Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - A Little Bit of Chaos Helps Mariners Secure 30th Win of the Season

Starting point is 00:00:00 Last night, the Mariners looked completely lost at the plate against Hunter Brown. They wound up striking out 14 times in total. And then they won because, of course, pretty normal Mariners win if you asked me. Let's talk about it. Colby, hit it. You are locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network.

Starting point is 00:00:26 Your team every day. Ahoy, sailors. It is Wednesday, May 29th, 2024. This is Tad of Gazzalas and Colby Patnaut for the Lockhe. on Marries Podcast, part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. On today's show, we're going to talk about the Mariners 4 to 2 win over the Astros last night. Go over that chaotic eighth inning. Luis Castillo's night, a strong outing by the bullpen and get you set for game three as the M's go for the series win tonight.

Starting point is 00:00:53 But before we do that, shout out to our title sponsor today, eBay Motors. From brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride or die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it's easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride or die live at eBay motors.com. Eligible items only, exclusions apply eBay guaranteed fit, only available to U.S. customers. And if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, check out our Patreon. The link is in the description, and you can sign up for a free seven-day trial. So Colby, let's talk about that eighth inning last night to kick things off here on the show.

Starting point is 00:01:29 It all starts with that Mitch Hanager double. Then Jonathan Claucay, pinch runs for Hanager, advances to third on the passball by Yonair Diaz. Ryan Bliss gets asked to bunt. He's not able to put one down, falls into an O2 hole, and then works a walk and a very, very impressive plate appearance. Then Josh Rojas doubles on that ball that took a weird bounce. I think it bounced off of the bag over Jose Abraeus head. It took a while for Kyle Tucker to come over and get it. And so Rojas gets to second, Bliss gets to third,

Starting point is 00:02:02 and then Bliss's speed really shows up there on that ground ball by Julio, where it forces Bregman to make an awkward play, throws the ball past Abraeu. Julio advances to second, couple runs score, gives the mayor some more breathing room there for Ryan Stanick, with Andres Munoz not able to go last night, and caps off, you know, yet another one of these games where, you know, the mayor's offense looks pretty inept for most of it and then somehow pull some magic out of

Starting point is 00:02:35 thin air. And that's just kind of the nature of chaos ball, right? Yeah, more or less. You know, obviously bliss, it's a big app bad. I mean, the two bond attempts weren't terrible, but it's kind of a, you know, binary thing about bonds. Either you put down a good one or they're all awful. There's really no in between there. And he wasn't able to get it done.

Starting point is 00:02:55 But, you know, kudos to him to grind out that at bad. it would have been very easy for him to expand the zone and chase, and especially after the two failed buntz where you're a rookie and you're just trying to help the team win, no matter how you can. You haven't had your first hit yet. So it would have been very easy for him to kind of try to do too much, expand the zone, try to make up for his failures. You want to call him that getting the bunt down?

Starting point is 00:03:22 And he didn't. He stayed disciplined. He worked the count, got on base, set up the whole thing very nicely. JP didn't come through. And, you know, Julio almost didn't either. But that's baseball. You know, you see Bliss's speed, you know, you see Bliss's speed on the bases. You see what Julio's speed out of the box can do to a defender, put a lot of pressure on that guy to make, you know, the perfect throw.

Starting point is 00:03:45 And once, you know, once Bregman decided not to go home, he should have just ate the ball because there was a zero percent chance you're getting Julio on that play. So, and the Mariners take advantage, right? Bregman throws the ball away. Rojas heads up base running. He hasn't set up the entire way. He scores easily. Of course, Rojas is double prior to that to tie the game, kind of a weird kind of fluky play. May or may not have hit the bag, but Abraeu was playing ahead of the bag, so it probably didn't matter. And also, you know, on that, on that double props to Rojas for, you know, busting it out of the box and keeping an eye on Tucker and seeing Tucker's kind of just jogging over to the ball. Like, I can take second here.

Starting point is 00:04:23 Right. Avoid that, you know, stay out of the double play. It's always a key thing there if you can. So you just kind of saw the, what athleticism and what speed can do in general. It puts a lot of pressure on you, on your defense, even when, you know, their balls aren't hit hard. Like, it still puts a lot of pressure on you. You have to make the plays. And we've seen this a few times where the Mariners are really rallied.

Starting point is 00:04:47 It hasn't been because they hit the big, you know, back breaking home run. It's just because they put the ball in play and they force. other teams to make plays and they've been aggressive on the bases and stuff like that. And teams, other teams make mistakes. They're not perfect. They're even though they're professionals, they're going to make mistakes. And the Astros certainly did last night. You know, it's a credit to the Mariners to put the ball in play enough with guys on

Starting point is 00:05:09 face. Ironically, they still struck out three times in the eighth inning. So, you know, it certainly wasn't perfect. So we say, you're saying, oh, that's why you put the ball in play. And it's like, yeah, I mean, you're not wrong, but they still did, you know, strike out three times. An example of strikeouts being more of an aesthetic issue rather than an actual issue. Right. Depending on when they are and like the situation, all that stuff. But sure, it was, it was something crazy because it just, this team is, uh, is wild and, and it's almost become expected,

Starting point is 00:05:45 uh, that this team is going to do something like something's going to go their way. And then they're going to take advantage of it. That's just kind of the way a lot of, lot of these mariner comeback wins in particular have happened over the last three years and it's it's chaos and you know uh chaos can be a ladder chaos swings both ways right so you got to be careful there but it didn't last night the chaos was all on the mariner's side and uh they were able to take advantage of it and now they've secured a split against their division rival the houston astros will not be leaving town any closer to uh you know jumping you in the standings than they came in uh and that is certainly a a good thing uh just don't want to win the series but

Starting point is 00:06:23 securing that second one, winning the first two, especially last night without Munoz with your offense being abysmal. Finding a way to win that game really set you up nicely for the next two. Yeah, so the mayor is now four and one against the Astros on the year. They get their 30th win in total on the season. Love a nice round number. Now a third of the way to a 90-win season. Hopefully they can keep it going tonight with George Kirby on the bump against Justin Verlander.

Starting point is 00:06:51 We'll be talking about that game a little later on, but for now I want to talk about Luis Castillo in this Marry's bullpen last night. In just a moment, but first, a reminder of this episode of the Locked-on Marrars podcast is brought to you once again by eBay Motors. Passion, drive, and patience. What brings home the winning trophy

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Starting point is 00:08:04 You can catch Game 3 between the M's and the Astros tonight on the Marriss Hometown broadcast of SiriusXM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word Mariners. And we're going to be talking about Game 3 here in a little bit on the show. But I still want to talk about Game 2 last night a little bit more here and focus in on on Luis Castillo specifically. He goes six innings pitch, six strikeouts, two earn runs on five hits.

Starting point is 00:08:29 Just the one walk and the two earn runs coming off of kind of a BS home run by Alex Bregman. I believe the expected batting average on that Homer was 090. So that kind of sucks. But overall, what did you think about Castillo last night, Colby? I thought it was pretty good. Not dominant Castillo,

Starting point is 00:08:51 not the guy who's, you know, in line for like Sy Young votes or anything like that. But I thought overall he was pretty good. It was kind of another grinded out performance like we've seen in his last two starts. You know, the velocity on most of his pitches was down about half a tick. The spin, not quite where it normally is. Not anything like egregious, not anything to be worried about. Just not quite as good as he is at his best.

Starting point is 00:09:18 So yeah, the stuff wasn't, I don't want to say it was as good because we're going to get to in a minute. But the fastball certainly was not as good as we're accustomed to seeing from Luis. Last night, he threw 39 fastballs, and he got 21 swings and only four whiffs. So 19% called strike plus width or called strike. Yeah, sorry. 31% called strike plus with, 19% whiff. Castillo's a guy with the forcing fastball. He probably should be, you know, upper 20s or in the 30s with the four seamermost nights. And that's when you know he has a good one. Last night, yeah, not awful, but not a great one. He did get, you know, a cold strikes on that on that poor seamer only six balls put in play but the average exit below on them

Starting point is 00:09:58 was 94 miles an hour but last night he used the slider and the change up almost equally which is not something we typically see from castillo usually it's one or the other and this is how he was able to you know get through this lineup uh relatively unscathed he threw 22 sliders got 12 swings five whiffs 42% on the slider it's a good number uh 32% called strike plus whiff on that pitch. The change-up, which we have not seen with regularity, really for the last year. It's kind of become a true third, fourth pitch for him. But last night we saw a pretty good one, and we saw him throw it a lot.

Starting point is 00:10:37 He threw 19 change-ups, 11 swings, six whiffs. So 55% whiff rate on the change-up last night. 37% called strike plus whiff on that pitch. This felt like a big change-up game, considering the lefties in this lineup with Yorda-on. and Tucker, et cetera, having that pitch that breaks away from the lefties, I thought would be huge. And sure enough, right. We also saw him throw it in some hitters counts, some 2031 counts. Like, I think he threw a three-o change up at one point.

Starting point is 00:11:08 But yeah, this was kind of a kitchen sink form of Castillo where it was 41% for seam, 23% slider, 20% change, 16% two seam. So it was kind of a little bit of everything. And like I said, Castillo wasn't great, 29% whiff rate overall that's carried by the change up last night, 29% called strike plus whiff. So it wasn't dominating. It certainly wasn't bad. And he, you know, like it's kind of become a theme the last three times out against three teams that are, you know, swing in the bat very well. Like his last three starts have not exactly been against, you know, the sisters of the poor.

Starting point is 00:11:46 He's not going up against the Rockies on a snowy night on Saturday where nobody cares. he's going up against three really good offenses that are swinging the bat well and he's grinding it out and he's finding a way to help his team win these games or give them a chance to win the games even though he hasn't been at his best. So it's a really good sign from Luis that he's able to do that and maybe one of the more underrated or like not talked about moments of last night's game that really turned the tide as we see it is the fifth or the sixth inning. It might have been the sixth. runner on third one out you're already down two to one he strands the runner he keeps the game at at two to one at two to one which is huge it's just at three to one two to one doesn't sound like it big deal it's huge because now you're talking about having to score two just to tie the thing yeah it's a big difference to the psyche uh and really to just the actual like tangible odds of you

Starting point is 00:12:40 winning that game to strand that runner on third base so yeah he did something pretty similar in New York as well. Yes. So Luis has done that. And we saw this is kind of the difference, right, between him really early on in the year, the first three or four starts where he was kind of shaky, not good, not terrible, but, you know, not what he needed to be. He couldn't make that pitch to get out of the inning when he got himself into trouble. Now for the last, you know, particularly the last three starts, but really, you know, ever since, he's found a way to take that that inning where he'd give up four because he couldn't find a way out of it. And instead he's giving up one or he's stranding a guy or he's making pitches to get out of

Starting point is 00:13:21 innings and limit damage even when he doesn't have his best stuff and his best control. So, you know, that's why to me he's still the staff ace. You know, I think I think that Kirby and Gilbert, they still haven't learned how to do this where it's just like, hey, you know, I got to buckle down here. I don't have my best stuff. I don't have my best commander control. I have to find a way to keep the score where it is and give my team a legitimate chance to win this game.

Starting point is 00:13:43 It feels like when those two guys don't have it, they get they get shelled. Yeah, they're still prone to like the big blow up. Right. And Castillo, you know, again, for how really mediocre he was for the first two or three times through the rotation, he hasn't had that huge blowup start where he's given up seven runs and three innings, right? Like he's really found a way to give his team a chance to win most of his starts. And at times he's been dominant and he gives you, he's giving you a really good chance to win. the last three games that he's pitched against Baltimore, New York, and last night against Houston.

Starting point is 00:14:20 So that's really, that's really key. And again, that's why Luis is still the staff ace. He's not an ace, but he's still probably the best big game pitcher in this rotation. And that's saying something because we know that Logan and George can certainly elevate their game in big moments and go pitch for pitch with anybody. It's just that Castillo is the guy who's going to keep you in games. pretty much no matter what. Like that's just where he's at. Even if he has a bad day,

Starting point is 00:14:47 he's still probably going to give you a pretty good chance to win. And, you know, that just hasn't been the case for Logan and George at times this year. And then the bullpen, really good after Castillo exit of this game. Both scoreless inning, Saucato faced Tucker and Alvarez and handled them fine, was able to make it through that inning just fine, had the one walk, but also a K.

Starting point is 00:15:11 and then we got really good Ryan Stannick last night. No Andreas Munoz last night. So it fell, you know, the ninth inning fell on, on Stannick's shoulders. That's not a position that I would like to be in most nights. But, you know, I got to give credit where credit is due here. And Stannick was awesome last night. The splitter was disgusting last night. Had a couple strikeouts.

Starting point is 00:15:34 Face Bregman, Myers, and Singleton. Handled those guys more than fine. was really, really good last night. Hopefully we could see more of that version of Ryan Stannick in the future. It would be great. Yeah, we've started to see it a little bit in his previous like three outings, and then he had the outing in Washington, where it just kind of like, you know, that ball goes foul.

Starting point is 00:15:59 If it moves three feet to the right and it's foul, then, you know, we're probably talking about four good outings in a row, but that's just what Ryan Stannick is. He is an inconsistent pitcher because his command and his control are always inconsistent. And if he has, if he had 55 command and control, he'd be the high leverage arm that we desperately need. He'd be on par with Munoz. Like the stuff is pretty darn good. Like it's really good. And he just, it's the consistency that's been the issue with him. One thing I have noticed. And, you know, the numbers don't, don't bear it out entirely so. But I have noticed a lot of splitters at like 90, 91. Whereas typically that's an 88, 89. So he's throwing the splitter a little bit harder. He's getting more run on it as well. And I think that splitter is really kind of taken off a little bit.

Starting point is 00:16:47 I think the mayors have kind of found something that works a little bit better for him. So I'm going to continue to watch the splitter. When Stannock pitches, that's kind of the key here. He has a pretty good slider. But when Stannick's going really well, it's the 98, 99, 100 at the top. And then it's the splitter that tumbles down in a way. And we saw him. He'll even get swings and misses on the splitter that's elevated.

Starting point is 00:17:09 Like it drops that much. It's a really tough pitch to time up when he has some kind of control and command over it. And it's not an easy pitch to command. Like the splitter is really a feel pitch. It's a pitch that like either I have it that day or I don't. It's not something that you can kind of consistently rely on. But it is, you know, it is interesting. We saw Bryce Miller the day before.

Starting point is 00:17:29 He used a lot of splitters relative to what he normally does. Stanik used the splitter last night in big situations. And obviously Kirby and Gilbert both have the split. So I wonder if this is kind of a, if this is just kind of a, you know, random happenstance that Miller used a lot of splitters and all that. Or is this like, you know, an actual game plan against Yordon.

Starting point is 00:17:53 And we'll see. But yeah, I thought Stannock was really good. And Voth turned in yet another really solid performance. He is starting to gain a little more trust in the seventh inning. I still don't want to get high leverage innings, but you don't have a lot of options. in this bullpen, particularly when Munoz is down for the night.

Starting point is 00:18:12 And, you know, it's good to see sauce back out on the mound and just kind of do what he does. You know, got the big strike out of Altuve to, you know, kind of never get in real danger even after the walk to Tucker. So it's nice to see sauce back out there. But yeah, Stanick really stepped up big last night. Yeah, that was huge. So, again, you need someone to step up in this bullpen, take some of the weight off of Andres Munoz's shoulders. he can't do it alone. I know he's been excellent this year,

Starting point is 00:18:41 but he can't do it all by himself, especially there were going to be nights where, like last night, he's not even available to pitch. So you're going to need someone else to step up there. And last night it was Stanick, hopefully you can be Stanik, you know,

Starting point is 00:18:54 even more in the future because that's probably the guy you trust the second most in high leverage situations, which is, but at least he's a guy that's been there and done that before. And then we'll see who else steps up. I mean, right now, Awesome Voth has kind of stepped up. He's been pretty solid the last couple times out, you know, got burned by that BS Homer by Eddie Rosario in Washington a few days ago. But overall has been really solid.

Starting point is 00:19:20 You know, I think right now the problem with the bullpen isn't really the arms that are in it. It's just the roles that those arms are finding themselves in right now. They're not in their proper roles. And so it's kind of exaggerating the struggles of the bullpen as a whole. It's just they need another, at least mid to high leverage arm right this second. And then for sure another high leverage arm, true high leverage arm by the time that we get to the summer. All right. We are going to get you set for game three tonight between the M's and the Astros in just a moment.

Starting point is 00:19:53 But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is brought to you by Fanduel. It's winner take all time in the NBA and NHL and Fandul is giving you a shot to bring home a big win of your own. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's $150 to bet on spreads, money lines, player props, and more. Visit fanduel.com slash locked on. That's LOC, KED on, and make every playoff shot count. Fanduel, America's number one sportsbook. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast.

Starting point is 00:20:33 Once again, you can catch a game three between the M's and Stroes tonight on the Marries hometown broadcasts with Sirius XM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word Mariners. And that's what we're talking about right now here on the Locked-on Mariners podcast. Game three, Justin Verlander versus George Kirby. And with Verlander, 41 years old, still kicking. But he's not the perennial Cy Young contender, Justin Verlander anymore. Still having a pretty solid season.

Starting point is 00:21:04 Still capable of having a good start here on, on the occasion. What are your thoughts on Verlander, this version of Justin Verlander specifically, and how do the Mariners get to him tonight? Yeah, Verlander is a guy who, at least when I think about Verlander,

Starting point is 00:21:23 I think of the explosive fastball and just how much value he gets out of that pitch. But this year in particular, now he got off to a late start. So maybe it's just about, you know, getting his reps in and then getting, getting to this point, but his fastball has been below average in terms of run value. Teams are really squaring it up.

Starting point is 00:21:43 He's only thrown 93, 94 now, occasionally 95, whereas even just two years ago, he was, you know, touching 100. So the fastball veal has definitely gone down. He's not quite as good as he used to be. Still a solid pitcher overall. You know, Verlander is still a threat, certainly. But the fastball is taking a step back this year, even from where it was last year, so far.

Starting point is 00:22:04 Again, you got a late start. So it's not like we can completely write off the fastball. But that's still his bread and butter pitch. That's what he's going to go to. He has two pretty good breaking balls. We know how the Mariners do against breaking balls. So I'm sure we'll see plenty of curve balls tonight, particularly against the lefties. So it'll be interesting to see how he looks.

Starting point is 00:22:23 But I think you want to try and jump on that fastball. It's always been his best pitch. And it's still a pitch that he's going to try and use about half the time. But it's not been as effective as it has been in the past, probably because the dude's 41 years old and he's got a lot of innings. So, you know, you want to jump on Verlanders fastball when you get a chance. The breaking ball is still pretty good. He'll hang it on occasion.

Starting point is 00:22:44 Like, again, this is still a good, solid pitcher. It's just he's not the ace that he used to be. He is more of a number three, number four type that can occasionally get roughed up. The Mariners' history against Verlander, not great. They have got him a couple times, but that usually happens very early in the game. If you're going to get Verlander, you've probably got to do. do it, you know, in the first three or four innings because, you know, when he smells blood in the water, he turns to, you know, he tends to turn into like a different pitcher almost where he is,

Starting point is 00:23:14 you know, just looking to destroy you. So you got to get them early. You got to put pressure on them early. When you get that first pitch fastball down the middle of the plate, don't take it, take your swing, try to hit something hard in play. That's how you're going to beat for a lander tonight if you can. If you get into a bunch of two strike counts, if you're missing the fastball in the middle of the plate, you're going to be in trouble because he can still put you away with the breaking stuff. But this is not the scary matchup it was even two years ago. Verlander is almost human now. And so you might have a shot to score some runs off of him, but you got to be aggressive. You got to be aggressive on the fastball early in the count. So then on the flip side,

Starting point is 00:23:53 George Kirby, who's been the most inconsistent starter in the Mariners rotation this year. the highs have been really high but the lows have been very freaking low this year. You know, I know it's kind of a mixed bag and it's just like we'll just see what we get on a night to night basis when it comes to George, but do you have any thoughts on George

Starting point is 00:24:16 heading into the start? Yeah, I want to see how often he uses the splitter like we talked about in the last segment, particularly against the powerful lefties. I want to see if maybe he tries to expand the zone earlier in California. That's something Miller did. His first strike pitch, first strike percentage on Monday wasn't very good.

Starting point is 00:24:36 Castillo last night. He wasn't just serving up meatballs in the middle of the plate. So it feels like maybe the rotation in general is kind of starting to shift to more like, hey, let's let's not be afraid to fall behind one oh, right? Like we know what an emphasis the Mariners put on getting ahead of guys. But see if you can get them to expand the zone early. Trust yourself that if you fall behind, 2-0-3-1, you can make a quality pitch on the corner and get a call to get back in the at-bat.

Starting point is 00:25:04 So we'll see what George does tonight. He's faced Houston a lot. Arguably the best start of his entire career came against Houston in the playoff game. He has a sub-2 ERA against them just in the regular season. That's not including the seven shutout innings he threw on them in the playoff game. So he's had a really good track record against Houston. His last start out against Houston, he was okay. He was pretty good, pretty solid.

Starting point is 00:25:29 But we'll have to see again. It's a mixed bag with him because you don't know how long he's going to be able to go. You don't know how sharp he's going to be. Some of that is the knee. Some of that is how aggressive is Houston going to be? And how I guess bullheaded is George going to be about getting ahead of guys? Is he going to be willing to work from behind encounters to kind of avoid getting ambushed a little bit? And can he get these guys to stretch the zone a little bit and go chasing early in counts to really set himself up for success?

Starting point is 00:25:58 if the Astros are going to be aggressive and they're going to swing up pitches outside of the strike zone early, that bodes really well for George to get deep into this game and maybe have an Arizona Diamondbacks type of start in him because the last few starts have not gone well for George. And we know how he can use his anger to kind of turn things on and refocus himself. So hopefully that's what we get tonight.

Starting point is 00:26:24 But just tough to say, we know he's not at 100%. we know you know exactly what teams are going to try to do to him and it's just a matter whether or not george can execute better than than houston can that's going to do it for a show but before we get out of here a reminder that locked on has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on youtube and now it's also available on fire tv and the free fire tv channels app locked on sports today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of locked on plus our national shows covering every league find locked on sports today now available on the free Fire TV channels app. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. For Colby Pat Node, I'm Ty Dan Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby at CPAT 11. That's CPAT 1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you after the game tomorrow. Peace.

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - A Little Bit of Chaos Helps Mariners Secure 30th Win of the Season

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