Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Bryan Woo Propels Mariners to Shutout, Series Win Over Athletics

Starting point is 00:00:00 Brian Wu was incredibly impressive and Mitch Garver drove in a couple much needed runs as the Marys win yet another series down in Oakland. Let's talk about it here on the Locked-on Marrars 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. Ahoy, Sailors. It is Thursday, June 6, 2024. This is Tadeng Gazz and Colby Pat. I knowed for the Locked-on Marys Post-game show, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.

Starting point is 00:00:35 work your team every day. Mariner shut out the A's 3-0 this afternoon. They win the series, two games to one. We're going to recap the action, talk some Brian Wu, Mitch Garver, and the Mariners' bullpen, and also get you set for this weekend series against the Royals since we won't have a show for you tomorrow. But before we do that, shout out to our title sponsor today, game time. Download the game time app, create an account, and use the promo code locked on MLB. That's L-O-C-K-D-O-N-M-L-B for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. And if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show,

Starting point is 00:01:11 check out our Patreon. The link is in the description, and you can sign up for a free seven-day trial. I could not be more impressed with Brian Wu and what he was able to do this afternoon against the Oakland Athletics. He goes six-endings pitch, just the two hits allowed, six strikeouts, no runs, no walks. his ability to work around that lead off double

Starting point is 00:01:34 from Abraham Toro in the first inning was impressive his ability to work around the botched fly ball by Victor Robles and the second inning was incredibly impressive and then a little later on in the game he has that weird automatic ball called on him ahead of his what his second or third his third at bat against Abraham Toro and comes back to strike him out on a nasty nasty front door to Seamer

Starting point is 00:02:00 just stayed composed all day long dealt with some BS had to pick up the slack for his offense had to pick up his defense a little bit overcame all of it checked all the boxes today what did you think about Brian Wu today Colby it was a really good start for Wu

Starting point is 00:02:17 and it was just kind of a classic start for Wu it was just you know I'm going to throw you the fastball you know I'm going to throw you the fastball and you're still not going to touch it there's just nothing you can do when Wu is locating that pitch on the corners it is one of the more unhittable pitches in baseball. It is one of the best fastballs in all of baseball.

Starting point is 00:02:37 And, you know, he's doing that without what I would call elite velocity. So it's just, it's a sneaky 95, 96, which is kind of a weird sentence to say. But that's how it looks. And, you know, he makes 94, 95 look like it's 100. So it's just such a smooth operation in the delivery. It's so repeatable. And, you know, like today, for he. beat through 89% fastballs.

Starting point is 00:03:05 So, you know, 674 seamers, 22-2 seamers or sinkers, whatever you want to call them. Same velocity. Both pitches maxed out at 96. Both pitches average 94.3 miles per hour on the day. You know, both pitches, you know, spins a little bit different. Gets a little bit more spin on the four seamer, which makes sense, but it's not insane. But he gets a lot more movement on the, on the, on the. two seamer as you might expect. So it's very tough when he's, you know, just right on that outside

Starting point is 00:03:36 corner and he's splitting it with the four seamer and then he's kind of, you know, front dooring, back, during, depending with the two seamer over that outside corner. So he can start it a little bit off the plate and you give up on it and then it runs right back into the outside corner. He stayed out of the middle of the plate, which he has to do, obviously, if you're going to throw 89% fastball. It doesn't matter how good your fastball is if it's in the middle of the plate, day and you're throwing, you know, 76 of them or whatever, like, it's going to get hit. It's going to get touched up if you're in the middle of the plate and he wasn't. So, you know, it just continues to be very impressive with what Brian Wu can do, essentially

Starting point is 00:04:16 operating on two pitches, but both of them are fastballs. So, you know, at some point, yeah, he's going to need the slider or, you know, the sweeper or the change up. he's going to need another pitch at some point. And that's kind of what's holding him back right now from being in that, you know, I would say from being in that same tier as like we thought about Logan Gilbert and George Kirby.

Starting point is 00:04:40 Like he's not there because he doesn't have the secondaries quite yet. But what he's done, obviously is very impressive. His stats through what, six starts now, incredibly impressive. So just all of it. Really good job from Wu today.

Starting point is 00:04:55 And he's looked great since, you know, coming back off the I. And, you know, still trying to work through some stuff in terms of, you know, making sure he stays healthy and he gets through the season. But right now he's just throwing a fastball and, you know, his opponents know they're going to get a fastball and they can't. The best they could do is foul it off most of the time. Like that's the best case scenario for you against who's fastball. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:19 And the fact that he's so exclusively fastball makes his numbers, like you said, through the first six starts of, of his season so remarkable, right? 107 ERA here through the first six starts after day. That is the lowest ERA of any Mariners pitcher in their first six starts of any season. That's incredible. 237 FIPP, 365 X-P. Strikeouts haven't really been there,

Starting point is 00:05:48 just a 642 case per nine after today. Did average a strikeout per inning today, however. But also 053 walks per nine. in 33 and 2 thirds innings pitch. Just two walks. And 33, basically 34 innings pitch. So not only is he exclusively fastball. That also says like he's been consistently in the zone with that fastball.

Starting point is 00:06:15 And just hitters can't square it up right now. Yeah. And that's, you know, kind of what gives it the like 80 grade. 80 grade fastball, like on the, on the 280 grading scales that you can know it's coming, you can know it's going to be a strike, and you still can't really do anything with it. Yeah. And like, you know, we've talked about this in the past, and it's entirely possible that Brian Liu has amongst starting pitchers, top five fastball in all baseball.

Starting point is 00:06:48 Like, I mean, the only one that comes to mind that compares is Spencer Strider, but obviously he's hurt right now. So, yeah, it's great to see. But again, at some point, Wu is going to need the other pitches. He is going to need a breaker. He is going to need an off-speed pitch of some kind. But yeah, right now he's just in a groove.

Starting point is 00:07:07 It looks like he's just playing catch out there. And like you said, nothing is phasing him. Nothing is getting him off his game. And he's just, you know, just playing catch, basically. And getting pretty much every major league hitter he faces out with regularities. So it's great for Brian. Wu and I think it's safe to say that the Mariners number five starter is is better than, you know, the other 29 number five starters.

Starting point is 00:07:33 I think we can say that with some fair confidence. And if he ever does figure out the sweeper or the slider or a curveball or changeup or anything like that, watch out, watch out because that is a scary, scary dude. This quote from Daniel Kramer, Mariners B reporter for MLB.com. This is from A's manager, Mark Katsay on Brian Wu, quote, we just couldn't hit the heater. I don't know what it is about his fastball that gives us trouble. He basically just

Starting point is 00:08:01 threw his four seam and two seam and played it off the plate today with success. That's the story of the day. Indeed, it was. Now let's talk about this Mara's bullpen without Andreas Munoz for the second game in a row and they held it down.

Starting point is 00:08:17 We'll talk about them in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is brought to you by prize picks. With prize picks you can turn $10 into a thousand in a single game watching your favorite sports this summer. You can make a price picks lineup in as little as 60 seconds. All you have to do is pick more or less on two to six players stat projections and you're locked in. Price picks is America's number one fantasy sports app with over 5 million active members.

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Starting point is 00:09:19 broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word. Mariners will be previewing that series. a little later on in this show but for now let's talk about the mayor's bullpen today second day in a row like I said without Andres Munoz

Starting point is 00:09:36 and they were pretty good awesome vote clean inning Mike Balman clean inning and then Ryan Stannick clean inning what do you think about the the relievers today Colby pretty solid after Munoz went down in both games but

Starting point is 00:09:50 you know it just you're really missing the kind of you just shut down you feel great about this type of performance out of any of these guys. And, you know, Balman, we're still trying to figure out. So, you know, I haven't seen a ton of him. Obviously, he had the really rough debut.

Starting point is 00:10:06 Since then, he's been fine. He's been totally fine. He didn't pitch for like six days after the debut. Right. And now he's pitched, I think, three times in the last five days. Yeah. So, and he's like fun. You know, he's gotten the job done every time.

Starting point is 00:10:21 Clearly, like, they started implementing, you know, whatever they wanted to implement with him during those six days. and now he's trying to work that into his outings. And so he's just kind of a work in progress right now. But I thought he looked pretty good today. Yeah, you know, it's good stuff. We know it was good stuff when they acquired him. It's, you know, fastball of 96 to 98.

Starting point is 00:10:43 It's a pretty good knuckle curve that he, you know, generally will get a lot of whiffs on. And he's got two breaking balls that are both above average. It's just a matter of throwing enough strikes and throwing enough quality strikes with him and getting a little more value out of the heater. So far, you know, so good with him. Both is both might be like the most underrated guy in this bullpen.

Starting point is 00:11:04 Just because he's been just solid. He's just been, you know, he just kind of throws everything at you, sweeper, cutter, four seamer, curveball. Not going to miss a ton of bats. It's not going to be a big part of his game, although he did have two whiffs on five swings today. You know, his game really is, as it comes down to, is avoiding heart contact, getting a lot of soft ground balls, getting a lot of pop-ups and stuff like that, and he's pretty good at it. So, you know, it's nothing exciting. It's nothing that you're going to feel great about.

Starting point is 00:11:35 But Voth is a totally fine guy to bring in, you know, in the sixth or the seventh to start an inning. And you can reasonably expect him to kind of keep the game where it is. So, you know, he's been real solid overall today. And then Stannick, you never know what you're going to get with Stannick. But he has been significantly better in the last few weeks. than he was at the beginning of the year, minus the one little hiccup on the ball that just stayed fair against the nationals. He's been really solid overall.

Starting point is 00:12:06 And today, you know, 15 pitches, 10 strikes, only the one with today, but whatever. 3-0 lead, wanted to be aggressive, fell behind two, I believe it was Bladay, and then just started pounding the strike zone. Yeah, Cal went out there, had a discussion. I think it was 2-0. He went out there, just had a quick discussion with him, like, Hey, just go after him. See what happens.

Starting point is 00:12:28 All right, you got a three run buffer. Let's just, let's just see what happens here. Yep, put it down the pipe. See if you can hit it. And if he can, whatever. You got Rooker up next. Rooker's not even the tying run at that point. So you're in a really good spot.

Starting point is 00:12:41 Just put it down the middle and let the velocity play. Let the stuff play. And he did. So Stannick, again, gets the job done. Solid day for the Mariners bullpen. Again, it's not lights out. It's not like you're just sitting back. Like, oh, yeah, I know.

Starting point is 00:12:55 This is totally chin. Jill, two nothing. We got this in the bag. No, no, certainly not. Not without Andres Munoz sitting out there in the pen. But no, they stepped up. They did a good job. They did a good job yesterday as well.

Starting point is 00:13:07 So, you know, the Mariners bullpen, really the Mariners pitching in general has been very good. The last two series and, you know, things get a little bit harder. You go to Kansas City. That is not a great matchup for Seattle. That's not a great ballpark for Seattle to play in. so and obviously we know that you know Salvador Perez and Bobby Witt and Michael Garcia they're they're going to do damage at some point in that series and there's a game that happened at that

Starting point is 00:13:34 stadium a couple years ago in September that sticks in my mind and we'll never leave sure I am forever haunted by that game don't get up by 10 runs otherwise you'll lose right but yeah so you know it's kind of the place where Julio really broke out last August so maybe that carries over that'd be great. But yeah, it's, it's going to be tough. You know, you're facing Marsh who he handled pretty well. You're facing Daniel Lynch. So, you know, not, but then on Sunday, you're getting Cole Reagan's. So yeah, yeah, if you want to win that series, you might want to win the first two. We'll get to that a little bit later. But yeah, the bullpen is fine. And hopefully it sounds like there's a chance at least, or at least the way things are kind of trending right now,

Starting point is 00:14:14 that Munoz will be available at some point this weekend in that Kansas City series, maybe tomorrow. I said he's feeling better. Mariners sound pretty confident that he's going to miss the I.O. So hopefully at some point you get them back, uh, you know, this weekend, but you know, overall the bullpen did a very nice job, uh, these last two days without them. This is what we talked about on the Patreon yesterday as we try to kind of make sense of just how the Mariners have gotten to this point because, you know, as dominant as the pitching has been, there's also been some streaky moments for the pitching. And obviously the offense has been genuinely terrible for most of the year. And, you know,

Starting point is 00:14:52 And they've had some significant injuries. And yet here they are eight games above 500. They're now five games up on the Rangers. And I struggled to come up with a good reason for it other than they've been able to stop the bleeding. They've been able to survive. They've been able to, especially in a series like this, not play their best ball and still find a way to win. Still find a way to win a series. Right.

Starting point is 00:15:23 They've been surviving, whereas when things go wrong or something goes wrong for the Rangers or for the Astros, they're not finding a way to weather that storm. So, yeah, because we've looked at the numbers. They're insane. Now they're, I think yesterday, before yesterday's game, they were 12 and 4 in one run games. Well, actually, they were 13 and 4. So now they're 13 and 5 because they lost last night. and they are they're doing damage against their division, which also helps a lot.

Starting point is 00:15:57 So, but yeah, they're not hitting with any consistency. The pitching's been good, but not like dominant elite outside of the 20 game stretch or so, whatever it was, you know, at the end of April and the beginning of May. So other than that,

Starting point is 00:16:10 it's been good. Like I said, it's been good pitching, not elite. So yeah, it's a weird team right now. But anyway, you want to slice it,

Starting point is 00:16:18 it's, you know, June 6th and the Mariners are five games. up in their division and their eight games over 500 and they've won something like 11 of their last 15 series. So yeah, things are pretty good right now for Seattle, but they need to play better to keep it up. Quickly, I mean, this was a pretty nondescript performance by the offense. They only had four hits. They only had four hard hit balls. But Mitch Garver had a pretty good day today. Got on base four times. A couple walks. He had an RBI single to drive in Cal Raleigh,

Starting point is 00:16:52 who is the definition of speed with his second career stolen base today, scored from second on the single by Garver. There's wheels on that dumper, folks. There's wheels. Big deal about that, sure. You hate fun. You hate fun. I don't hate fun. I just hate when people like overhyped things. You hate when people have fun. No. I like when people have fun. Just, you know, away from me. Right.

Starting point is 00:17:22 They were definitely using some, like, you know, rocks as baseballs today. They were not using the bouncy balls or anything like that because, you know, Dylan Moore touched one up pretty good. It only ended up being 94 off the bat, so it must have gotten a little more on the label than I thought with the bases loaded. But he touched one up. And Hanager had one that I'm convinced would have been a homework. run if they were using normal baseballs. And it was a fly out to the warning track. So, you know, I'm not sure how Garber's got out.

Starting point is 00:17:51 Must have been the perfect formula there. But it's not like he didn't hit it hard or anything like that. So yeah, Garber two for two today, two runs, two RBIs, two walks. Pretty solid night. So they are on to Kansas City next to face the, the Royals who are obviously off to a great start this year. Talk about that in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Locked-on Airs Postgame show is brought

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Starting point is 00:19:07 And you're listening to the Locked on Marrers Postgame show. Once again, you can catch the M's and the Royals this weekend on the Marrers hometown broadcast with Sirius XMvia. via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word Mariners. So, M's off to Kansas City, got kind of lucky here. Seth Lugo was lined up to pitch in this series. Lugo's obviously had a great year. So you would have had to face both Lugo and Cole Riggins.

Starting point is 00:19:37 Now you just face Cole Riggins, which is still a problem. But less of a problem than facing Lugo as well. but also when it comes to this mayor's offense like we saw last night against Joey Suss it doesn't matter really who's on the bump for the other team uh braced miller going up against lunch uh then uh louis castillo against marsh and then finally george kirby against

Starting point is 00:20:00 Cole regans on sunday which should be a really it's a good one fun matchup yeah that's a really good one uh so how you feeling going into the series not great they didn't play very well in oakland like i said like they played really kind of flat for 80% of the series. And they just had a talent, you know, they had a talent gap between them in Oakland. And so they were able to kind of make it work and win two out of three. I think if they play the same like type of baseball that they played in Oakland in Kansas

Starting point is 00:20:34 City, there's a high probability that they get swept. So Kansas City obviously a very good team. Well, they're playing very good baseball right now. are they playing a little bit over their heads? Yeah, I think so. I think they're going to fall back to the pack here a little bit, but they're playing pretty good ball right now. And obviously, you know,

Starting point is 00:20:49 you can't feel great about facing Cole Reagan's. So you kind of have to assume that that's going to be an extremely difficult game to win, even though you're countering with George Kirby. So tomorrow and Saturday are going to be huge for this ball club. So hopefully, you know, they can find a way like if you get home, you can get back home with a three and three road trip. You take it. Obviously, you want four and two.

Starting point is 00:21:11 But three and three is totally fine. And then you get ready for a pretty big homestand, which gives you, I believe, four against the white socks. You have to do damage there. And then three against the same. So the entire conversation can,

Starting point is 00:21:26 you know, greatly shift over the next 10 days about where you stand in terms of, you know, your division lead and all that stuff. But it starts with, you know, having good at bats, getting to Lynch early, you know,

Starting point is 00:21:37 giving your bullpen a bit of a buffer because we don't know if slash win, Munoz is going to come back. So, yeah, I think you got to play well. You got to get on these guys a little bit early. You know, and so score a first run inning or two. Actually, you know what? Score two runs in the first inning.

Starting point is 00:21:55 See what that does for you. You know, when you load the bases with nobody out, get more than one. Right. Maybe try that. See if that happens. See if that helps you at all. So I mean, at the very least, one is better than zero. It is, but barely.

Starting point is 00:22:09 When JP struck out today, I was like, oh, no. Oh, oh, here we go. You know, Dimo's been swinging the bat fantastically. By the way, get Dimo out of the two spot. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't care if it's against the lefty. No, no. The insanity run was fun. It's over.

Starting point is 00:22:25 All right. That is going to do it for our 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 Amazon 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.

Starting point is 00:22:48 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 Postgame show for Colby Pat Note. I'm Tadangazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Tidea-A-Gazales and Colby at CPAT 11. That's C-PAT-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 next time peace

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Bryan Woo Propels Mariners to Shutout, Series Win Over Athletics

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