Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - A Not So 'Boring' Start For Marco Gonzales

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

Join Locked On Mariners hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode as they discuss Marco Gonzales' dominant complete game against the Rangers, an element of Ty France's game that hardly anyone's talking about and what to expect as the Mariners square off against the Blue Jays this weekend.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: http://patreon.com/controlthezone/BetOnlineThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Wild Alaskan CompanyUse the URL wildalaskancompany.com/mlb for $15 off your first box of Wild Alaskan Company high quality, sustainably sourced seafood. 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.

You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. This episode of Locked-on Mariners is brought to you by Spotify Green Room. Download the Spotify Green Room app and find one of our locked-on rooms. It is Friday, August 13th, 2021. Ooh, Friday the 13th, that's never good. But happy Friday anyway.

Congratulations on making it to the weekend as a. reward. There's a pretty good weekend series starting the night between the Seattle Mariners and the visiting Toronto Blue Jays, some playoff implications on this one. This is locked on Mariners. Your home for daily Seattle Mariners news and analysis. My name is Tidey and Gonzalez. Join as always by Colby Patnode. We'll get you covered on the upcoming Blue Jays series later on in the show. Before that, we're going to dive into Marco Gonzalez's dominant start against the Rangers yesterday. We'll also talk a little bit about a valuable element to tie france's game that deserves some more attention than it's getting right now but before we

jump into today's topics be sure to follow or subscribe to the show wherever you prefer listening to us we'd greatly appreciate it colby marco was dominant against the rangers yesterday the mariners went three to one j p crawford had a home run jake frayley had a home run but the story here of course is marco complete game just gave up the one run on a solo shot charlie colverson with that one only two hits and total nine strikeouts just one walk 17 swings and misses obviously it's the rangers who despite the mariners having lost what six games against them this year are still really bad but was this the best we've seen marco all year yeah without a doubt i mean he threw a hundred eight pitches he got 17 uh whiffs uh marco doesn't get 17 whiffs ever um part of that is the yeah the rangers

up yesterday was was putrid you know you take out nick solack and willie calhoun and uh joey gallo like it's those are three pretty big bats right there and then you know garcia's falling off a little bit here uh as he was always you know likely to do uh nathaniel low is just kind of average so you kind of look at and you go well you know there's like two interesting bats and colberson's really good against lefties so you kind of avoid those three guys uh you know even even even mariner killer jillard Jonah Heim wasn't in the lineup until, you know, the last at bat. So he was the, he was the last at bat. He was the final strikeout.

Yes. It was very nice to see. Of course, he put up like a like a nine pitch at bat because Jonah Heim just, sure, well, refuse to act like Jonah Heim when he's playing the Mariners. So, yeah, Marco, it was really good. You know, it was kind of weird. It was mostly sinker for him. He threw 59% stinkers.

And then he mixed in the change up in the cutter. and that was pretty much it. He threw five, four seamers and only four curp balls. But it was just mostly just throwing the sinker up there, challenging these guys to hit. And they couldn't hit a sinker. It was kind of weird. It's again, a lot of that is how bad the Rangers are.

They're really bad right now, especially after the trade deadline. So, yeah, it was, it was a good start. I think we've seen Marco with better, like the start he made earlier this. year against the Dodgers, I would argue, might be better because of just the quality of opponent. But this is about as good as it gets. And even if it's not a good team, they are major league hitters who are, you know, looking completely helpless against Marco Gonzalez.

So he threw a ton of strikes. You know, he struck out a ton of guys tied his grew high in strikeouts. It was a really good outing for Marco. Since the all-star break, Marco has thrown 32 and a third. endings pitched 696K per 9 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3,000, 670, R. Ray, 358, 5th. He's been really solid since the all start break. That's huge for this

rotation in general because Marco was kind of a black hole for a while there. And now he's giving, he looks like Marco. He looks like Marco again over the last five or so starts. It's been more encouraging than whatever the the start of the season was for him. It was that was really rough.

It just really didn't feel like you were going to be competitive at all in any of those games for a while there. So nice development here and the rotation is starting to figure it out. It seems like all five guys right now are giving you pretty competitive starts for the most part. Yeah. You know, even when like Kukuchi struggles a little bit, he's finding a way to get through it without, you know, blowing up. And same with Gilbert.

again, you know, you still have to keep an eye on Gilbert, the, you know, heavy fastball use. It'll work against the Rangers because as we discussed, they're not good. But, you know, when you play the Blue Jays, you know, you need the slider. So we'll see how that all goes. But, you know, you look at Marco's day and only four batted balls had an expected batting average over 300. So and one of them was the home run. The other one was the base set. So yeah, it was a pretty good day.

Let's see, four four hard hit balls on him all day. Marco was really good. And to see the intensity after he gets the final strike. And that's, that's, you know, the bulldog that we've all come to expect from Marco Gonzalez. And, you know, really after that, I mean, aside from that really bad outing against Texas. Texas in early July. Marco's been really good since April. So he seems to at least be back to 2019 levels.

And that's always what you would expect from Marco Gonzalez. Yeah, very encouraging. Hey, what grade are you given J.P. Crawford's bat flip yesterday? It wasn't like super subtle. As you guys may not know this, but I am team bat drop over bat flip most of the time. It just looks so. smooth when you just drop the bat, Griffey style, and then Canoe style. But yeah, it was pretty good.

A lot of rotations. I'll give it to like a 65, 70. Yeah. You know, I just kind of like the, like, more like just like the watching the home run and then just like drop like literally just dropping the bat. That just looks more, you know, like cooler to me, I guess. Right. But yeah, like the helicopter spin and talking,

smack to your dugout, like, yeah, I'll give that a 65, 70. Yeah, yeah, I like that a lot. Also, really like the uniform combination. I don't get why they only wear the Navy jerseys at home late in the season. It's also kind of weird to start wearing dark jerseys in a day game. That was, in the middle of August. That was Marco's pick. Yeah.

Why don't they, why don't the, if the pitchers are allowed to pick in Seattle, then why haven't they picked these earlier in the season? Seems weird. I'm willing to bet that Marco's going to pick them the next home start that he makes. So you'll probably see them there. I don't know. If I was a pitcher and I got to pick, I would pick those Seattle Steelhead uniforms every single time.

I am forcing these into the rotation, whether you guys like it or not. But yeah, it looked clean. It looked really clean. All right. So coming up, The Mariners lost Evan White for the year, but do they have a gold glove for spaceman playing for them now? But first, you may have seen today's sponsor Bilt Bar in the news yesterday.

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Well, I mean, the nice thing is, is that if you ever want to make a meme of it, going from your wizard Harry to your wizard Perry, is a pretty easy transition. So he sure seems to be. You know, you just look at how much better J.P. Crawford got when he came here, you look at how much better or how, you know, Abraham Toro has handled second base in just two weeks since he's been here. And now you look at Thai France, who is statistically the best defensive first baseman in all of baseball.

Yeah. And, you know, the Sabre defensive index hasn't been updated in a while. but when you look at it from July 11th, that was their last update, the number one and number two first baseman in the American League, rather, in terms of defensive value, Jake Bowers and Thai France. Do the Mariners have the three best defensive first baseman in the American League in their organization right now? I would probably put Matt Olson ahead of Bowers.

But I mean, statistically speaking, yes, of course they do. And, you know, it's kind of funny because you look at Bowers and White and those are just like two really good athletes. They run well even and they just, they don't look like your typical first baseman. Ty France kind of does. I mean, he's a little bit on the shorter side relative to other first baseman, but he's kind of stocky. Like he's not, he's not fat, but he's not like, you know, rail thin like Evan White and Jake Bowers. So he kind of looks more like a first baseman. And yet it's just as effective.

So, yeah, it's kind of funny that they have three great defensive first baseman. And two of them are like Uber athletic. And one of them is just a dude. But they're all great. So, yeah, I mean, I think part of that has to be, you know, given credit to Perry Hill. Yeah. And France making quite a few plays in this past Ranger's series.

He just continues to get better and better at that position. And now you start to think about see your first basement of the future. Are you at that point now where you're considering that? Or are you still on the Evan White train? I'm still a believer in Evan White. But I mean, he's not entering 2022 in the big leagues, let alone as a starting first baseman. So he's going to go to Tacoma for a couple months, I would imagine at least. And that's good.

He probably needed that anyways. you know, it's so you might not see Evan White until August. You know, we'll see how the surgery, the recovery from the surgery goes. And then he does need to make some serious changes. I still think White needs to kind of go back to what he was when he first came up, which was line drive, gap to gap, type of, type of hitter who would, you know, have 20 home runs instead of 30 home run power. Honestly, that's kind of what you're seen.

The soft on the swing, et cetera. It's kind of what you're seeing from Thai France, right? I mean, Ty France is, he's only slugging only, 468. And that's, that's gone up in, oh, I'm sorry, 429. And do people really care? No, because he's hitting 280, you know, so, yeah, I feel like you can still be a valuable first baseman by just hitting a bunch of doubles and playing really good defense like Ty France is doing right now.

So I think for me, you know, I'm not giving up on Evan White, but he is not the starting first baseman in 2022. He's going to have to earn that. And going into the offseason, we talk about offseason plans or anything like that. Yeah, Ty Francis is written in to the first base slot with Penn because he's earned it. Yep. Indeed.

And, you know, with this pitching stuff, the way that these, you know, the style of these pitchers, having a really good defensive endfield behind them is incredibly, important. You know, what do you think that's just done for this team in general? Well, in particular for a guy like J.P. Crawford, you know, one of the last remaining issues with Crawford defensively is that his throws can be a bit erratic, right? He'll sail one every once in a while. He'll bounce one way up the line. But what having a guy like Evan White and now Ty France allows him to do is he doesn't have to be as fine. He can, he can focus on getting rid of the ball instead of focusing on making sure he has like the perfect footwork and he puts the ball right on the guy. Because if he makes

a little mistake, it's going to get cleaned up. And, you know, he can bounce the ball over there, which we've seen him do a few times and he knows that the first basement is going to, to help him out. So it's a confidence thing. You don't have to be as fine. And when you're not trying to be perfect, you're just trying to be good. It takes a lot of weight off and it leads to better results. And, you know, it's, it's a little different with France because he doesn't have quite the range that White does naturally, but he's still pretty solid. But basically, you know, Evan White is the human eraser for infield mistakes. And Thai Francis is, is right there behind him. So, yeah, it just, it takes a lot of the pressure off of these infielders. Their throws are a little bit off. It's okay. You know, I got a guy down there who will take care of it for me. So, you know, I don't think it changes anything for pitchers because if you're a groundball pitcher, you're, you're a groundball pitcher, you're, you're. probably going to be a ground ball pitcher no matter who's playing, you know, in the infield. That's just what your repertoire sets up for. But for those infielders, I think just the confidence level of saying, I got a guy who's going to, you know, he's going to bail me out if I need him to.

It frees you up to, you know, take these chances and makes them really exciting plays. So I teased it in the last segment, but is Ty France a gold Glover this year? I mean, probably not. I'm sure they're probably going to give it to Matt. Ad Olson because he's had an incredible year at the plate. And I know those two things don't sound like they should be connected, but they are. I mean, the fact that Evan White won a gold glove last year, despite his offensive struggles, is only attributable because the award was literally given out based on statistics, like defensive statistics. There was no voting.

Based on the Sabre defensive index. Yeah, there was no voting on those awards last year. They were just given based on that. So still, when people vote on that award, they still tend to think of who's the best player at the position, who plays good enough defense. And that's usually, that's how Derek Jeter has a gold glove, right? So, yeah, it's, I don't think so. I'm, I'm pretty sure they'll give it to Matt Olson. But Ty France is right up there.

So we'll see. By the way, side note, also way up there in defensive ranks for the Mariners, along with JP Crawford. Chris Flexi. Yep. So we're going to have a gold glove pitcher, a gold glove first basement, a gold glove shortstop. Book it. Hey, you know, only a couple of years ago, the Mariners had a gold glove pitcher. Mike Leak, who also won it technically for the Diamondbacks as well.

I remember when they put out the, when Rollins put out the tweet for that, and it said, Seattle Mariners slash Arizona Diamondbacks, but I think it went to the American League. Yes. Yeah. So technically, technically, the Mariners have had a gold glove winner each of the last two years. And last year they had two.

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Blue Jays and Mariners kick off a three game set at T-Mobile Park tonight. Big series for both of these teams in terms of playoff implications. Not an entirely great start to the road trip for Toronto after a storybook return to Canada. They went two and two against the angels down in Anaheim. The Mariners coming off a series win against the Rangers and heading into the series, they get a fairly decent pull in terms of the pitching matchups. They won't face Jose Barrios or Alec Manoa. However, they will face Robbie Ray tonight encounter with Chris Flexen, who's of course been brilliant at T-Mobile Park. Saturday, a really awesome pitching matchup between Heijun Rue and Yusay Kakuchi. And then

Sunday, Stephen Mats against Logan Gilbert. That's pretty interesting. Colby, what are you looking forward to in the series? And what are you hoping to see? Well, I'm really looking forward to the game on Saturday because I will be at that game. Nice. And, you know, it's a good matchup. It's Ryu versus Kikuchi.

I think it's good. Good things happen when you and I go to Blue J. Mariners games, by the way. So I mean, let's hope to keep that streak alive. I mean, mostly you. Yeah, I did meet the best Blue Jay fan ever at one of the games I went to. I don't think we have time for that story, maybe later. But yeah, it's, yeah, I think this was the exact pitching matchup in Buffalo, right? Didn't Ryu go up against Kukuchi as well?

I believe so, yes. And I remember the Mariners had a fantastic game plan against Ryu. They were able to get him out of the game early. And, you know, it's funny. You look back that the Mariners won that series. I mean, they want it, you know, pretty convincingly, too. So it's, it's going to be a fun series. Obviously, we'll see how crowded Team Mobile is with the Canadian border issue just now getting resolved.

It sounds like there's a lot of tickets left, so I don't think it will be sold out with Blue Jays fans, but there will be a heavy, you know, contingent of them. That is, that is for certain, especially now that they're rolling and they have Springer and Simeon and, you know, Vladdy. And they made a couple of big trades. So, yeah, so it's going to be loud. It's going to be a playoff atmosphere. It'd be nice if it was loud with Mariner fans. But hey, you know, you're not there yet.

And maybe next year, maybe the year after. But, yeah, I would expect a pretty well-fought series. I think Seattle's pitching is going to be able to keep them in this. It's really going to come down to what version of the Mariners' offense do we get. And if it's the version we've seen the last two weeks, you're probably getting swept, if we're being honest. So you need to be better offensively. You know, Ray and Ryu have been, I mean, Ray's been really good. Ryu's been pretty solid.

And Matt's is, you know, certainly capable of putting a good start out there. It'll be interesting to see what they do with three lefties in a row. Does Dylan Moore start all three games? Do they try to get Jake Rayleigh in there? Do they try to get Tom Murphy in there who's been the guy for against lefties so far? You know, what do they do with Luis Terenz? So, yeah, it's kind of interesting that they stack three lefties against them. But I feel like these games are going to be close.

It's just a matter of what offense do the Mariners bring. And if it's, again, if it's the offense we've seen the last three weeks or two weeks or so, they're probably going to get swept. And that would be, I mean, devastating to the already slim playoff odds. So they got to figure something out here. Yeah, this entire. I don't think you're beating the blue jails. three to two twice you know what I mean yeah no no no for sure yeah this entirely falls on the

offense you have to be able to keep pace with with the Blue Jays because they're going to explode at any moment you just look at the homestead that they had at multiple games where they had you know five plus run innings big comebacks all all of that this offense is I mean this is one of the best offenses in baseball yeah right now and they're just going to keep coming at you, coming at you, and even with the pitching that you have set up, you're going to have to score more than four runs in all of these games. I just, I don't, even best case scenario for the pitching, I still think you're seeing your starters give up two to three runs.

Yeah. And then, you know, it's going to fall on your bullpen at that point. So, uh, thankfully, though, you, you do have two righties, two of your, you're both of your righties going again in this series. Blue Jay is a very right-handed heavy lineup. It's unfortunate that you probably won't have Paul Seawald. It's not unfortunate. Paul Seawald is on the paternity list.

So it's fortunate that he's having his child. Bad timing that the Mariners are losing the death. Well, he also has to come back by Sunday. So you might have him by Sunday. Yeah. Marco was able to be away for like a whole week. Whatever. It said one to three days when they made the announcement yesterday.

Hopefully you have him on Sunday. I mean, I don't really care if he misses the entire series because, you know, he should miss as much time as he wants. So, yeah, it's for a good reason. So I don't want to say it's unfortunate that, you know, Paul Sewald's wife is giving birth. That's not unfortunate. Or I should say partner. I don't know what their marital situation is. But it is just bad time in that, you know, you have, you know, death to right-handed hitters in your bullpen.

he's probably not going to be available all series against this particular team. So something to watch. But hey, you know, Seattle's got two righty starters going. I feel really confident that Seattle's pitching is going to be pretty solid this series. I just don't know how their offense is going to do. Yeah, that's the big question mark here. And, you know, I understand the anxiety that it may cause going into this, going to the series just with, I mean, the fact that they were, I mean, they really,

struggled to generate much offense against the Rangers over the last three days and that is a bad pitching staff and the Jay's pitching staff has gotten better. The bullpen has gotten better. They made some additions to it. The rotation has certainly gotten better. You're not going to see the additions that they brought in since you last saw them, which is Manoa getting called up or I think he was called up by the time that you faced him last time, but didn't face him. And then obviously Burrios was the big trade acquisition. but still this team is just stacked right now. And they're hot on the trail of the Red Sox. But if you can, you know, maybe get a couple of these games, you can pick up a game on Toronto and the standings. Only be one behind them and, you know, keep them out of the, you know, keep them away from the Red Sox. Which is always, it's always fun to, you know, play spoiler a little bit.

in the process. So yeah, should be pretty interesting series, but that's going to do it for today's show. Appreciate you tuning in and welcoming Colby and I to the show for our first ever week hosting Lockdown Mariners. It was a ton of fun. And we'll be back on Monday to recap this Blue J series

and look ahead at what's to come. Feel free to keep the Seattle sports vibes going, however, by checking out Lockdown Cracken for your latest updates on the NHJ. 12th franchise. For Colby Pat node, I'm Tyane Gonzalez, and this has been locked on Mariners. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dame Gonzalez.

That's D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at CPAT 11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you on Monday. Betting on Major League Baseball doesn't have to be a guessing game. If you listen to the new Lockdown Betts podcast hosted by your boy Q and handicapped an expert Lee Sterling. Get daily picks, blowout specials, wrong team favorite picks,

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