guys who weren't hitting the games before that had great nights. Austinola 4 for 5 with 2 RBIs. That's fantastic.

Kyle Lewis not only had the 3-run home run, but he also went 3-4-6 with 2 runs on the day. What more can you say? The dude's hit in 360. He's got four home runs. He's been up for six games. Obviously, this is not sustainable. You don't need me to tell you that. That's no fun.

We don't need to talk about that. But Kyle Lewis has been a revelation for the Mariners. He has cemented himself as a piece of this team's future. He's looking like somebody who maybe will get a very legitimate shot at starting out 2020 in the big leagues. I do think he's going to need some time at AAA, which he has not had any of yet. and I think the plan all along was to bring him up, get him some exposure, and then send him to AAA to start 2020. But he's certainly making that a little bit more of an interesting decision that the Mariners will have to face. So there's a long time between now and then, but it sure has been fun to watch him hit the baseball.

From a pitching perspective, this was a weird one. Justice Sheffield, his line looks bad. Four and a third innings pitched, six hits, six runs, five of them earned. But then he had one walk and eight strikeouts, which is really good. And so you dig it a little bit deeper. For those of you who watched the game, you know what happened. He gave way to Brandon Brennan in the fifth inning, and Brennan gave up a grand slam.

And so a lot of Sheffield's runs scored on that. So when he left the game, his line looked considerably better, and the bullpen just didn't do him any favors. Again, Sheffield's starting to feel what Felix used to feel like all those years. Still, obviously, was too hitable. You know, you can't throw 82 pitches and not even be out of the fifth inning if you want to be a sustainable starting pitcher long term. But eight strikeouts to one walk is phenomenal.

I mean, really, really phenomenal. And yes, it's the White Sox, and yes, they don't have a lot of plate discipline, and yes, they strike out a lot. I don't care. That doesn't mean to me a whole lot in this situation. Justice Sheffield has not made a whole lot of major league starts. And for him to come out and be able to post those kind of ratios is encouraging, even if the rest of his numbers were, we'll say less than encouraging.

I'm excited about him. I think that he still probably got two more starts this year. I'm not sure what they're going to do to him from an innings pitched perspective, but I think that there's a chance we'll see a little bit more lightning from him for the rest of the year, and I think that could be a lot of fun. If you want to know more about what I think the future holds for Felix Hernandez here in Seattle, stay tuned for our Mailbag Monday segment where I will discuss that topic at length. When you need red wine at 4 p.m., sushi at 9 p.m.,

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Anything you need, anytime you need it, Postmate it. Download Postmates and Save with Code Locked On Today. Oh, right. Today is our Mariners Mailbag Monday segment. I got a couple fun questions for you guys today. The first one is, will we ever see a father-son duo hit back-to-back home runs in the same game ever again? Now, I do have to say, shout out, my dad was the one who asked this question.

Normally I wouldn't say that, but I love the fact that it's a father-asking a son, a question about a father-son duo in the major leagues. Kind of fun. Anyway, obviously the reference here, since you're all Mariners fans, you probably know this. September 14th, 1990, so 29 years ago Saturday, Ken Griffey Senior and Ken Griffey Jr. hit back-to-back home runs. It was Junior's rookie year.

It was seniors last year, I believe. Pretty wild thing, not something that you would really ever expect to see ever again. It is an interesting question, I think, not just because of it. of the anniversary of that event, but because there are so many players who are playing in the major leagues right now whose parents played in the game, this has happened for generations. It's not crazy new, but like you look at the Toronto Blue Jays right now. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Bo Bichet is the son of Dante Bichet, who played in the major leagues for a really long time,

played for the Rockies and the Reds for a while. And then Kavanaugh is the son of Craig Bigio, who's a Hall of Famer second baseman for the Houston Astros. And so, like, we have a lot of guys coming up through the major league. who were raised in the game because their dad's played. And I think that in that sense, you'd think, yeah, okay, it could happen again. But I don't know. For one thing, it's just super fluky to even, you know,

just because there's the possibility that two guys might play in the same game, the odds of them hitting back-to-back on the same lineup, and then obviously both hitting back-to-back home runs are extremely rare. If I had to guess if this would ever happen again, probably not, just because of how astronomically high the odds would have to be. But I could see situations where fathers and sons are playing together. You know, those three guys that we just talked about, you know, Guerrero and Biji are already in the Hall of Fame. So they retired quite a while ago.

Bichet, I think, actually retired before both of them. So there's a pretty considerable age gap where those guys weren't all that close. You have to play, you know, I mean, major leaguers at this point, there aren't a whole lot of teenage debuts anymore. Griffey was rare. He debuted at 19. That's not happening anymore. Teams are more cognizant of keeping guys down in the minor leagues longer because of service time manipulation reasons, which could change with the new CBA.

But that's not going to be for a couple of years. So if teams are like, well, we don't really want to call you up until you're 22, 23. Now at this point, you know, unless dad had you real young, you're probably going to be well into your 40s. And there's just not a lot of them lasting anymore. You know, I think that baseball has gotten so much harder. I'm not saying that it was easy for Ken Griffey Sr. to still hit a home run at age 40, whatever he was. But now with guys throwing harder than ever, with specialist relievers who come in and throw every single one of them seems to throw 95 plus miles an hour, I have a hard time seeing a guy last long enough in the major leagues to be able to be there for his son to make it to the major leagues,

and then both happen to hit a home run at the same time. Which is why it should be celebrated every single year that this happened and that the Mariners were the team. that had happened for because it is an unbelievable statistic. And I would welcome it if it ever happened again, but I'm not going to bet that it does. All right, my second question is a very simple one. Will we see Felix Hernandez in a Mariners uniform next year? So the prevailing thought, I think, for most people, is no. He's a free agent after this year.

He's signed that massive contract seven years ago. He's played out through the end of it. clearly he has fallen off fairly considerably from the pitcher that he used to be he's 33 now he's going to be 34 where the time next season rolls around

his numbers have not been all that good and for a couple of years and he had a 5.55 ERA last year in 150 innings he's got a 6.31 ERA in 60 innings this year by all accounts it doesn't seem like the kind of guy that you want in your pitching rotation

but I don't think that there's going to be a whole lot of teams calling for Felix at all. Just because if the Mariners don't want him in their pitching rotation, why would the, you know, X team sign him? You know, there are definitely some pitching starving teams out there, you know, contending teams who could really use an arm at the back of the rotation, but they're going to look elsewhere. It's very, it's hard. This is hard to say because of who Felix is and the kind of pitcher that he was for so long.

but I don't think he's got a lot of appeal to other organizations. He does have a reputation for being a little bit hard to work with and stubborn, and I don't know a ton of the validity on that. I'm not going to pretend that I do. But if other teams get that sense, they're not going to want to bring in a guy who's stubborn about changing the way that he pitches, especially when his results haven't been there since 2016, was really his last good season.

And even then, he had a 3.82 ERA, which is fine, but not great. So in that sense, I almost wonder, Felix isn't going to give up. He's got way too much pride for that, and I respect that. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't see him just walking away. I see him stubbornly trying to hold out and not sign a minor league contract, which is reasonable, but I also don't think any team is going to offer him anything more than a minor league contract. And if that's the case, and he's got a handful of teams offering him minor league contracts, there's a possibility he picks the team that has the biggest opportunity for him to crack the starting rotation.

And there's a good chance that's the Mariners. They just, you know, I don't know that they want to start Sheffield out in the big leagues right away next year. I think he might get a little bit more time in AAA. We'll see. We'll see. I could be wrong there. Obviously, they'll have Marco Gonzalez, but there's just not a ton of depth in the rest of their rotation. Kikuchi will be there.

Marco will be there. Sheffield could be there. I don't think Dun's going to be up at that point. So you have some spaces. You know, Wade LeBlanc and Tommy O'Oloan aren't long-term guys. I don't think they really care to have either of them back. So, yeah. So could there be a spot for Felix?

Yeah, yeah, there could be. I think there's more of an opportunity for him to pitch for the Seattle Mariners next year than there is for other major league teams. And since I don't think that his career is going to end after this season, I do think there's a chance we'll see Felix in a Mariners uniform next year. Now, who knows? Maybe the Atlanta Braves will get desperate towards spring training and we'll call him and say, hey, we got a competition for our number five spot in our rotation, come out here and give it a shot.

And he might go over there, and maybe he wins that job. Maybe he doesn't, but he sticks around in AAA for a while. Who knows? And if that happens, and if he ends up somewhere else, we should cheer the heck out of him. Because Felix put in so much work for this franchise, for this organization. And I think people will. I don't think that that's going to be an issue. And there's very few players that I would want to see have a cross-examination.

career resurgence somewhere else more than Felix Hernandez. But I also wouldn't mind if it happened here. And I think that there is a real chance that if he can't find what he's looking for out there, that he finds his way back to Seattle for the 2020 season. All right, I'm making a habit of running a little bit out of time, which I apologize for, which also means that I'm going to go through the birthdays, the 11 birthdays that we've had from the last three days, kind of quickly. So I apologize. Some of these are guys that I would have liked to talk about a little bit more. Maybe I'll find a throwback Thursday segment to talk about them in the future. So for Friday, September 14th, the former Mariners, there were two birthdays for that day.

One of them is 47-year-old David Bell, who was the starting third baseman on the 2001 Seattle Mariners team that won 116 games. Your other birthday was left-handed reliever Jerry Don Gliton, or Gleeton, I'm not sure. I think it sounds more fun to say Don Gleetan. Anyway, he is turning, he turned 62. For September 15th, which was Sunday, we have. had six birthdays. The first one is Parker Markle, who turned 29. Next up is left-hander Matt Thornton, who turned 43. Then we had Paul Abbott, who was teammates with David Bell on that 2001 Mariners team.

He turned 52, followed by John Christensen, who was celebrating his 59th birthday, Dave Pagan, who was celebrating his 70th birthday, and then Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry, perhaps one of the oldest living mariners, he celebrated his 81st birthday. And then now for the three birthdays for today, September 16th, former mariner Gordon Beckham, who was on the team briefly this year, he turned 33 today. Then we had Desi Ralefford, who celebrated his 46th birthday, and Scott Medvin, who celebrated his 58th birthday. All right, the mariners are off today, but I will be back on Tuesday morning to preview Seattle's upcoming opponent,

the Pittsburgh Pirates, and to talk about one of my favorite prospects in the Mariners farm system. Once again, I'm Andy Patton. You can find me on Twitter at at Andy Patton, S-E-A. You can find the Lockdown Mariners podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, and go Mariners.