Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Cole Young Is Playing Like the BEST Second Baseman in the American League as Seattle Mariners Sweep

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Ty and Colby recap the Mariners' three-game sweep of the Cardinals, including Cole Young's big weekend and a whole lot more. Click to learn more about the Everydayer Club! Join the Ahoy, Sailors Discord server! Check out our Patreon! Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11 Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolby Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 5-Hour ENERGY The funfetti flavor is BACK on https://5hourEnergy.com or Amazon, crack open Confetti Craze 5-hour ENERGY®️ shot today! Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast KALSHI For a limited time, download the Kalshi app and use code LOCKEDONto get ten dollars when you trade ten. Kalshi. Trade on anything.  HIMS To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss, and more, visit https://Hims.com/LOCKEDONMLB. Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel.Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get one-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins.Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started — Play Your Game.   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)   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For the second time this year, the Mariners are winners of four in a row, securing their first road sweep of the year down in St. Louis. We'll break down how they got it done coming up. 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, and is Monday, April 27, 2026. My name is Taddy Gazzalus, and I'm joined as always by my host, Colby Patnode.

And on today's show, we're going to talk all about the Mariners sweep. of the Cardinals, including Cole Young, and all the contributions the Mariners got from unlikely sources, as well as a big weekend for the bullpen and more. And with this sweep, the Marys have now given themselves a chance with everything that's happened, with how bad it got, to somehow finish the month of April 500 or better.

Crazy. Indeed it is. But, you know, that just goes to prove a couple things. One, the American League's not very good. It doesn't feel like, maybe outside of the Yankees. And two, you know, it's early.

And as sick as we are saying it, as sick of you as you guys are of hearing it, it still is because all it took to turn this thing around was a four-game winning streak. And, you know, that just goes to show you. You go out there, you play good enough baseball. You win these close games instead of lose them. And the entire conversation shifts. And now, you know, we'll see how many games in Minnesota they actually get to play. And, you know, the vibes are really only as good as what you do in the next series. So they go out there and they get swept in Minnesota.

I mean, we're right back to where we were. But, yeah, it certainly does feel like they're finally getting, you know, not healthy per se, but they're finally getting to the point where they're winning games that they should win. And they're winning games in different ways. And, you know, they're getting contributions from everybody, including the big bats in the middle of your lineup. So, yeah, it is, you know, just any, any, you know, know, vibe that can be fixed with a four-game winning streak, things really aren't that bad. But we'll see how the Mariners finish out here in April.

But, yeah, they could finish 500 or even better. That would be pretty impressive considering they started 1 and 8 on the road and they had a 1-and-5 road trip and they got swept, you know, down in San Diego and they got swept down in Texas. So pretty impressive if they could find a way to finish the month 500 or better, which means winning a series in Minnesota against a team. It's not really playing good ball right now. So we'll see what happens there. And we'll see again if they even get today's game in. But yeah, certainly is a, you know, I mean, heck, if they win this series, 500 is pretty impressive, all things considered. So, yeah, it's definitely a much needed series win, its first road series win.

And they got the sweep to boot. So really good weekend. Yeah. And they had to, you know, grind this series out a couple of. three to two wins, one run wins for this club, and then whatever that was on Saturday, that game was insane. And I'm sure we're going to spend a lot of time talking about that one on this show. That game was crazy, 11 to 9 on Saturday with 37 combined hard hit balls between the two teams.

Like, is that all? Yeah. Seems like a lot more. It seemed like even more somehow, yeah, which, yeah, 37 is just a wild number. but yeah you know like they weren't able to get everything clicking all at once in any of these games but they found ways to win they found different ways to win in this series that's a really good sign that's a really encouraging sign from this club yeah I mean good teams have to find a way to win games when they're not playing particularly well and you know two of these games they didn't really

hit well at all and in one of them they couldn't pitch or well one guy couldn't pitch uh and And, you know, they found a way to win all three. And you didn't settle for the series win. You gritted through, you know, kind of difficult outing from Hancock. And, again, just a pitiful, pitiful operation from the offense for most of that game. But you found a way to grind it out, get a couple off their bullpen, and get out of there with not just a series win, but a sweep. So, yeah, those are all really good signs from this baseball team. Yeah, and I mean, even when the starting pitching was working for you, both of those guys, you know, Kirby and Hancock, and we'll talk about this a little bit, you know, later on as well.

Both of those guys weren't necessarily at their best, but they found ways to battle through it and, you know, keep their club in the game. And, you know, again, that's huge. Like, not everything is going to go perfectly, you know, sometimes, unfortunately, as frustrating as it is, as annoying as it is, sometimes you are. going to struggle against the Andre Palantes of the world for whatever reason. Sometimes you're going to struggle against the Michael McReeves of the world for whatever reason. By the way, Michael McReevievey just kind of has this team's number.

He did something similar to this team in September as well. I don't know what it is about that guy that they just can't seem to pick up, but whatever. But, you know, again, it's important that you still, even on you know, you're not so great days that you find ways to win

ball games and that's exactly what the Maris did in this series. And that's a pretty huge development because they weren't able to do that, you know, for most of this first month of the season. So hopefully that's a sign of of things to come for this club. And, and hopefully that is finally the, the talent disparity between the Mariners and most of the rest of the league, finally showing up, you know, that this is finally like evidence of like, yeah, this is one of the best teams in baseball. Even when X, Y, and Z isn't particularly going well for them, they're still going to find a way to win the ballgame.

Yeah, you know, they have to maintain the momentum and take a series in Minnesota. Again, a team that has got up to a hot start, but is really struggling as of late. And is, you know, supposed to be one of the, I don't know if they're supposed to be one of the worst teams in the American League, but they're not a contender based on pretty much anything and their bullpen is terrible. But you are going to have to face Joe Ryan. We think, again, we'll see how many games they actually get played this week. But you're going to have to face Joe Ryan.

You're going to have to fish Taj Bradley, who was off to an incredible start. He had his own little Brian Wu hiccup in his last outing. But you know, you're going to have to face those guys. And so it's not going to be an easy series. There's no such thing. But you do, unfortunately, draw a bit of a short straw. You get the two best guys that Minnesota has to offer. But, you know, you've got to find a way to beat those guys, you know.

And it's nice that you couldn't get Palante or McGreevy, but you kind of grind it out a win there. Okay, well, the other side of that is like, okay, well, I mean, you better find a way to score some runs off of Ryan and Bradley, especially Ryan, because that's what good teams also do. And, you know, to be fair, we did see this team do that before they had the letdown series against the A's against Texas. They really grinded out of bats against their three best guys,

and they got them out of that game early. So we've seen it, you know, I think the mayors have now won, what, seven of ten? Seven of the last ten, six? Yeah, seven of the last 10? Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, you know, they're starting to play good ball. Obviously, we know the middle of the lineup's starting to heat up too. But kind of the beauty of this series, particularly on Saturday, is that you got big-time performances from, you know, three bench players.

And also, you know, hat tip to the Mariners for finding a way to grind through a couple of victories in St. Louis without their nine-win clubhouse presence, Brennan Donovan. So kudos to them for finding all. way to overcome that devastation. Six of their last 10. Okay. Yeah. You know, last year, early on, you know,

the mayor has had to get some contributions out of some unlikely sources like Laudy Tavaris and Leo Rivas and Rowdy to Les, you know, etc. And they hadn't really gotten much of that so far this year. You know, again, for a while, the engine of this offense was Luke. Rayleigh and Randy a Rosarina and then finally the the two three four started to get it going but this

series we saw a lot of contributions from role players from bench guys right Connor Joe had some big moments in the series Rob ref Snyder obviously with the the game winning home run yesterday Mitch Garver had himself a nice um that's huge as well like if you are going to make a run things like that have to happen right we saw that that last year. Right. And, you know, it's before, you know, before the winning streak started, the Mariners didn't have a hit from a pinch hitter.

The entire end, you know, Garber had a pinch hit double in that game. And then we saw Canzone come off the bench this week, this weekend and get a big hit. We saw multiple, you know, obviously Rob Reff Snyder off the bench to get a big hit. So we're seeing, you know, the Mariners utilized all 26 guys on their team. Well, 25. We're still waiting for the Hoppy debut, but they're utilizing everybody on the squad and they're getting performance from everybody. Everybody kind of chipped in this week. I think the only guy I don't remember having a hit.

Did Luke Rayleigh go over in the series? I think he might have. But yeah, everybody else kind of had like a big moment. And even J.P. Crawford, he didn't have a ton of hits. He had a big, bunt single on that Saturday game and ended up scoring the go-head run, the game winning run, as it turns out. obviously Will Wilson did his thing. Yeah, I forgot to mention Will Wilson.

What in the world? Yeah, I mean, Leo Rivas comes off the bench and has, you know, the game winning RBI on Saturday. Connor Joe, game tying RBI on Saturday. He also had a big hustle double in yesterday's game that set up the time base hit from Cole Young, filling in for Josh Naylor, who, you know, we'll see.

quad issue and we saw him kind of messing around with his knee after he stole a base on Saturday so we'll see how I doubt he's going to play a day if they didn't play today at all but apparently he might have been available to pinch hit off of the bench but he didn't

yesterday and Brennan Donovan was also apparently available to pinch it off the benched the day before he went on the aisle sometimes you say things to get the other manager to kind of factor that in a little bit. We'll see again, I doubt, you know, he plays today, even if the Mariners did play. I kind of doubt he plays today.

There's a lefty on the mound, and also the field's going to be slick and wet and all that. So I doubt they ask him to, so we'll see if that requires an I-L-Sent or not. But, yeah, it really was kind of a weekend of contribution from the role players, the bench guys. And that's not to say that two, three, four, it didn't have their moments either. All three of those guys homered in the series. Naylars was the game winning Homer. It just happened to happen in, what, the seventh or the sixth? Hulio had a mammoth fly ball to kind of set the tone for what kind of game Saturday would be.

I mean, what, Big MacLand or whatever they call? Big MacLand, yeah. Yeah, I'm just insane. And obviously, Cald the big one yesterday to tie it back up at 1-1. So, I mean, they all had pretty good series as well. But yeah, just contributions top to bottom. And it's kind of funny, you would think with all we just laid out, like the Mariners, oh, yeah, they definitely scored more than six runs in games started by Palante.

And McGreevy and no. No, they didn't. Most of that damage came in one game, but they did find a way to win. And obviously, like, Cal, big game time home run. Now it was the third inning, but still, you know, the vibes were terrible in that game. So good to see him get there. And then obviously, neither game winning home run. And don't forget, Mitch Garber, well, had a nice game.

He was robbed of a home run, too. So, I mean, like, there was plenty of contributions from the bench guys, the role players who are getting some opportunities in the series because of some injuries and they performed. So it's really good to see. Absolutely. You mentioned Luke Rayleigh going Ofer in this series. He actually doesn't have a hit since April 18th. A little bit of a slide here for Luke. So hopefully you can get it going again.

WRC Plus is still 144 though on the season, 269, 329, 538. Rayleigh is a streaky hitter. We know that. Nice thing is, is Canzone has kind of, of rebounded over that same time period. So, uh, and obviously, Cole young, in the series from, from Canzone.

And obviously Cole Young, who Ryan Roland Smith told us on Friday, he was very impressed with and, and most surprised by he continues to, maybe not, you know, be the flashiest guy, although defensively,

his highlight reel is pretty impressive. But, uh, he continues to produce at a, at a very high level. And, uh, he's might be your most consistent player.

right now so far this year. So yeah, it's just, you know, really fun weekend. And it felt like Mariners baseball, which is pretty comforting at times. Well, you mentioned Cole Young. It's been a great start for him. It was a great series for him down in St. Louis. We'll talk more about him in just a moment. But first a reminder of this episode of the longtime Marrace podcast is brought to you by five-hour energy. If you've got a sweet tooth like I do, then you know how tough it is to find that perfect treat without all the sugar. That's why the confetti craze five-hour energy shot brings that nostalgic flavor back in a whole new way. This is that classic taste you remember, but with a tasty caffeine boost and zero sugar. It's a quick, easy way to satisfy that sweet craving while keeping

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Thank you so much for making us your first listen for all things. Mariners. And also thank you for making the lockdown the number one sports podcast network. Don't forget to check out the everyday or club for ad-free episodes and access to a group chat with me and other listeners of this show. Tap the link in the description. We're going to locktime mariners.supercast.com to learn more. So Cole Young, with his big weekend in St. Louis, is now slashing 267, 351, 406 on the year. That's a 120 WRC plus.

Pretty good defense as well. he is now at 0.7 F4 and by that mark I believe he is technically the second most valuable player that has played at least a good amount of his games at second base in the American League. I believe Brian Rokio is 0.2 ahead of him. But Cole Young second right now.

I don't think you could have asked for really any better here from Cole Young to start the season. Pretty incredible. Yeah, he started the season hot and then he kind of went through a little bit of a lull there for about a week. And even then he was finding a way to contribute. He'd draw a walk. He'd make a great play.

And now, you know, he's starting to drive the ball again. I know his big hit this weekend was the broken bat game time single, but he also had a home run and he had a double that was almost a home run to that center field, like right off the tippy top of the wall. And, you know, he was sitting the ball hard. He's playing really solid defense. the throwing looks better too. I don't know if you noticed that, but he's not like shot putting it as much. He's like actually just kind of letting it loose.

So there are times where he kind of like aims it and you're like, but no, the range has been spectacular. Arm strength, whatever, good enough. And he is starting to turn on the baseball again and he's starting to drive it. He's not just kind of trying to flip these balls in the right field for base hits.

He can still do that. He can still hit for an average, but he's also turning on the ball. He's starting to slug, slug again, which is a really good sign. And Cole Young, you know, for all the questions we've had about this team and the roster build, he's answered him. And obviously he's going to go through slumps again, like he's a young player.

But he has been just a stabilizing force at the bottom of the order. He almost always gives you a quality at bat and he's playing plus defense down there second base. I think there's a real argument to be made. Now, these aren't real things. So let's not dive too far into this. but is he the most valuable player for the month of April for the Mariners because he's been the most consistent.

I mean, even Randy's kind of slid a little bit recently. But yeah, his presence and him kind of just answering that question. Like, hey, do we have a second base problem on this team? No. No, we're good. I mean, they have one of the best second base situations so far in 2026. Getting as early, but they have definitively one of the best second base situations in baseball to start the year.

He started every game, hasn't he? And so right now, among, American League second baseman. Cole Young is leading the American League in hard hit rate and he is second in barrel percentage right now. So getting consistent quality contact

right now doing damage. It seems like we're kind of seeing a blend of his best skills. Because I think if Cole Young just sold out for power, he'd probably hit 20, 20 plus homers. But he'd probably only hit like 2.30

if that. And, And right now he's sitting for a good average. He's drawing his walks. He's getting on base, but he's also turning on baseballs. I don't know if it's picking his spots or, I mean, the swing doesn't look any different to me. So I don't think there's anything there. But yeah, we also know he got, you know, stronger this winter as well.

And that was a big part of the, you know, the hype that surrounded him in spring training. And he had obviously like, what, seven home runs in the Cactus League. But the idea is like, oh, it's the Cactus League who cares well. you know he's got a couple this year already and we've seen him drive the ball to all parts of the ballpark and you know could he get to 20 and still it for a decent average maybe maybe but i think he probably tops out at you know 15 to 18 and and hits 270 that's a really good player because you know he's going to draw some walks too and if the defense is figured out and it's significantly better than it was last year then yeah you're talking about a three-win second baseman and you know those those bold

predictions at the beginning of the year where I said, you know, oh, he's going to be an all-star. I mean, if the game was held tomorrow, would he not be on the team? I mean, I think there's a strong argument to make that he would be the starting second basement for the American League. Yeah, yeah. Get out and vote people. Always get out the vote. But, yeah, it's certainly a great thing to see.

And especially since, you know, if he got off to any kind of really poor start, the Colt Emerson calls we're only going to get louder regardless of what Emerson is doing down in AAA. We don't need to have that conversation. He's not ready. That's very clear. But, you know, they would still be there. And right now, no. And you're just kind of waiting for Donovan to get back. And it's great that there's basically no like, oh, you have to call up Emerson. Like, that doesn't exist because you're getting the kind of production we were hoping you'd get from second base and third base. Again, we'll see how long Donovan's out for. But yeah, it's Koli. Man, he's been a huge X factor. He wasn't.

a huge X factor and so far he's delivered so it's great to see well and again a big part of this is he's doing it against lefties too right he's proven like i can be in the lineup every single day you don't have to worry about it i can absolutely i i can't just handle myself against lefties like i can actually torch them a little bit here like a 173 w rc plus so far against lefties that's huge 99 wrc plus against righties that'll that'll normalize soon and i mean it's already starting to i think he was like somewhere in the 60s uh not even and go or so. So that's already started to normalize there.

So he's about a league average bat right now against righties. But yeah, the fact that he's crushing lefties is pretty sweet. And he's gotten, you know, a decent amount of opportunities against them too,

33 plate appearances, you know, through the first month of the season. That's not nothing. No, I mean, you wonder how much of that is that Leo Rivas

obviously had to play for JP and now he's kind of having to play for Donovan. And so you don't really have, have that like right handed bat off the bench to put in so maybe it's it's just out of necessity and now you've kind of stumbled on to like oh okay like cole young yeah like you get get an opportunity to face a bunch of lefties by happenstance and and you destroy them great and you know all that cole young needed to be and all he needs to be uh going forward for this team at least for this year just be a league average bat and an okay second baseman and right now he is an above

average bat in a plus defensive second baseman, which is wild, didn't have that on the bingo card. But I think we knew that he'd be better than he was last year. I think we expected that. But I mean, he's really good. Like, he's the front runner right now for the gold glove. And again, it's April 27th. So there are no MVP, there are no gold gloves handed out in April. But now he's been very good.

And he has been, you know, a huge piece of this puzzle. And, you know, I also kudos to the Mariners for not trying to force him up. The lineup, you know, not, oh, we need a lead off hitter, Cole Young. Let's get it. No, just leave him where he is. Let him be comfortable. Let him hit. Let him continue to do his thing and build off of it.

And yeah, it looks like the Mariners have a really good player again. Is he going to be an MVP? Is he going to be like a perennial all-star? I don't think so, but he's going to be a really good player. And he is a really good player right now. And that's great to see from a 22-year-old getting his first, you know, season long crack at the big leagues. And it seems like he learned some things from his, his, you know, time last year, and he took him to heart, and he's improved.

And that's exactly what you want to see. Yeah. And I mean, it has to make you very excited about what the future up the middle tandem could look like for this Mariners Ball Club for many years down the line with Cole Young and Cole Emerson. Yeah. So just sensational start from Cole here, and hopefully you can keep it going because it's been a huge part of this thing. And like you said, if we were given out first month of VPs, I think Cole Young might be the guy there for the Mariners. All right. Well, switching.

gears here. I want to talk about the Mariners bullpen. You got to show those guys some love. We'll also talk a little bit more about Emerson Hancock, George Kirby, and Brian Wu in just a moment. But first a reminder of this episode of the Locktown Marys podcast is brought to you by Hems. You know, EVEy is way more common than most guys think.

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your team every day. As always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, we have a Patreon. It's called Control the Zone. Now, there we talk, Marr, Seahawks, all that good stuff. For more information, go to patreon.com forward slash control his own link in the description of this episode. Really nice to see Andres Munoz get a couple of saves here as he continues to get his swag back on the mound. That was huge.

You could see how pumped up he was after both of those saves. It was a really good series for this bullpen as a whole. Obviously Saturday, they had to cover six innings after Brian Wu was only able to go three, giving up seven. and from that point forward the bullpen only gave up two on one swing of the bat. Cooper Chriswell two run home run against Nathan Church. That was it

though. Jose Ferre goes two innings Matt Brash with a clean inning Andres Munoz gets a save like I said and then yesterday with Munoz down with Brash down the Mariners once again asked Ferre to go out there

and get them a save and he does it. Three weeks. out's very easy. Jose Ferrer is a dog. Edward Bizarro is a dog. He had himself a nice day yesterday as well, also had a big double play that he induced in the first game of the series as well. Forer, clearly the, if he dies, he dies guy.

Now for Dan Wilson, the sacrificial lamb, if you will. And obviously, the nationals used him a ton. hunt last year. But he's come through. You know, we've talked about how unlucky he's been

unfortunately and that's, you know, that's shown up in the numbers. The FIP is very low. I think it's 277 right now through his first 14 innings pitch and 15 outings, 193 R.A.

The strikeouts still not there. We know that they want to, you know, they want to get more swing and miss and they want more strikeouts out of him. But, you know, for the most part,

he's making it work. and it's really nice to see because that was obviously a controversial-ish trade in the mayor's fan base considering, you know, who they traded for him, right? But so far,

I think it's really worked out for this club. And, you know, and he's doing it despite not being exactly who the mayor's thought they were getting. But he's still finding ways. It's kind of, you know, going along with the theme of this whole series, right? It's not necessarily going according to plan, but he's still finding ways to contribute.

Yeah. You know, also the unluckiness of it all. We talked about that a lot. And hey, look at that. He got three soft hit balls and they were all outs. Imagine that. Yeah. It's almost like that's called justice or something.

To quote Batman. Justice. Justice. That's going to be the new meme whenever he has a one, two, three inning. But yeah, it's It obviously is actually a really good weekend for pretty much every acquisition The Mariners made this winter Obviously Will Wilson and Connor Joe

The minor league signing is contributing And Josh Naylor had a nice weekend I know he's an acquisition, he's a re-signed, whatever, we'll count it Mitch Garver had a really good weekend. Obviously, Ferrer had a really good weekend as well So yeah, I mean, you're open though in general They threw a quality start on Saturday, which is never what you want to say about a bullpen. You never want them to have to cover six innings,

but they did. And, you know, side note on that, Brian Wu, not really all that worried about it. If it happens again on Saturday, then we'll, then we'll talk about it. But short of that, not too worried about it. Just kind of felt like one. Second time in his life,

he's given up seven and a start like pretty abnormal. Four homers. So, you know, again, if he has another rough outing on, on Friday, we'll certainly have to talk about it and try and find out what went wrong. But for now, you know, we'll just write it off.

I don't really have any evidence that it's anything else. Yeah. It happens. Yeah. So, but yeah, the bullpen was really good. And again,

if your bullpen goes an entire weekend and the only runs they give up are from the long reliever, uh, the eighth guy in your bullpen and it's a two runs, two run home run. Like they didn't just get knocked around and give up through it like, no, just a two run home. Or okay,

that happens sometimes. Uh, that's a really good weekend. And, you know, I, I think it was a really, important weekend from Bizarro because he had been struggling with walks recently and this time

out he he got what five outs this weekend and he got them on like 15 pitches total like and I could go back and look but I'm pretty sure like 12 of them were strikes like it really is just insane what he did this weekend and it's good to see because obviously you know you need Bizarro you were kind of you built this bullpen on the idea that you were going to have 2025 Bizarro in 2026 which you know, you and I were not 100% sold on, mostly because we were worried about the health more than anything after having to throw so many innings last year.

And, you know, for Ferrer to do what he did, come out and get the big save after going two innings the day before. Yeah, he is, you know, right now his role appears to be the, what do they used to call it? The pivot guy, right? Used to be, who did that used to? Who was the first pivot guy? Do you remember?

sure Guas I think was JT was it Shargoa Casey Sadler Yeah Steckenrider Steck and Ryder Steck and Ryder

Yeah And they kind of start out in that role And they kind of Slowly build into more leverage roles But that pivot role is an important one For the Mariners They do value that pretty highly And that's where Ferrer is right now

But if he keeps throwing the ball like this If you can find his slider a little bit more consistently He's going to be pitching exclusively in the 7th or 8th inning but the good news for the Mariners is that at least, you know, when everybody's throwing the ball well, they have five of those guys that they could, you know, use as the pivot guy and not see much of a fall off. But, you know, I was already surprised to see Barrasco back to back in this series, but he looked good. Obviously, Munoz, a little shaky on Saturday, but overall, really not all that much drama.

And, yeah, the bullpen was exceptional. And, you know, it would be nice of this rotation, get on a nice little roll here and run out, you know, four or five, six inning starts in a row because the bullpen is, is, you know, been used quite a bit. Obviously, you know, Kirby and Hancock went six, so they did a nice job. We kind of threw a wrench into everything. And then we'll see again with the weather today. I think the worst thing that could happen is you start, Luis goes three, and then you have a delay. And then the bullpen has to cover six again.

Thankfully, you know, they have off days built in now. They have a Thursday off in six of the next seven weeks, five of the next six weeks. Yeah. Honestly, this game getting postponed would not be the worst thing in the world, even though they would have to potentially cover a double header. Right. Or they could play on Thursday. I don't know if the twins have Thursday off as well,

but they could just play on Thursday, fly back. It's not ideal, but I'd honestly rather lose my day off at home than play a double header. But whatever, we'll see how it goes. No, they got to go to Toronto. No, they're playing Toronto on Thursday. Okay. So you'd have to be a double header. Yeah.

or well, I guess I could always play that random makeup game somewhere on the schedule. I don't know. We'll certainly look at it if the game gets postponed tonight. But, yeah, it's, both in it was very good, you know, and it kind of gets overlooked because the Kirby and Hancock were both good enough, let's say. I don't think either, I would say either were particularly great, but they were both good enough. and, you know, obviously the big offensive explosion on, on Saturday kind of hides that.

So the bullpen kind of gets lost in the shuffle this weekend, but they were exceptional all weekend long and kind of got contributions from everybody in it, except for Alex Hoppe. Future friend of the show, Alex Hoppe, is. Let him in a game. Let him in a game, man. I mean, heck, this game gets rained out after three today. then he might be pitching that fourth inning when they come back. I felt like that second game of the A's series was a good opportunity for him to pitch, but whatever. Yeah, we know the Mariners don't use the eighth guy in their bullpen.

They insist on having him, but they don't use them. Yeah, they really don't want to use that guy typically. And eventually they'll have to use them, though. But yeah, you know, like I said, 20 minutes ago. and like you just mentioned you know Herbie and Hancock only give up two in their respective starts

but they had to battle they weren't necessarily at their best I want to ask you specifically about Hancock's start because obviously he's the guy that we're all watching right now he's kind of under a microscope any time that he pitches

so his stat line six endings pitch seven hits two run runs two walks four strikeouts and 10 hard eight balls Yeah, still doesn't have a feel really at all for the sweeper. He's just kind of frisbeeing that thing to the backstop every other time. And again, they were working on his thumb or something. I think maybe it's a hang nail or that might be affecting the grip. Yeah, they brought out the clue.

Yeah. And I know people love to be like, oh, well, he has a hang nail. You can't pitch. It's like, okay, well, you try gripping a baseball when you can't grip it. Okay. Like blah, blah, blah. It's a very real thing. But yeah, he just didn't really have it.

So he had to go to more sinkers and more. two seamers or sorry, more four seamers and cutters in this start. So he kind of had to kitchen sink it a little bit and kind of, you know, more changeups. He kind of had to just kind of adapt and change. But that's a good sign,

you know, when he doesn't have his stuff and he can't just stuff you, L. well, you know, he has to actually pitch and he has to work around traffic. Tye's done. And he has to work around traffic and all that.

Like it's a good sign that he can do it, that he's capable of doing it. And yeah, know again, I continue to say once Bryce, once Bryce is back, the only question is, is Emerson going to the bullpen or are you putting him down in Tacoma and stretching him out? Like there's, he's not, Hancock's not replacing Louise Castillo. I mean, he was inches away from another bad start. Again, credit to him for finding a way to pitch around it.

Thankfully, he wasn't facing the best lineup in the world. Not that it seemed to matter against Brian Wu, so I don't know. But to me, he looks like a reliever who is being a. to start. Especially like with the new arm angle and all that. That looks like that's a reliever arm angle to me. It also feels like the later we get into games almost like the arm angle

almost moves back up. Like he's not maintaining that low. Like I'd be interested to see like a chart of like what his arm angle is in the first versus what it is in the fifth or the sixth. I don't I'm not saying it's like super noticeable but if it's like 11 degrees

in the first and then it's like 15 in the fifth that that's significant. and that changes release points and that changes a lot of things. So again, I still think Hancock is part of the solution to the Mariners then bullpen. And I think he could very well pitch his way into high leverage usage out of that bullpen. So I'm intrigued. But also, you know, again, if you move Hancock to the bullpen and three weeks after Miller returns, it's, you know, Luis is going down with something.

Okay, well, now it's going to take a week or two for Hancock to get built back up. Is it worth it? I don't know. but also, you know, kind of the X factor here that we've talked about on occasion. Kate Anderson continues to look really good down in double A. So he's probably. He looks amazing. He's probably really close.

Keith Law should probably go watch that guy. But, you know, it's just one of those things where it's like, I don't know what they do. We've talked about this. To me, Hancock's not one of your five best starters. Let's not to say he's not a good major league starter because I think, you know, he's what, six starts in now? It's pretty good. This is a pretty good pitcher.

Yeah. 286 ERA. Yeah. Is he one of the five best for the Mariners? And again, you have to factor in the contract. You have to factor in the track record of Luis Castillo. You can't as much as you want to be like, oh, Castillo's the worst guy. They just, they're just, they're not going to do it, especially not this early.

They're not going to do it. No chance. Maybe if he had one year left on his deal, but because he doesn't because he still has two, I think that also plays a role here. Plus, it's too early to get. up on Louise Castillo just in general. Because, like, velocity's fine. The stuff isn't significantly worse than it was last year.

And he has moments like that. So he has little bumps in the room. We saw it last year. And last year, overall, the numbers were fine. Like, he was really good overall last year. It's also the big dog in the rotation. Like, that kind of thing matters to the Mariner. So, yeah, I'm not overly concerned about Luis just yet.

I'm not to the point where I'm like, that's a real conversation that we should have. not in April not in April I don't think right this second Emerson Hancock is significantly better than Luis Castillo and that's what would have to happen for the Mariners to make that move and I don't think they would be willing to make that move until post trade deadline

honestly so Hancock right now after the last couple starts the Savon page has gotten worse I remember there's quite a bit of red on there not much now the walk rate is super red you know he's not really walking anyone but outside of that it's a lot of gray

to light blue and even some darkish blue on there so still still getting a lot of you know run value you know still getting a lot of value out of his fastball but it's about it right now he's losing the sweeper more and more every start and that's an important pitch

for him like he has to have something to throw off of that forcing fastball so yeah it just it just feels like he's better equipped especially right now with this arm angle to pitch in shorter spurs, which means he's a reliever. Again, I just, I feel like when I'm watching him,

I'm watching a reliever pitching for five to six innings. Right. I think you might be a pretty good reliever though. So we'll see what they decided to do. Yeah. We'll see he might be one of those guys who like, hey, but not we needed two bullpen arms.

No, maybe just one. And like we talked about with hyphen on Friday, like obviously that's very disappointing for him because like, you know, if you're a pitcher in the majors, like the way you're making your money is, by pitching out of the rotation.

Obviously, you know, relievers do get paid, but if you're a starting pitcher, you know, even if you're just kind of a mediocre starting pitcher, you're probably going to get like $18 to $20 million a year. I think we're probably going to, this is probably the last year of Emerson Hancock in Seattle. He wants to start. He thinks he can. If the Mariners can get starter value for him and trade talks this winter, if there are such thing as trade talks this winter, then, you know, you. Yeah, I just think the price is probably going to be a little too good to pass up. But we'll see.

You know, again, that's a problem for six months from now. Right now, Hancock, to me, looks like a very clear odd man out in this rotation. By the way, Bryce Miller had another rehab start. He continues to look very good as well. So I'm expecting a pretty big year out of Bryce. So unfortunately, you know, it stinks for Hancock. It's great for the Mariners to have this problem, though. No question about it.

Yeah. And, I mean, at the very least, he's held it down to start the year. has had a couple of really, really fantastic starts. And yesterday, battled, right? And, you know, that's nice to see. Like, even when you don't have your best stuff, that you can still find a way to give your club a chance to win.

And he absolutely did that yesterday. So props to Emerson, Hancock. All right. Well, that's going to do up for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown marriage podcast. Part of the lockdown podcast network, your team every day. And once again, if you never miss an episode, it's time to make it official, join the lockdown every day or club and get

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