Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 9-26-19 Locked on Mariners Episode 31: Throwback Thursday back to Felix Hernandez's MLB Debut

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

The Seattle Mariners were two outs away from getting no-hit for what would have been a record-breaking third time this season. However, Austin Nola and Tim Lopes each recorded hits in the ninth inning, knocking Zack Greinke from the game. Host Andy Patton talks about the near-record the Mariners set, as well as the strong performance on the other side from left-hander Yusei Kikuchi.Then, Patton throws it back to August 4, 2005, the day Felix Hernandez made his major league debut. He discusses Seattle's lineup that day, who some of the league leaders were that season, and the very ominous, foreboding start that Felix's career got off to. 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 nearly got no hit for what would have been a record-breaking third time last night, but Austinola managed to poke a base hit in the ninth inning. I'm going to talk about that game in segment one, and then coming up in segment two, I'm going to throw it back to August 4th, 2005, which is the day that Felix Hernandez made his major.

Major League debut. Finally, we have just one Mariner birthday to celebrate today. Stay tuned to find out who. First, let's talk about Bombas. Bombas are the most comfortable socks in the history of feet. With every pair purchased, a pair is donated. Go to bombas.com slash locked now to get 20% off your first purchase. It was fitting in a way that the Mariners' season against the Houston Astros ended with a near no-hitter. obviously the Astros are very good and the Mariners are very not good this season. But still, the team went an astonishingly bad one in 18 against the Astros this season. That is phenomenal. And yesterday's game was just proof of why the Astros have such a good pitching staff.

They had it before they got Granky. They have it after they got Granky. I mean, he was dialed in yesterday. The Mariners have been no hit twice already this season. one had it happened would have very clearly been the best pitching performance out of the three. It still was. I would argue that this was a better game than either of the previous two no-hitter that were thrown against the Mariners this year. But Granky didn't quite get it done. Austin Nola, who was having his first about of the game, he came in for D. Gordon, who got a

little banged up. Nola worked up to a three-two count, managed to poke a base hit into center field. And it didn't quite end the night for Grinky. Grangee stayed on to face Tim Lopes, but then Lopes Pope to single the other way. Two runners on just went out, and they decided to pull Granky at what I think was 105 pitches. So he didn't even get the complete game. Yeah, it was just a tough one for the Mariners hitters all day long. Granky's got, you know, he's got a 90-mile-an-hour fastball, an 88-mile-an-hour slider. He's got another fastball.

He's got a slow curveball. He's got a fast curve ball. He's got a change-up. I was watching the game when I was honestly, like, I don't know how people ever hit him. Like, I really don't. That's not to say that the Mariners is certain. couldn't have found, you know, better ways to get stuff done today. Clearly, teams do hit Granky sometimes, and the Mariners, you know, just didn't get it done yesterday. And that was, it's

tough, you know, it's tough to finish the season against a team like that. You know, it's, it's kind of a unfriendly reminder of how far away the Mariners are from, from contending. I will say that for the crowd who, when this team had Edwin Encarnacion and Jay Bruce, and, you know, and, some of those guys, I think people thought, oh, like, they should try to contend. And when you look at where the Astros are now and even where the A's are now, like, if this team had kept everybody together and even trying to get some pieces at the deadline, I'm just not sure that they'd be there. I think that there's still a few pieces away.

Guys like Jared Kellenick and Julio Rodriguez and Evan White and Logan Gilbert, they can be that core, the core that they need, you know. And I think that when they have those guys together, they can really start to contend with some of these teams. now even with those guys they wouldn't have been able to get it done but I also don't think that they would have gone one in 18 had they kept those guys the entire year against the astros um there were some positives from this game obviously all on the pitching side um you say kukuchi had what is probably his final appearance of the year and it was very good uh six innings

pitched he gave up six hits he only gave up two earned runs he did not walk anybody and he struck out four uh he gave up two runs in the first inning pair of doubles scored a couple runs settled in after that and looked really, really good. Still not a ton of strikeout stuff, but I don't think that's ever really going to be a big part of his game. I think that he can settle in and be just a guy who gives up soft contact and gets his quality starts and gets a handful of strikeouts, and I think that this is the kind of outing that can be expected from Kikuchi

more often than not, hopefully. I mean, he did this against a very good hitting Astros team. They weren't benching anybody. Bregman, Yorda, Alvarez, Altuva, Springer, all those guys played. and so I think that for him to have a good outing against a team like this, you know, that was the hope all September was let's get him to have one or two good outings to finish out the year and then maybe that'll give him some momentum going into next year. So I'm taking that as the positive since there wasn't a whole lot of positives on the offensive side of things.

Art Warren has still never given up a run in his major league career. That's nice. He threw a scoreless seventh inning. Taylor Gilbo had a nice outing in the eighth. Matt McGill gave up a solo home run to Kyle Tucker in the night. so the bullpen wasn't perfect, but they looked pretty good. So yeah, you know, it was a tough night. It was a tough year against the Astros. I mean, you take out a 1-18 record,

and all of a sudden the Mariners look a lot closer to 500. So not that you can cherry pick stats like that. It's not very legitimate, but it was certainly something worth noting for this season for the Mariners. So hopefully, when they go into next year, they will be ready for this team. For some of you, it may feel like Felix was a rookie. just yesterday. For others, it may feel like it was a lifetime ago. Let's take a look at what it was going on in the world when the king began his big league career in this week's throwback Thursday segment. All right, happy throwback Thursday, y'all. It is King Felix Hernandez edition.

Today will be the king's final start of the season and very potentially of his career as a Seattle Mariner. It could be the final start of his career period, although I do think he will catch on somewhere next year, I've postulated that he could end up back in Seattle. The Mariners really don't have a lot of starting pitching depth on the 2020 roster and beyond. Obviously, Marco will be back. You say Kekuchi will be back. They have the ability to bring Wade LeBlanc back on a $5 million deal. I think they're going to pass on that.

Tommy Malone is a free agent. I don't think Justice Sheffield or Justin Dunn are going to be ready to start the season in the major league rotation. So the Mariners are going to need to go out and find some veteran starting pitching to kind of plug into the rotation for another year while they let those guys develop in the minor leagues. Felix will be a veteran-free agent pitcher who will be looking for a short, prove-it contract, maybe a minor league deal, to kind of try to prove that he's still got it and can pitch in the major leagues. Even if you take away the fact that they've been partnered with each other for nearly 20 years, it's pretty clear that this relationship would work from just a team need and player-need standpoint.

I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to the king. Maybe that's denial on my part, but I do see some rational reasoning why this isn't necessarily Felix's last start at Safeco Field or T-Mobile Park. But we'll see. We'll see. There's certainly a possibility that it is as well, and I will be tuning in to watch that just in case that is the situation. But for Throwback Thursday, I thought it would be kind of fun to throw it back to talk about what was going on when King Felix made his major league debut. It was 2005, August 4th, 2005, to be very specific. That was the day that Felix made his debut.

He was 19 years and 118 days old at the time of his major league debut. That was the youngest pitcher to make his debut since Jose Rejo in 1984. Rio had a very long and very accomplished career, actually, a fair amount of similarities to Felix in that. But yeah, it's pretty darn rare to be major league ready as a teenager at any position, but it's especially rare as a starting picture. Felix was rare from the get-go. I remember I was about to turn 15 when Felix made his debut.

We were in Seattle. I lived in Portland at the time. I remember, but I know that I was in Seattle when he made his debut because I was at my aunt-uncle's house and we saw the newspaper and there was an exciting young kid coming up, blah, blah. Anyway, I remember that. It was great. But going back and looking at the box score is pretty darn entertaining.

Here's a quick rundown of the Mariners starting lineup for this game. It was against the Detroit Tigers in the 2005 season. Felix started. The lineup leading off with Etro, no surprise there. He was in the middle of a season where he was hitting 303. He did go 0 for 4 on that day, though. Willie Blumquist was hitting second. Willie Blumquist is one of my favorite players of all time.

I have one of his shirtsies that I wear to games pretty frequently. He also went 0 for 4. Rowley Bonnier's was the three-hitter. He was playing left field. He had a home run in this game. was just about the Mariners' only offense. We're going to get to that in a second. Number four-hitter was Richie Sexton.

He was in the middle of a pretty good season with the Mariners. Five-hitter was Adrian Beltray. He was in the middle of not very good season with the Mariners. Some may have forgotten that he played for the Mariners because he was known so much for his career with the Red Sox and the Rangers and the Dodgers, but he had a couple of stints or a couple years in there with the Mariners that didn't quite go so well. Next up was Jeremy Reed.

He was the center fielder. He went one for three, one of the only other guys in the team to get a hit in that game. Then it was Mike Morse. Mike Morse was the starting shortstop. He ended up having a pretty long big league career, primarily as an outfielder, but came up with the Mariners as a shortstop. Next up was the designated hitter Scott Spizio. This was, I believe, the first year after Edgar Martinez retired,

and the DH spot was not their most compelling. He was hitting 0.59 on the season at the time, so that's not exactly what you want. And their last hitter was their catcher, the first catcher that ever caught Felix Hernandez in the major. League's Wiki Gonzalez, not exactly a household name. The Mariners did not score a lot of runs in this game. Unfortunately, perhaps the most depressing thing that could have happened in Felix Hernandez's

major league debut just in terms of foreshadowing is the fact that he threw really well. Five innings, he only gave up three hits. He walked two. He struck out four. He gave up one earned run, two runs total. So a very quality outing, I mean, that's a 1.80. ERA, and he got the loss. Just classic Felix Hernandez, unfortunately.

I think if he'd known then, maybe he would have wanted to do something else, but he got stuck with a career for being known for throwing really well in losing efforts, which is just a bummer. The Tiger's pitcher of record was a guy named Sean Douglas. I've never even heard of him, and I've heard of most players from this era of baseball. He threw eight innings and only gave up the home run to Ibanez. pretty wild. The pitcher who got the save for the Detroit Tigers is a pretty fun one.

It was right-hander Fernando Rodney, one of the few guys from this game who is still in baseball. And Rodney, obviously, spent a little bit of time with the Mariners in, I think, 2012, 2013, sometime around there, coined the Fernando Rodney experience because you kind of never really knew what you were going to get from Rodney and the Mariners, and really for his entire career. Even early on, he was really wild,

but obviously has had the stuff to stick around in the big leagues for a very long time. I also like to point out that the number two hitter for the Detroit Tigers in this game was Carlos Guillen. He was a starting shortstop for them. He was in the midst of an all-star season. He would end up being a three-time all-star with the Tigers. Got traded from the Mariners for Ramon Santiago, who spent about 20 games with the Mariners before getting released and resigning with the Tigers. Got to admit that that was probably one of the worst trades in Mariners history,

just because you effectively gave up a three-time All-Star shortstop for nothing. Anyway, looking around the rest of the league in 2005, there's some fun things. The best player in baseball, according to war, was Alex Rodriguez, which isn't really a huge shock. The batting title was won by Chicago Cubs' first baseman Derek Lee. He hit 335 that year, which is very nice. Home run leader was Andrew Jones of the Atlanta Braves. He was the only person to top 50 home runs that year. He had 51.

Arod hit 48, David Ortiz hit 47, Derek Lee hit 46, Mani Ramirez hit 45. So this is the era of the big-time home run hitters, but there was quite a few guys who topped 40 that year. In fact, nine guys hit 40 or more, and then Ritchie Sexton finished 10th with 39 home runs. Sean Figgins was the stolen base leader that year. He would end up on the Mariners a few years later

in what was perhaps one of the most disastrous free agent signings that the team has ever had. which is unfortunate. But yeah, it was a fun year. The Chicago White Sox played the Houston Astros in the World Series. It was one of the strangest and probably most forgettable World Series of the last decade. I know if you were to ask people which teams have made the World Series in the last since 2000. I bet that the Chicago White Sox would be the team that the fewest people would guess.

But they did. They had a great team, Paul Canerico, Mark Burley on the mound, Germain Die. They had a really solid squad that year, ended up winning a lot. at all. And then, you know, things kind of devolved into being primarily Yankees and Phillies and Red Sox and, you know, the big name teams after that. But King Felix, 19 years old, just a baby, came out through a quality start or nearly a quality start in his first major league outing, didn't get the win. It's a tragic metaphor for a player who will go down as one of the best in franchise history. And hopefully this isn't the end of the line for him. But if it is, he will

be, hopefully he'll have a plaque, maybe not in Cooperstown, but at least, at least somewhere at T-Mobile Park. Guys, let's talk about sex. Good sex. Remember the days when you were always ready to go? Now, you can increase your performance and get that extra confidence in bed. Listen up. Bluechew.com.

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He is not what you would consider a household name. That would be former right-handed pitcher Calvin Jones. Calvin Jones is celebrating his 56th birthday today. Jones was a first round pick in the January phase of the regular draft, which is something that does not happen anymore. But they used to do a draft in June and then another draft in January. And Jones was the first guy they took in that draft. They actually had eight rounds that year.

And their eighth round pick was Mike Blowers. So, spoiler alert, he ended up having a better career. Blowers did, at least than Mr. Jones, who was used the first round pick on. Jones didn't end up making the major leagues until 1991 as a 27-year-old. He threw 46 innings out of the bullpen. He had a 2.53 ERA, 42 strikeouts and 29 walks. So not a terrible season. He was an above-average reliever, I would say, for that 1991 team.

He was back in 1992. He was a 28-year-old. Things did not go quite as well. He threw 61.2 innings, but he had a 5.69 ERA. He had nearly as many walks as he did strikeouts. And that was it for him in the major leagues. He stuck around for a while in the minor leagues. He's been in the Mariners system for another year, spent some time with the Indians, the White Sox, all the way up until 1996.

And then he actually played some independent ball in the early 2000s, but never managed to find his way back to the major leagues. Anyway, happy 56th birthday to Mr. Calvin Jones. For tomorrow, I'm going to recap tonight's game against the Oakland A's, and then I'm going to get really real with you all about Felix Hernandez after what may have been his final start in a Mariners uniform. Once again, I am 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.