Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - BABIP, Bad Umpiring and Missed Opportunities Lead to Series Loss For Mariners

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode recap the Mariners' 2-1 loss to the Rays then discuss the Mariners finally pushing back on Julio Rodríguez's strike zone woes, whether or not Marco Gonzales (left wrist contusion) will be able to make his next start and why sending Cal Raleigh down to Triple-A was the correct choice.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: patreon.com/controlthezone/Blue NileThis Mother’s Day give mom something she’ll treasure forever with fine jewelry from Bluenile.com, and LOCKEDON SPORTS listeners get $50 off $500. Use code LOCKEDON at checkout.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! 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.

Well, sometimes you just get Babbup to death. And that's exactly what happened to the Mariners today as they drop their series finale with the raise by a frustrating score of 2 to 1. Let's talk about it here on the Lockdown Mariners Postgame show. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast.

Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. It's Thursday, April 28th, 2022, and this is the Lockdown Mariners podcast, brought to you by Blue Nile. This Mother's Day, give mom something she'll treasure forever with fine jewelry from blue nile.com and locked on sports listeners get $50 off 500. Use promo code locked on.

That's LOC, KED, O, N at checkout. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. I am your host, Taday Gonzalez, reporter and editor at all seehawks.com. Join, as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-R-N-R-N-E. You can follow me at D-N-Z-L-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-E-E-E-E. 11, that's CPAT 1-1.

Be sure to also check out our Patreon, where we talk about the Mariners even more, and also get us to some non-baseball talk twice a week. Visit patreon.com, for more information on that if you are interested. And if this is your first time joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast, welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this.

And if you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notification bell, and give this video a thumbs up. We greatly appreciate it. So we had some breakfast and baseball today. And because of that, we're doing more of a, chill laid-back type of post-game show today. Colby's also filling under the weather. I have some NFL draft stuff to attend to for my main gig. So we're probably going to keep this one fairly quick.

But the Mariners, their one-run success from last year has unfortunately not carried over to 2022, at least not as of yet. And that showed up again today with a one-run loss, a two-to-one loss. They lost by one run yesterday in a three to two affair as well. Chris Flexen goes six and two thirds innings. Solid ball was struggling a little bit to start this game off, but kind of corrected course and gave the Mariners some quality innings there. Give them a chance to win, ultimately. A. E. E. Oh, Hennio Swar is what a rare RBI triple to kick this game off in the first inning.

But that's where the scoring ended for the Mariners. have an opportunity with bases loaded and just won out at one point in this game I believe it was the fifth any might have been the sixth inning correct me if I'm wrong but swara has doubled in or hit into a double play and that ended that threat and they didn't really muster another significant threat the rest of the way uh Colby let's start with flex in here though uh because uh like I said you know this this may have been his best start of the year I don't know I mean the The royal start that he had last week was pretty solid as well. But he was giving up some hard contact in this one.

It wasn't really locating the change up to start this game off. But like I said, he kind of course corrected and figured some things out. And ultimately, and most importantly, give the Mariners a chance to win. What did you see out of flexing? Yeah, he really used the cutter a lot today. It was a cutter fastball heavy. We saw a lot of changeups. The curveball was kind of the pitch he ignored throughout the day.

15 whiffs on 46 swings. That's pretty good for Chris Flexton. We've talked about how his stuff is a little bit better than a lot of fans think it is. It's certainly not top the rotation, but it's not like he's, you know, Tyler Anderson. He's got decent stuff. So he threw the cutter and fastball a lot. Like you said, first couple innings, it was iffy whether or not he'd go deep in this game. Then once the third inning started, he just cruised right along until the seventh.

And even then he appeared that he had pitched himself out of his really his only jam of the day. And the BAPib gods decided not to smile on the Mariners today. And the ball just happens to hit him. And it's, you know, the go-head run. And so it's unfortunate. Both runs he gave up were on. We contact just perfectly placed hits. But he was very, very good again.

And it appears that Flexon is, I don't know how many more starts he has to do it for before people just accept that he's a number four starter. But we're at 35 now, I think, in his mariner career. And he's posting a three and a half ERA and a pretty good fit. So it's not exciting. But Chris Flexen's a solid, you know, starting pitcher in a pretty good rotation. And he showed it again today. He's going to have some hiccups here and there. but for the most part, he's going to give you a shot to win when he goes out there.

Yeah, missed opportunities, the story in this one for the Mariners. Not just the offense either. You know, you had a pretty big opportunity here with the raise where Kevin Kiermire, Randy a Roserana, G. Man Choi, Mike Zanino weren't in the lineup today. And it just kind of felt like, hey, here's an opportunity for you to win this ball game. And look, the pitching held up its end of the bargain for the most part. with you know flex and only gives up the two runs and one of them is just iffy as you said and you know Diego Castillo kind of got the Mariners on a jam and Anthony Mosevic had to walk a tight

rope and nearly blew that and but was able to make it out of the eighth scoreless and again gave the Mariners a shot to win this game and they just couldn't take advantage of it. J.B. Crawford had a lead off single in the ninth inning but then there was some more Babbitt Luck, bad luck, where Julio Rodriguez popped it up and just kind of fell over the head of Brandon Lau. But J.P. Crawford got forced out at second on that play. Julio did steal a couple bags in this game. He had a pretty solid game. And there was a scary moment, though, where he got hit on the hand.

And it seemed like he was in some real pain. It didn't seem like he was able to close his left hand at one point. but he was able to shake it off after getting looked at by the training staff and Scott Service and stayed in the game and then of course there was

another bad strike three call on Julio and this time finally finally someone defended Julio Scott Service just in his third game back from COVID runs out onto the field

yelling at the home plate umpire deservedly so just absolutely lays into him and then calm down a little bit and seem to have kind of a normal discussion with him but not before he was ejected from this ball game

but after the game you know Scott said that you know this is just this is unacceptable basically and apparently the Mariners have filed a letter to Major League Baseball you know just talking about this because this is getting ridiculous at this point and I'm not saying you know and I don't believe that

Major League Baseball by any means has some sort of biased against Julio Rodriguez and there's like an actual reason for this but it's just it's happening too much something has to be done about this I don't know what it what it is about his strike zone or what it is about the umpire strike zone with Julio rather that is causing these things to continuously happen to him and yeah some of this does fall on him a little bit because he is getting into a lot of you know oh two counts one two counts but at a certain point it's just this is too over the top something's got to be done about this and hopefully now with the Mariners kind of taking some action here scott's service actually

you know giving an umpire some hell over the this something changes. Do you think something will change, Colby? Or do you think this will just continue to happen even with some of the pushback now from the organization? No, I think it's going to keep happening because I don't think Major League Baseball actually cares.

Yeah. You know, because they've been very adamant about making this game as hard to score runs in as possibly. They're using the dead in baseball this year. umpire strike zones are a mess across the league pitching's never been better a major

league baseball doesn't seem too interested in in helping team score runs so i i think they're getting exactly what they want um you know i i think that they don't really care or they're afraid of the umpires or i don't know what it is but uh i don't think they care so i i don't suspect this will change anything yeah unfortunately i agree with you on that front because um i mean it's major league baseball after all, this is the, I think we all. They don't care about their players. Yeah, I think we all here kind of understand where MLB stands on issues like these. So yesterday, which kind of feels like an eternity ago, but it wasn't even 24 hours ago,

Marco Gonzalez had to leave in the first inning after taking a 109 mile per hour liner off of his left wrist. Left wrist contusion is the diagnosis on him. But he was out playing catch this morning. We'll see if he's able to make his next start. That would be Monday in Houston. We're going to be talking about some other options there if Marco is unable to go. And also just talk about the possibility of Marco saying the course here and making that start in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Blue Nile.

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including myself, taking fans through the season like no other network. It is free and available wherever you get your podcast just like us. So Colby, like I said, just a moment ago, Marco Gonzalez gets hit on the left wrist with a 109 mile-per-hour liner. Left wrist contusion is the diagnosis, though he was out on the field this morning at Tropicana field playing catch. How do you feel about Marco making his next start with an injury like that? Yeah, it's really more about how he feels.

You know, it seems impossible that he would be ready when you saw the injury live. The fact that he's playing catch already is a pretty good sign. But again, we don't know. He's got to get on a mound. He's got to throw off a mound. He's got to be able to, you know, ran. up and throw more than 50 balls, you know, in a warm-up situation. So we'll see what happens.

I think that what we at least can take a pretty good guess at right now is that Marco's probably not going to miss more than one start if he even misses one. And if that's the case, then I kind of doubt that they would call up somebody like Kirby and Stout who Depoto did name drop this morning on 710 Seattle. sports as being in line to take that start if needed. So I think if they can't, if Marco can't go, I think they would probably just bullpen it for a day or maybe call up somebody like Ponce de Leon who's thrown pretty well right now in Tacoma or just give the start to justice. It's just I don't know if you want to add guys to the 40 man unnecessarily to make one start and burn an option. So we'll see what happens.

If it was going to be multiple starts, and I would think might as well call up Kirby. But also, I do wonder if maybe not wanting him to make his debut in Houston maybe plays a role in that. Sure. We'll see. But I think Marco is, if you can't make his next start, I think they're just going to go with the bullpen or they're going to go with justice.

They do bring somebody up. I don't think Mark Gavichis is pitching right now, so it can't be him. So I think that would probably leave Ponce de Leon. and he's got a little bit of a major league track record. He's been good in the past. So maybe he makes some sense. And maybe he's even a guy who they call up and keep in the bullpen after his start. Or maybe it's Rowanus Elias,

who went multiple innings last night in Tacoma and looked pretty good doing it. So they have options for a short-term thing. If it was going to be three or four starts, I would guess that they would probably be more inclined to call up Kirby or Levi Stout. Yeah. I also think though if the plan was to get George Kirby or Levi Stout a set number of endings, a set number of starts down in Arkansas, you should probably stick with that because it does seem like you said that Marco is going to be able to, if not make this next start, make his start right after that.

So, you know, and like you said, they have options. They have Justice Sheffield who has starting experience. They have Penn Murphy. They called him back up. today. He has some starting experience, of course. He can go multiple innings. So, you know, they can make this work. Eric Swanson, of course, has had some experience

starting and opening for the Mariners at times as well. So they have levers they can pull here if Marco is unable to go down in Houston. Now that's really an ideal considering you're going to be in Houston with the Crawford boxes and all that

stuff and going in there and trying to bullpen it, especially when your bullpen isn't necessarily at full strength right now. So yeah, it's a little concerning on that front. And it would behoove the Mariners to probably get two or three here in Miami, I would say, to cap off this month of April, which is, you know, overall, despite losing the series of Tampa, it's been a good month for the Mariners. And you're starting to see some growth out of some guys right now and starting to see, you know, some nice things. some nice things, you know, swing in the right direction for guys like Jesse Winker and even Julio. Julio's looked a little bit better. And Jamie Crawford and Thai France are still, you know,

dominating right now for the most part. I mean, JP had kind of a rough day today. But for the, you know, outside of today, though, JP's been pretty good. Had another home run yesterday with a very griffy-s swing as well, as Aaron Goldsmith called it. So the Mariners made some other roster moves along with the Murphy call up. this morning, and especially one that is pretty noteworthy. We're going to be talking about that in just a moment, but real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners. It's brought to you by BetOnline. Betonline.net is your number one source for all your betting stats at sports info.

Find all of the latest sports developments, league reviews, and news, including this year's basketball playoffs in the start of the Major League Baseball season. Bet Online is your continued source for all your sporting wagering information from live betting to playoffs, e-sports, and more. Head to the website today, or use your mobile device to learn more about. the trends and action bet online is where the game starts so this morning along with johan ramirez cal raleigh was sent down to triple a tacoma of course rosters are going to go back to 26 players in just a couple of days here um but this was something that was kind of a long time coming i would

say because raleigh has been struggling as we kind of expected he did get off to a decent start in the first week of the of the year but has since significantly declined from that point forward um this is a good move right especially with where the mariners are right now with uh murphy and in turence behind the plate yeah raleigh was clearly your your third best guy um and he he can't really work on what's troubling him if he's not playing every day and you know you're the mariners you're a team that's a contender there's only something many outbats you can sacrifice before it just doesn't make any sense and raleigh just right now isn't giving you much of a shot he's also not been super impressive behind the plate he made a god-awful

throw last night that helped cost marco a run the one run he did give up so yeah he hasn't been great so get him down to triple a there's some things he can definitely work on both behind the plate and at the plate it just it's the right time to do that because again they would They were going to send down. You and I talked that they were probably going to keep extra guys in the bullpen, so they had to send down position players. Well, Raleigh and Moore, the two that make the most sense to send down, and they just jump started a little bit early with Kyle Rale.

It also tells us that they trust Luis Tren's defense behind the plate, and Terenz did throw out a runner today and had several key blocks on spiked Anthony Mischavitz curveballs in the eighth to kind of keep runners where they were. So it appears that Murphy and, and Torens are the guys for now, and I think that's probably best. Yeah, and for Raleigh as well, there's more opportunity to play at AAA as well,

because right now they've been going pretty much by rotation with these three guys when they've all been healthy, especially now with Torens back from the COVID list. It's been basically, you know, one day it's Murphy, the next day it's Teren's, the next day it's Raleigh, and then the cycle continues. Raleigh in nine games this year, 28 played appearances, 083 batting average, 214 on base percentage, 2.08 slugging percentage, let's say 39 WRC plus. He was striking out 32.1% of the time.

It's just not going to cut it. I still believe in Cal Raleigh, though. I just don't think that he's a major league hitter right now. Just don't think that he's a major league player, really, if we account the defense as well. It's, yeah, he's got some stuff. that he needs to work on like you said. Yeah, you just can't stack him, Julio, and Kalnick

in the same lineup right now. Yeah. Julio's getting a lot better and he's looking more and more comfortable. Kelnick kind of has this one app bad is really good, the next one's terrible, he's very inconsistent right now. And we just put all three of those guys in the same lineup at the

same time. You kind of need everybody else to pick up the slack and it's just, it's a lot to ask. But it hurts when you have those guys. seven, eight, nine as well. It's just, yeah, you're looking at a lot of three up, three downs there. Yeah, so.

Well, and a lot of strikeouts, which hurts. And a lot. Yeah, a lot of strikeouts. A lot of missed opportunities there when it, when it comes to their, to their section of the lineup. So hopefully this, this leads to a bit more stability in the lineup, some more upside in the lineup, especially, you know, getting back Mitch Hanager will, will,

will help immensely. And that's supposed to happen in Miami. He told Daniel Kramer of MLB.com this morning, or maybe it was yesterday, that he had a pretty rough bout with COVID. Kind of surprised that he's actually not going on a rehab stent, because it's almost been two weeks now that he's been out. And with him, you know,

kind of struggling with his particular case of COVID, you got to wonder how his body recovers from that. He's also talked about how he just hasn't felt like as good athletically. Like it's drained him of some of his. So playing a couple games, get your feet under you. Seems like a good idea. So we'll see what they decide to do. But since he's with the club, I don't think they're going to fly him to, you know, California to play with Tacoma.

or Spokane to play with the Aqua Sox, you know, so yeah, we'll see. Thankfully, they have the DH in the National League now, so kind of maybe easing them in that way. Yeah, that's a pretty big outfield there in Miami as well. So yeah, yeah, probably would be best not to have them out there. Jesse Winker, one of them is going to be out there in the field, though, and that's scary. But that's a discussion for tomorrow's episode of Lockdown Mariners. That's going to do it for our show today. Like I said, today was going to be pretty quick,

considering how Colby's feeling, considering just the busy nature of today with the draft and everything. But thank you so much for joining us here for our post-game show. For Colby Pat Node, I'm Tadayn-G-N-G-A-G-N-G-N-G-N-G-N-G-N-G-E. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-S-E.

You can follow me at D-N-E-N-E-N-Z-L-E and Colby at C-P-E-E-E-T-E-E. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen of the day, just like you do here every day. Now make your second listen of the day, locked on MLB. That's where Paul Francis Sullivan,

and please call him Sully, brings you his unique perspective on the major leagues president pass. It's free, wherever you get your podcast just like us. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we will see you tomorrow. Peace.