Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Are the Mariners Poised For a Second-Half Run at the Division?

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

It was a glorious end to a frustrating first half for the Seattle Mariners. Coming off back-to-back series wins against the Rays and Giants, Seattle headed into its house of horrors this weekend looking to keep its hard-earned momentum intact and the club did just that. Behind sterling pitching and just enough offense, the Mariners took three of four from the vaunted Houston Astros. Colby and Ty break down the series, including another dominating performance from Logan Gilbert and discuss how the team winning seven of nine before the break impacts their playoff chances.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 | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!IbottaRight now, Ibotta is offering our listeners $5 just for trying Ibotta by using the code MLB when you register.Just go to the App Store or Google Play store and download the FREE Ibotta app and use code MLB.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.SleeperDownload the Sleeper app and use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get up to a $100 match on your first deposit.  Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper’s Terms of Use for details. Currently operational in over 30 states. Check out Sleeper today! FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) 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.

A third consecutive series victory over an above 500 team caps off a potential season saving run for the Mariners heading into the All-Star break. Our thoughts on the big weekend and more coming up here on the Locked-on Mariners podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on podcast network, your team every day. Ahoy, sailors. It is Monday, July 10th, 2023.

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The link as well as their social accounts is in the description of this episode. Good vibes all around for the Mariners yesterday. They added four new prospects to their farm system and secured a series of victory over the Astros to head into the All-Star break above 500. there was so much good stuff.

We're actually doing two episodes today. On this episode, we'll be breaking down the series in Houston and on the other. We'll tell you our thoughts on what the Mariners did on day one of the 2023 MLB draft. But Colby, we got to start with American League Player the Week, which just got announced, I don't know, five or ten minutes before we hit record on this thing.

Logan Gilbert, who was sensational. Once again, following his complete game shoutout in San Francisco. He goes seven strong, and yesterday's three to one win over the Houston Astros. Just three hits allowed one earned run on a solo home run by Martine Maldonado, six strikeouts and 94 pitches. Just three hard hit balls, and only one of those actually resulted in a hit. That was Maldonado's home run. And the slider was the big pitch of the day for Gilbert.

The Astros had really struggled against right-handed sliders, and he really went after him with that pitch. So Colby, your assessment of Gilbert, who's been red-hot his last two starts. I mean, clearly he regressed from the San Francisco start. So you got to start with the negative. But, yeah, you know, it was pretty interesting. You know, something we found out in game one and remain true throughout the entire series is that, you know, the the Astros are right-handed heavy lineup at the moment, and they are an aggressive lineup at the moment.

So we learned that in the very first game, and that trend continued. And we also saw all the pitchers pretty much run with the same strategy. Everything was either breaking, either breaking in or away. There wasn't a lot of vertical drops in this series from the Mariners starters. And Gilbert just, you know, dominated 68% slider and fastball. He did get nine whiffs on 22 swings on the slider.

Also got four called strikes. So that's a really good ratio. But kind of the sneaky pitch he kind of held in reserve until the last two innings was the knuckle curve. We actually saw probably the best knuckle curve we've seen from Gilbert in quite a while. He threw 11 or he threw 18 of them, got 11 swings on that. Six whiffs. He also threw five first strikes called strikes.

So that's a massive number, which 61% called strike plus whiff on a pitch that's traditionally been Gilbert's, you know, third or fourth best pitch at most. It was really cool to see him kind of break that out in the last two innings. And, you know, it was slider, fastball heavy for five. And then the last two, he's like, well, now here's the knuckle curve at you. And you're not going to know what to do with that. Didn't really throw the splitter all that much, didn't need to.

But yeah, it was the slider. What's the pitch of the day? Backed it up with a pretty good fastball. You know, velocity up a little bit. sat 96 most of the game. It was right at the top line. The slider played off perfectly, and because he could throw it for a strike,

the Astros had to respect that pitch, which allowed the fastball to play up even more, which allowed the slider to play up even more. And then again, just to be mean, Gilbert started throwing in some nasty knuckle curves at the end, and Houston just didn't have a chance against Gilbert yesterday. He was on, and, you know, this is what we talk about. When Gilbert struggles, yeah,

it sucks, it's hard to watch, but at the end of the day, this is the ceiling of Logan Gilbert. And right now in his last two starts, he's looked like a legitimate ace. So you got to take the go with the bad because at the end of the day, Logan Gilbert's number three. And he showed, you know, exactly what his ceiling was over his last two starts. And yesterday was a lot of fun. Obviously last season in April, he won AL pitcher of the month. He was fantastic that month. But considering how well his secondaries are working for him right now, is this the best we've ever seen?

Logan Gilbert? Yeah, I think so. You know, we talked about this last year. If Logan could just throw more strikes with the off-speed stuff, can you get value out of his off-speed stuff in the zone? And we saw what happened when he could. We saw dominant starts against really good teams like the Yankees, where, you know, if he could get that slider right on the outside corner,

he could expand with it and dominate that really good lineup. We've seen him do this before. But right now he's getting called strikes with the slider. Yesterday, he got called strikes with the curb ball too. And obviously we know Logan is going to throw strikes with this fastball. So, yeah, I think, you know, obviously it's just two starts. And the few before this weren't amazing. So you don't want to, you don't want to overreact anything like that.

But yeah, this is, this is, you know, kitchen sink Logan Gilbert. But he's got 98, 99 in his back pocket with, you know, really good. control and command at the moment. Yeah, this is probably the best. You're probably seeing the ceiling of Logan Gilbert over the last two starts. And it's, uh, it's as good as anybody in the American league. So if you can continue to spot the slider, if you can continue to, you know, get value out of the knuckle curve. And when he has that splitter against the left, you have a lineups, if that pitch is, you know, going to find any kind of consistency, um, then yeah, Gilbert's a legit, you know, number three starter who might end up being a number two, uh,

when all is said and done. Here's Gilbert's first half stats now that the first half is over 7 and 5 record over 18 starts 108 and a third innings pitched 881 K's per 9 158 walks per 9 that's currently his career low

366 ERA 347 FIP 368 X FIP he's been worth 2.3 F4 this mayor is pitching staff in general on this road trip in which they went five and two was sensational. Six quality starts out of seven possible games there. A sub-15 ERA, they were incredible and they were, I mean, this offense, you know, did produce at times. There were also a lot of missed opportunities, which we can talk about, especially in yesterday's game.

But this pitching staff was really what carried this team over the course of the road trip. And, you know, a lot of good things can happen when you get, you know, some complimentary offense to go along with that. Surprise, surprise. The marries might actually be pretty good when it's all clicking. The, yeah, really, aside from Paul Seawalt's struggle in San Francisco, the bullpen was really good as well. So just dominant pitch. They gave up, what was it, six runs in the four games set against the Astros. And yes, it is a depressed Astros lineup, but you're still pitching in Houston. That, that ballpark is a joke. We know it is. It's great for offense and Seattle went in there and just shut them down.

Like it honestly, they should have swept Houston. Like they really should have. And it's just crazy to think about if the Mariners had two extra hits in the last month with the bases loaded and nobody out, not even hits, just if they had gotten that done twice, we're talking about a team that's what, four games over 500 and has won five series. four series in a row, heading into the break. Like, that's all, that's all we're talking about. Well, they won a series. They won four series in a row, including a sweep of the Astros. They could have just gotten it done against the Nationals. They could have just gotten it done against the Astros on Saturday. But hey, you know what?

At the end of the day, they went on the road. We said if they went four and three, that's a really good road trip. They went five and two. So, yeah. Hard to complain even for me, but you challenged me. I'll find a way. But I'm pretty happy with where the ball club's at right now. Well, we'll talk about this offense and maybe you can get off some, yeah, you can get off some negative takes there in just a moment.

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But you can still catch all the Mariners content on the Mariners hometown broadcast, Sirius XM via the SXM app. It's Colby. This offense, like I said earlier, was able to produce in some big moments on this road trip, certainly some missed opportunities, but a better product overall than we've seen over the majority of the season, which is a low bar to clear to be fair. But what did you think about this offense on this road trip? They suck.

They should trade everybody. It's over. Right. Clearly they need to trade a starter for a bat. Yeah. Yes, they need to do whatever they can to sabotage themselves by trading from their really only strength to get a marginal upgrade over what they have now. Totally makes sense. Morosi is a genius.

But, yeah, no, the offense, yeah, frankly, you know, for the last 18 innings and even if you want to go further after the fourth inning on Friday, not very good. Not very good. Now, Houston can still pitch. So it's not like they were struggling against Oakland, which, you know, God forbid, that happens, which you might, you never know with this club. But yeah, it was, it was frustrating. It certainly was, especially again, bases loaded, nobody out. You just need a fly ball. Just a fly ball.

And you probably win that game. And they couldn't get it done. And then yesterday, you know, they only six hits, just a lot of bad at bats against, you know, kind of a mediocre pitcher. like it just it just wasn't aesthetically pleasing to the eye but um you know at the end of the day they got just enough uh offense to to you know get it done and and over the road trip they average just under five runs per game uh which is going to be more than good enough uh you know over the course of an entire season i think it was 4.89 runs per game and that that includes a shutout that was in there so you know overall the offense was good on the road trip yesterday and and

Saturday's certainly frustrating. You could understand Saturday a little bit more because it was Framper, who was just filthy. 98 with that curveball. Oh, my God. I didn't think the roof were in. No, I didn't either. And so, you know, obviously Cabiero just doing his thing again.

And you see how effective Cabiero can be in a part-time role. It's awesome. He's in there. You're like, great, he's probably going to get on base at some point today. He can steal some bags. He can play some defense. He can run the bases aggressively. You just don't want him in the lineup.

up every single day, but you kind of really don't have a better option right now. But yeah, you know, overall the offense was okay last night. I thought, you know, Jared Kelnick, I think had a really nice. Yeah, he did afternoon. He only went one for four, but obviously the big RBI double, but he looked good. He looked comfortable. It didn't strike out two hard hit balls last night. Yeah, you know, Cal Rale is a guy who really needs the All-Star break because he is

struggling badly. He did have two hard hit balls last night. So, you know, he missed a home run by like a couple of feet. Yeah. Could have been five nothing in that fourth inning yesterday. Raleigh, Raleigh needs to be better. I'm not denying that, but he was pretty good last night. It was, you know, it's just one of those things, some bad luck.

But yeah, he needs to be better. He certainly does in the second half. And, you know, I understand all the calls to make like Tom Murphy the starting catcher. Because Murphy's hot right now. Raleigh isn't. But yeah, Cal Rale needs to be better. But at the end of the day, the Mariners got, you know, enough. production yesterday.

They only walked once. So that's pretty interesting, but they only struck out seven times, which is a good number for them. So yeah, yesterday the offense, it was frustrating. There's no doubt,

but thankfully Jared Kellanick came up huge. Teoscar Hernandez came up huge once. Not the other time. But, you know, at the end of the day, three runs is enough to win that game. And yeah, it's frustrating.

Like I'm almost willing to just chalk up Saturday. to be like, look, that's Framber Valdez. He's probably the best pitcher in the American League right now. What are you going to do? And then I remember the eighth inning, where for the second time in like three weeks, if they had just left the bat on their shoulder and watched every single pitch, what's his name through, they would have won that game. Yeah.

It's not even that they just like didn't get it done. It's that they were literally handed on a silver platter. Here's the win. Don't swing the bat. Take it. You're going to win if you don't swing the bat. And what do they do? They chase.

Like, so. And the, the Martine Maldonado home run right after most predictable thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Like just beautiful. Yeah.

Yeah. I knew it was happening. But just like, I was like, oh, Maldonado's up. Interesting to see how we lose to him. I saw it play out in my head during the commercial break

before the inning even started. Yeah. It was brutal. Once they didn't score, that game was over. Like, I was like, there's no way.

They're, they're going to lose. They hold over. Like, it's, Yeah. I've seen far too many games that have gone like that in my lifetime. So I was I was more than well prepared for that. Nevertheless, though, this offense has been a lot better as of late. And again, with this pitching staff with how good it is, you don't need to be great as an offense. You just need to be good enough. and the Mariners for the most part have been good enough

Saturday notwithstanding right so keep doing that that's probably the formula for this team at least until they can get to the trade deadline and add to this offense hopefully but for now in the interim you know look on this road trip Colton Wong hasn't been good

like don't get me wrong but he's at least not been nothing like he's giving you some contributions like he did in the blowout on Friday like as long as you can get that over the next two and a half weeks until the trade market really starts to open up then and it might not even take two and a half weeks for you to start you know really getting serious about trades but as long as you can get that I think you can survive so you're just looking for guys to buy time yeah and you know that's what Mike Ford has done the last few weeks really on the road trip he's helped you buy time you know and Wong like again, like he said, well, he hasn't been good. He's been better. Yeah. Which is helpful.

The defense is actually, I mean, the last week or so, he's looked like Colton Long defensively. We didn't talk at all about the defense on Friday. On Friday, the defense was. Exceptional. Yeah. Like, Colton Wong's defense. Are you hitting Oswores' defense?

JP. Was the Julio robbery in the blowout as well? Yeah. Yeah. It was in the ninth. Yeah. Yeah, Sosato was pitching. Yeah, that game was like JP made a couple incredible plays too.

Like JP was on fire in the field, the series. But yeah, that's kind of the foundation of the Seattle Mariners, right? Like we make the routine plays. We make enough of the spectacular plays. We're going to miss bats. We're going to get weak fly balls. And we're just not going to let you score. That is how the Mariners are built not only to win this year.

this is how the organization is built to win, period. They are a run prevention team. And while pitching is always the sexiest part of run prevention, because it's pitching ninja, it's 98, it's sweeping sliders, it's breaking balls. Defense also prevents runs. I know, right? Revolutionary thought, but a run saved is the same thing as an RBI. It's just harder to quantify what saves a run sometimes.

Sometimes it's obvious. Sometimes it's not. but a run saved is as good as a run scored. So, yeah, the defense was exceptional, really the entire road trip. There was one game, I think, one of the San Francisco wins. They had a couple kicks, which was the Julio dropping the ball and Teosker's loopy route. Like, okay. We don't need to talk about that.

Sure. That was the two nothing law. We pretend that game doesn't exist. But, yeah, the defense was exceptional. and like he's gino honestly on friday gino jp and colt wong all made amazing plays um this weekend and you know it's great and cabriero contributed as well like mariner's infield defense not a problem it's really not especially wong is going to hold up his in and you know aside from the the disaster in san francisco mariner's outfield defense totally fine cullio is a gold glove contender

teosker is at least average kelnick is at least average And I can't believe I'm saying that about to Oscar, but he is. I don't know what to tell you. Clearly he is. And then there's Dylan Moore. Can't hit a cutoff man from like 80 feet away. I'm going to say it again. Get him off the team.

He needs to be sent down or go Seyeld. He's clearly in no condition to play at the major league level right now. He's not a major league quality. He is, think about this. think about how bad Colton Wong has been all year. He is significantly better than Dillmore right now. I have a hundred times more confidence in his ability to produce for the Mariners right now than Dillamore. Yeah.

And that's saying something. Yeah. Look, I know, you know, the obvious corresponding move there is Sam Haggerty. That's the correct move. I'd rather see an outfield. one of the off-fielders. Just give me one of the off-fielers. I don't really care.

Oh, I see. Ty thinks because they haven't played in the big leagues, that means they're better than Sam Haggerty. Yeah. I just- Haggerty replaces Dillam more perfectly, except for the part where Haggerty's actually swinging the bat right now. Ah,

so Haggerty's numbers in AAA matter. Yeah, when you compare them to what he did in the major leagues, yes, they do carry some weight. AAA numbers matter for Sam Haggerty, but they don't for Jake Shiner's. No, because Jake Shiner's a first base only with a slow bat.

Zach the Lowe's Taylor Trammell, Kate Marlowe as of late. Taylor Tramel's long, illustrious major league background. Ah, yes. Sam Hargertie's long, illustrious background. It's longer and more illustrious than Taylor Trammell. Barely.

No, it's not. Taylor Trammell's never been an average hitter at the major league level. He's been for like a couple weeks. Ooh, a couple weeks. Wow. That's awesome. I mean, like, Haggurty's been like good for like a month.

Like, Haggerty's been good for like six weeks. Legitimately good for like a month to. Yeah, all right, six weeks. So I'm confused then, Ty. Is six weeks longer than four weeks? Sure. Oh, so that's not as good of an argument as you think it is.

By the way. Well, how about this? Who's going to steal a bag for you when you need it? Who's more likely to? Kate Marlow. Really? You think Kate Marlowe's better base runner than Sam Haggerty? by the way,

Haggerty does the one thing that Marlowe, we don't know if he can or cannot do. He hits lefties. So, yeah, at the end of the day, here's,

here's my bold, like, here's my bold, like thought, go get a utility guy who's better than both of them. Crazy. Crazy.

But in the meantime, Aldi Young. I, mm-hmm. But in the meantime, Sam Haggardie, Gabe, Camarkey. Yep.

Taylor Trell, Zach DeLose. Sam, thank you. All right. I want to talk more about just where the Mariners stand right now, heading into the All-Star break and what things look like coming out of the All-Star break. In just a moment, but first,

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Thank you again for making us your first listen. Again, you can get your Mariners fix on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. So on this show, I don't know, a month ago, maybe a little over a month ago, you know, we were talking about where the Mariners need to get before the trade deadline. And I said, like, hey, going into the All-Star break, could you get to like five back of the Rangers or, you know, first place in the AOS? And, you know, it wasn't pretty, but they nearly got there. They're six back. The Rangers are playing some really bad ball right now.

The Astros, as we've seen, are weak. Obviously, they're not fully healthy, and they're going to get healthier coming out of the All-Star Break or shortly thereafter. You know, obviously, context is very important for those things. We'll dive into that a little bit more, but the Mariners are playing their best ball that we've seen all season. they're above 500 and into the all-star break, which I think is just huge for confidence purposes, especially after a loss like Saturdays

to come back on Sunday and get a convincing win again. Again, we talked about this after the first win in Houston, which followed up that loss in San Francisco, that just let it be a bump in the road, don't let it snowball into anything bigger, and the mayors have been successful in doing that over the last week or so. So when they come out of this All-Star break, they're going to have, I believe, the fourth,

the easiest schedule, remaining schedule in Major League Baseball. Maybe it's the second. I can't remember exactly what it was. But the schedule is going to lighten up. There's definitely going to be some really big and tough series, particularly in September. But as far as, you know, between now and the trade deadline, which is really the biggest stretch of the season because we talked about it. You need to incentivize Jerry DiPoto and Justin Hollander

to get aggressive at the deadline if you really want to get serious about this thing. The only way that you can do that is by winning. So you open up with the Tigers at home for three. You get the twins for four and then the Blue Jays for three before you head out on the road. Those are all winnable series. Colby, what do you think about where the Mariners are right now and have they set themselves up well enough to make a run?

at the division here over the final two and a half months of the season? Sure, because it's not just about where the Mariners are trending. It's where the other teams are. The Angels have lost nine of their last 10. Now they've lost Mike Trout for an extended period of time. They've lost Rendon again. The pitching was never that good. Tyler Anderson, surprise, turned back into a pumpkin.

Who would have ever guessed that? By the way, that only costs the Angels their second round pick. So yeah, the angels are obviously down, down bad right now. Texas is really, you know, I don't want to say they're struggling. There's falling back down to earth where we thought they would be. You know, over the last 30 games, they're like 12 and 18. Yeah, that's about the talent of their roster, especially when you're not getting, you know, ungodly numbers with runners in scoring position and all that stuff.

So, yeah, and then obviously Houston is not the juggernaut they used to be. be, yes, they'll be better when they have Yordon. There's no doubt about that. But even with, you know, Yordon, they're still not the team they were for the last half decade. They have holes. They have depth issues and they're a team that you can run down. So, yeah, the Mariners are in good position.

One other thing to note here about this, the last 10 games, seven are against Texas. Three are against Houston. So, yeah. Yeah, you get to the end of the year, you can make a lot happen if you're just one or two games or three games back. So, yeah, they can run them down. They have to go get help to do it. There's no, I don't think they can do it with what they have on hand. But the next, I think there's 18 games until the trade deadline.

For me, the next 10 games dictate a lot because you can't just wait and see how you're doing those 18 games and then try to make trade at the last minute. Right. You have to kind of have an idea going in and you have to give yourself a couple days at least to try and figure out. out, you know, who you're, or, you know, what's going to cost? Is it worth it? Blah, blah, blah. So to me, the next, the first 10 games out of the break, which I believe are Detroit, four against Minnesota and three against Toronto. Those 10 games, I think you got to go six and four. It'd be great if you go seven and three, but I think you got to go at least six and four. And not that it really matters, it'd be really nice if, you know, two of those six wins came

against the Blue Jays next weekend who you're chasing for that wildcard spot. So, you know, I think they're in good shape, but I do think the next 10 games will dictate. I think they're going to buy for 2024 regardless. I think that's been their plan. That's going to be their plan. But like how aggressive are they on rentals and that type of thing? If they go 8 and 2 over the next 10, they're probably going to be pretty aggressive on that. Because at that point, you're seven games over.

You're probably caught, you know, you probably gained a couple games on Texas, this, a couple games on a wild card contender, blah, blah, blah. If they go four and six or three and seven, you're probably out. You're probably out on, you know, rentals. And honestly, you're probably out of the playoff hunt. Like the last, you know, nine games has been great. The Mariners have played really well. They easily could have won all nine and they won seven of nine.

They're surging right now. That's all great. If you come out of the break and you go three and seven, it's over. Like, you just, there's not incentive at that point to believe in this team. to go out and invest heavily in them. So again, I still think they look for guys who could help them in 2024, but these ideas that you have of, you know, trading for Cody Bellinger or, you know, this rental here or this rental here, they all kind of go out the window because those guys

don't make sense. So the next 10 games I think are absolutely critical to determine how aggressive the Mariners are going to be, at least in the rental market. So, you know, I, I. depending on what the other teams do, which is always kind of an X factor we can't control. If they go five and five or worse, it's hard for me to imagine they're going to be heavily invested in the rental market.

And I think they need to be. Right. If you want the Mariners to make moves that say, hey, we're going for it. We want to try and still win a championship this year. You want them to go like seven and three over their next 10 games. Because there is a major difference between trading,

with the idea of, you know, we're trying to make it, you know, via the wild card and, you know, go and trading with the idea of like, we can actually legitimately win the division. Right. So that's why I bring up the division, not because I'm like, oh, the division's the only way you can get into the playoffs.

It's more so because right now, that's going to determine a lot, at least theoretically speaking, right? I'm not Jerry DePoto. I'm not Justin Hollander. I'm not there. So I don't know exactly what their threshold is for, you know, how aggressive they want to get. But again, like common sense would say that if you think you can go win the division you're going to get more

aggressive out on oh absolutely guaranteed home playoff games like that's huge so which from an owner's standpoint more revenue for you right right right yes because if there's one thing we know about yeah we're not we're not doing that we're not doing that yeah you know um also there's a really good chance that if you win your division you're going to have the second best record which means you don't have to play in the wild card round. So, you know, not even the second best. You just have the second best record of the division winners, which means you avoid playing wild card weekend, which means you get a little bit of rest.

And again, guaranteed home playoff games. So, yeah, I think like if you, if the deadline was like today, like hypothetically, if we were in the exact same situation today, six games back, you know, you're surging, the other teams are falling and the deadline happened to be today. I think you're looking at this is like, we need to build a team that can win the division and then just fall into the wild card. If we fall short. Yeah.

That can change, you know, pretty drastically over the next 10 games. So again, I can't stress this enough. And I don't want to look at the schedule. Like somebody asked me last night in our AMA, like, oh, the schedule lightens up a little bit after the break. And then there's a really long, good stretch in August. When has quality of opponent ever mattered for the Mariners? literally lost a series of the nationals than won three consecutive series against

above by 100 teams. Yeah. Yeah. They won seven of ten against playoff teams. So yeah, who knows? I'm not looking at the schedule. You just have to play better. But yeah, I do think the next 10 games are absolutely critical

to kind of determine just how aggressive Jerry DiPoto and Justin Hollander are going to be. So, yeah, if you're a big Cody Bellinger guy or you want them to go out and, you know, pick your favorite rental and, and, you know, be aggressive and go get that guy, the next 10 games will more than likely determine whether or not. Because I don't know if there's going to be like a major trade made in the next 10 days.

Right. It's not impossible now that the draft, well, once the draft is over, certainly not impossible, but I feel like most of the major action is going to happen like July 20th to August 1st. So, again, the next 10 games are, I sound like a broken record, but I can't stress it enough. The next 10 games are absolutely critical. All right.

So the home run derby is about five hours from the time we're recording this. Let us know in the comments below. How many home runs is Julio hitting in front of the home crowd tonight? And is he getting past Pete Alonzo? Because I think if he gets past Pete, I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. We'll see about Adley because he's the only lefty hitting.

He says that he said, Lofty so which is a good decision on his yeah good decision on his part Luis Roberts obviously hit a ton of home runs this year but that never really translates to the derby you never know and we've and we've never seen Robert do it. Um, Mookie I see a lot of people picking Mookie but I don't think Mookie is going to be that good at it. I love Mookie but yeah I'm Hall of Famer but like yeah I don't I guess I've never seen Mookie take BP so I don't know like to be fair I've never seen Julio take BP live So, right. I mean, I don't know.

But we know that Julio is good at the derby. We know that Alonzo's good at the derby. So. Yeah. That's the championship matchup in the first round. I mean, it could be. I don't know, man. Like knocking out Alonzo twice in two years, that's a tall task.

But, and, you know, I do wonder how Julio is going to perform with the pressure of hitting in front of his home crowd. We know how we feel about Julio and pressure. or so we'll see but you know ultimately I do think Julio is kind of like design because Julio hits just like screaming home runs like line drive screamers so we'll see it's his home ballpark I really don't think that's much of an advantage like it's like oh I know the jet stream goes this way everybody does so yeah it's a little bit of a windy day in Seattle right now yeah it's supposed to be like continue it's supposed to be about 70 yeah it's supposed to be about

70 and mostly clear. So I assume the roof will be open. It's cloudy right now. Like as they were announced on the starting pictures and the lineups, there were a lot of clouds in those pictures that I saw, but I think it's supposed to clear up around six or so. So, yeah.

All right. So again, we're doing a second show right after this. So we're going to drop this and then we're going to record that and drop that show around 4 o'clock Pacific time. We're going to be breaking down all the Mariners draft picks from day one of the

2023 MLB draft. So be sure to stay tuned for that. But for now, that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Locked-on Marriers podcast. Colby Pat Note, I'm Ted Angazolus. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-S-Rerner. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-Pat-E-E-T-E-A-T-E-PAT-E.

Follow us on Instagram and TikTok as well over at Locked-on Mariners. That's one word, Locked-on Mariners. We're also now on threads. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first listen. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day. We'll see you later tonight. Peace.