Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 9-18-19 Locked on Mariners Episode 26: Marco Gonzales is a legitimate hitter

Episode Date: September 18, 2019

The Seattle Mariners stomped on the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-0, on Tuesday. Host Andy Patton takes you through the hi's and low's of the contest, including a moonshot from Shed Long and a base knock from starting pitcher Marco Gonzales, who was an elite hitter in college.Then, Patton discusses the AL Wildcard race, which features the Cleveland Indians, Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland A's.Finally, he finishes up with the three Mariner birthdays for the day, including a fan favorite from two 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 played an all-around excellent game on Tuesday, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates in Pittsburgh 6 to nothing. I'll talk about all the fun that was had, including home runs nearly hit into the Allegheny River, pitchers scoring runs, and more in segment one.

And then coming up in segment two, I'm going to take a look around the American League West, as we always do on Wednesdays, but today I'm going to focus in particular on the heated battle for an A.L. Wildcard spot between the Oakland days and the Tampa Bay Race. Finally, we have three Mariner birthdays to celebrate today, including a hair-flipping legend. Stay tuned to find out who. But first, let's talk about the Vivid Seats app. Make a memory that lasts a lifetime and let the Vivid Seats app help you get to your favorite live event. Go to the app now and enter promo code kickoff at checkout. and you can receive a discount of up to $100. All right, let's talk about yesterday's game.

Yesterday's game gave me nearly everything I could have possibly wanted out of a Mariners baseball game, especially here in late September. The pitching was phenomenal. Obviously, they shut out the pirates. The offense was there. There was a bunch of home runs. The bullpen pitched well. It was just a fantastic game.

Almost perfect, and I will get to that in a second. But my favorite parts of this game, the things that I really want to highlight, I love, I love the way that Shedlong has been hitting out of the leadoff spot. How fun has that been? He went two for five yesterday. He had a couple of RBIs. He hit a home run that nearly, nearly went into the river out there at Pittsburgh. That's a blast. Josh Bell's done it a couple of times for the pirates this year.

He didn't play yesterday, but big, powerful, left-handed hitter for them. You know, you've seen Bonds do it a long time ago, and there have been guys since then. I'm not saying Shed Long as Bonn as. because he hit a home run nearly into the water, but it was pretty freaking impressive. That's a blast for a little dude like Long who, you know, I think a lot of people were questioning if you really could have the kind of pop that he needed to have to be a successful big leaguer, and he does. I mean, that was, if you needed proof, please, please go watch the video.

Don't leave the podcast, stay here, hang with me for the next 15 minutes or so, and then go watch that video because it was freaking awesome. Omar Narvayas went deep because he's just been on fire this year, and he now has 22 home runs on the season. Austin Nola went deep. He's got 10 home runs in what has been a pretty remarkable season for him. Both those guys got three hits. They actually have very similar slash lines on the year,

which I thought was pretty interesting when I was looking at the box score. Narvaez is hitting 284 with a 357 on base percentage and a 477 slugging percentage, and Nola is hitting 280 with a 358 on base percentage and a 490 slugging percentage. Just a fun fact for you in case you ever wanted, to ask your friends which two Mariners players have similar batting averages. I don't think that those would be the two that you'd get a guess for,

but I also think a lot of people would question your sanity if you were throwing out there as a trivia question. Anyway, moving on, that wasn't the best offense. The long home run may have been the best offense performance of the day, but what I loved, and if you know me at all, you know where I'm going with this, Mariner's left-handed starting pitcher Marco Gonzalez got himself a knock, scored a run. He came around to score on a shedlong single. Marco, full disclosure, for those of you who do not know, I went to Gonzaga from 2009 to 2013. That overlapped, I think, three of the years,

all three of the years that Marco was there. He was an absolute stud, not just as a pitcher. Clearly, you know, he was a first round pick by the St. Louis Cardinals. He's a major league starter. Obviously, he was a good pitcher in college. But the dude was the Mariner's, the Bulldogs leadoff hitter. And on days he didn't pitch, He was their starting first baseman. He was their lead-off hitter. He hit 300 for his career at Gonzaga, and he won the Mariners fans will love this. He won the John Olerud Award, which is awarded to the best two-way player in college baseball every year.

So Marco can hit. He's not your typical American League pitcher. Now he also struck out twice, and I don't imagine that if he was given more, if you played in the National League, I think he would hit better than most pitchers, but he's not going to go out there and hit, you know, 300 again, certainly. but I'm not surprised that he got a knock. I'm not surprised that he was able to get on base. I think he's a guy who can hit a little bit.

I think it obviously wears off over time. He's been in the American League for a couple years. Now he hasn't been practicing his hitting, and it's not something that you can just pick up after years of not doing it. But anyway, I think that that's fun. I wish he got a few more opportunities in the National League this year. Hopefully he can get some more going forward.

I hope the Mariners keep him, so hopefully not too many more, but on opportunities where he is playing in a National League park, it would be fun to get to see him swing the stick a little bit. He did get replaced in the eighth inning by Domingo Santana, which the rational part of me totally understood this move. Santana needs to get some at bats. This was his first came back, and over a month he's been on the disabled list or the injured list, and you can't start him because he's not quite ready to get out in the field yet,

and so you've got to get him some at bats as a pinch hitter. Marco was at 93 pitches. Yes, he was throwing a shutout, seven innings, six hundred, hits, no walks, four strikeouts. He threw a great game, and he already got a knock. So the emotional side of me said, just let him hit. Let him hit another bat, but I get it. It was the right decision. The bullpen closed things out really well for the Mariners. Sam Tui-Valula threw a scoreless eighth. He gave up a hit and a walk, but he managed to get out of it. And then Reggie McLean threw a scoreless ninth, giving up just one hit. The Mariners pitchers were fantastic. Proof that

the pirates really aren't a very good hitting team. I'm not trying to take anything away from Marco and the bullpen guys because they did pitch very well. But yeah, it was a great game all across the board for the Mariners. My biggest, I guess, gripe, or I don't want to say gripe, but the thing that I kind of expected to happen at some point, I guess, we'll go with that, was Kyle Lewis. Kyle Lewis went 0.4-5 with four strikeouts. I've been talking about it for a while, for those of you who are regular listeners. Lewis had pretty tremendous strikeout issues in the minor leagues. Huge. He's, He struck out 29% of the time in AA. It turns out the pitchers are better in the major leagues than they are in AA.

And yes, the ball is juiced, and he got off to a rocket start. But now that pitchers are starting, they got a little bit of tape on him, they're starting to figure him out. I think he's going to have some games like this. I love seeing people make the comparisons. I've seen Kyle Lewis compared to just about every athletic outfielder you can think of. He's gotten Justin Upton comparisons. He's gotten Adam Jones comparisons, Andrew McCutcheon. And I can see where some of the loud tools look like that.

But if he doesn't fix the strikeout issues, he's not going to reach those potentials at all. And I think I'm not saying he can't because, you know, he's hitting 300 in the big league so far and has, you know, hit four home runs in seven games or whatever. But I, you know, there's a lot of outfielders who fit this bill where they're speedy. They got a lot of power and they strike out way too much to have any regular success. You know, Byron Buxton for the twins is obviously much more fleet-footed than Lewis, but he's had that issue's lasting millage was a classic one. Heck, Keon Broxton had a 2020 season two years ago with the Brewers, but now he just strikes out way too much, you know, to be those guys. And I hope

that Lewis can correct this issue. He still needs some more seasoning in the minor leagues. I do think he's going to start out next year in AAA. And until he gets that strikeout issue under control, I think that that's probably where he'll be. And it might be to the chagrin of a lot of Mariners fans, and that's understandable. But he really need, we've talked about this before on the podcast as the mariners have rushed prospects who weren't ready, who needed some more seasoning, and it's cost them. Mike Zanino is probably the most classic example of that. And it would be a huge mistake when you're not trying to contend quite yet to rush Kyle Lewis to the big leagues. This little cameo right now is perfect.

I have no problem with this. But if he spends all of 2020 in the major leagues when he's not ready to be there, that's going to be an issue. Anyway, a little bit of a downer note. I apologize for that. But I am very, very excited about this game. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series, and I am looking forward to talking to you about the American League Wildcard Race,

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We're going to focus on the rest of the American League West. I've been doing these AL West Wednesday segments where I kind of recap what's going on with each of the four other teams in the division. but we're really close to the end of the year and just not a lot's changing. Here's your quick rundown on the three other teams I'm going to talk about. The Astros are closing in on 100 wins. The division is pretty much all but wrapped up. Carlos Correa is coming back.

They're going to win the American League West. They're going to contend for a World Series. Done. That's about all you need to know. The Rangers have been roughly a 500 team all year. They are still roughly a 500 team. They have two great pitchers that they signed in the offseason, Lance Lynn and Mike Minor. They're having great years.

The rest of the team is pretty average. They don't really have a strong direction going forward. I'm not sure exactly what they're doing. Done. The Angels lost Mike Trout for the rest of the season, which is a tremendous bummer. He finishes with 45 home runs. Justin Upton lost for the rest of the season, which is less of a bummer because he was kind of having a bad year. It's another year where Mike Trout has a great year and doesn't make the playoffs.

Done. That's about it for those three teams. I want to focus instead on the Oakland A's and the Tampa Bay Rays, who obviously are not in the American League West, but are in a very, very tight battle with the A's for the final wildcard spot. If it feels like it's always the A's and Rays battling for that last wildcard spot, it's because it is. It feels like it's always those two teams because they're always kind of right in the thick of the things. I think the A's have struggled because the Asteris have been so good lately,

and obviously the Rays have the Yankees and the Red Sox in their division. And so these teams, you know, they're both very, the A's are a 90-win team. They're 90 and 61 right now. The Rays are 89 and 62, and the Cleveland Indians are right behind them, and they're 88 and 63. So all three of these teams will finish with 90 wins, and they won't all make the playoffs. So it's going to be a tight battle. Right now, the A's are up one on the race, and then the Indians are down one on the raise. So obviously the way that it works, for those of you who need a refresher, is that the top two teams will make it,

but they will play each other in a one-game playoff, and then that team, whoever wins that team, will play the top-seated team in the American League. So right now, I mentioned it as kind of a battle between the A's and the Rays, but really it's a battle between the A's, the Rays, and the Indians, which is a little less fun to say, but that's neither here nor there.

It's still going to be between those three teams. A little bit the Twins. Technically the Indians could catch the Twins in the American League Central, which would make them kind of in that wildcard race. I don't think that that happens. They're four games back right now. they were a lot closer earlier in the year, but the twins got out to a huge lead. Cleveland kind of came all the way back and made it a really close race,

and then now Minnesota's kind of ran away with it in the last couple weeks or so. But anyway, I think, I hope they were going to see an A's versus Ray's game because I'm very curious how that's going to go. My primary kind of concern with Oakland is I'm just not sure who they're going to pitch. They've had such a unique pitching staff this year, and that's kind of a fancy way of saying not very good. you know, Frankie Montes was their best pitcher for most of the year, and then he got popped for an 80-gauge steroid suspension, and he's out,

so they haven't had him for a while. Mike Fires has been good, but his last couple starts have not been good. They have Tanner Rourke. They have Brett Anderson. They have some kind of veteran guys who are okay, but nobody that I would say, boom, that's the guy that I want to throw in a one-game playoff. You know, the race have Blake Snell, boom, that's their guy. You know, he's a Cy Young winner last year.

He hasn't had it as good of a year this year, but, you know, that's a guy you want to throw in that kind of. kind of game. The A's will probably go with Sean Manaya, who missed the vast, vast majority of the year recovering from surgery. It wasn't Tommy John surgery, but it was a similar arm surgery. He was out until, I think, early September, maybe late August. I don't have the date right in front of me. But he's strung together some really good starts since he came back, which is a little bit surprising. Obviously, you know, he's a very good pitcher. He's young still, so it's not shocking that he came back well, but I think a lot of those guys tend to take a little bit longer to adjust

coming back from injuries like that. But here he is. He's pitching well. I would love to see Sean Minia versus Blake Snow. I think that would be a fun matchup for that last wildcard spot. But of course, if Cleveland manages to sneak their way in, they have some stud pitching. Even though most of it's been hurt all year, they still could go with Mike Clevenger. They could go with Shane Bieber.

You know, they have, you know, obviously Cluber. Like, they have a lot of guys. And it would be really fun. Any combination of these three teams, I think is going to be fun. For me looking at it, Oakland has a really good chance to, the schedules are really favorable for Oakland going forward. They're, as I'm speaking right now, they're in the middle of a game against the Royals. They are down one to nothing, but it's still only the fifth inning. They got the Royals again tomorrow.

Then they have a day off. Then they have three games against the Rangers, day off, two games against the Angels, and then they finish the season off against the Mariners with four games. So that's the rest of their schedule. Meanwhile, the Rays are in the middle of a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers right now. They got the Dodgers again tomorrow, day off, four against the Red Sox at home, two against the Yankees at home, day off, and then they finish off with three games in Toronto. So clearly that's favoring the A's. Again, both these teams could end up making it and pushing out the Indians.

Obviously, the Rays could struggle with that series. The Red Sox aren't great this year, but I can't imagine they're going to take four from them. The Yankees are obviously going to be, you know, you hope for a split at best. And then the Blue Jays, you know, that they could probably take those three games, but it's on the road, and this is the last games of the year for Toronto. So I would imagine it's going to be a little bit harder than you would imagine. So I'm kind of curious how this is going to go. I think the A's have the best chance of getting that one of the, getting in that game somehow,

and they'll probably play either the, well, they'll play either the Rays or the Indians. I would guess the Rays. I think they have a one-game lead right now. They're just a better team than the Indians, I think, at this point. But I'm really curious if Oakland has enough juice to get past that game. I think, you know, if they can get an effective game out of Shamaniah, they can advance. And then they're a little bit scary.

Marcus Semyon's hitting phenomenally. Crush Davis had three home runs last week. You know, Matt Chapman and Matt Olson are both awesome. They're getting Stephen Piscotti back off the disabled list sometime soon. Injured list. Sorry. So, yeah, I don't. I don't know. I think if I was picking a team out of the American League West to go to the World Series,

I'm still taking the Astros 100 times out of 100. But the A's are a little bit scary and a little bit fun. And I'm kind of curious how the rest of the season is going to play out for him. All right. We have our three Mariners' birthdays to celebrate on today, September 18th. The first is, as I described in the opening, a hair-flipping legend. Most of you probably assumed it was one of either Ben Gamal or Taylor Motter. And you would be correct. We are celebrating the 30th birthday for Mr. Taylor Motter. Mauder played for the Mariners briefly in the 2017 season and even more briefly in the 2018 season.

He kind of got a lot of cult following in 2017, mostly for his ridiculously long blonde hair. He played just about every position on the infield. He was kind of looking like one of the next well-loved Mariners utility infielders. But, you know, he had seven home runs and 12 stolen bases in 92 games, which was pretty solid, but he hit 198 with a 257 on base percentage. He struck out a bunch. So, you know, that's really not going to cut it, unfortunately. He only played seven games the following year with the Mariners. He actually hit okay in those seven games, but that was enough for them. He played nine games with the twins. He hasn't even been back to the major leagues in 2019. He split the season

between Oakland and Detroit playing in their double A systems for both of them. So this might have been the end of the line for Mr. Motter. Unfortunately, he's only turning 30, so maybe he, I'm sure he'll come out again next year and maybe he'll find himself a shot somewhere, but it looks like that 2017 season with the Mariners might be the pinnacle of his career. But happy 30th birthday for Taylor Motter. Next up is Randy Williams. Randy Williams is celebrating his 44th birthday. He was a pitcher in the mid-2000s. He actually debuted with the Mariners in 2004, only through 4.2 innings, gave up three earned runs, four strikeouts, six walks, ended up playing in parts of the next couple of seasons. finished up with Boston in 2011.

Didn't really have a very great career, but you know what? He's still through in parts of five big league seasons. So hats off to him, and happy 44th birthday. And last but not least is Ozzie Timmons. Ozzie Timmons is celebrating his 49th birthday today. Timons played in 1995 through 2000, just real brief parts of each of those seasons.

He was with the Mariners in 1999. He hit 114, which is probably why he didn't get called back the following year. and he finished up in 2000 with the raise. He did hit 3.41 that year, but it was in 42 plate appearances, so kind of hard to glean too much information from that. Regardless, happy 49th birthday to him. All right, that's all I got for you guys today. So come on back tomorrow, and I'm going to recap Seattle's game against the Pirates

on Throwback Thursday for you all. We're going to go back in time to discuss some fun Mariners players of years past. Once again, I am Andy Patton. You can find me on Twitter at at Andy Patton, S-E-A. You can find the locked-on-maner. Mariners podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening and go Mariners.