Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Connor Joe, Darren McCaughan, and Pitch Clocks

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

The Mariners split the two-game series in Colorado against the Rockies. D.C. talks about both games, and talks about Rockies rookie Connor Joe. Incidentally, D.C. cannot say "Rockies rookie" ten times fast -- try it at home. In this afternoon's game Darren McCaughan made his Major League debut for the Mariners and gave the bullpen much needed length, tossing five innings. To close out the show, Locked On Mariners Contributor Jon Miller and Clive Braithwaite IV join D.C. to read the two listener emails that they did not get to yesterday. A fan from Clive's home country wrote in describing a parallel between baseball and cricket. 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.

Today on Locked-on Mariners, after an evil sorceress escapes her confinement and vows to destroy Earth, I recruit a team of teenagers to form an elite group of superheroes to foil her plans. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. You know, gang, the Pink Power Ranger was my first TV crush. Thank you very much, J.M. Good evening to those of you out there in podcast land. We've got two games to discuss today, as well as finishing up our venture into the fan mailbag today on Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, brought to you by the Spotify Green Room.

Please remember to download and follow this program using whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked on Mariner's podcast or any program here on the Locked-on Podcast Network or T-L-O-P-N, or of course, the perennial favorite, Tlopin. Feeling much better, obviously, today than I have over the last few days. We had two listener emails that we did not get to yesterday, since I spent so much time yammering. We'll read those in C Block at the end of the show.

And in the first two segments, today we'll talk about the brief two game series in Colorado, which wound up being a split, not going to spend a tremendous amount of time talking about either game because I want to leave enough time at the end of the show to reply to those two emails. John Miller will be joining me once again to reply to those emails, and Clive Braithway to the 4th, we'll be here as well.

We'll begin with last night's game, and Marco Gonzalez's homecoming. Remember, he's a Colorado kid. And while it was not vintage Marco last night, he did keep the team in the game for his five innings. He did walk three, however, and had at least one runner on base in every inning that he was in there, and he gave up six hits. Didn't give up any runs until the fifth inning, however. Joshua Fuentes led off that inning with a walk,

was sacrifice bunted along to second base by starting pitcher Hermann Marquez. Garrett Hampson popped out, and then Connor Joe, 28-year-old rookie. Connor Joe, blasted one out to center field for his first Major League home run and a 2-0 Colorado lead. It was an 88-mile-an-hour fastball in the middle of the plate just above the knees. Mr. Joe had a good game. He added a double in the seventh inning against the avocado and also had an outfield assist. Shedlong Jr. had an outfield assist of his own,

throwing out Ryan McMahon at third base in the sixth inning. Scoring kind of came in bunches for both teams. Following the Rockies two-run fifth inning, the Mariners came back with four in the sixth against Mr. Marquez. He was spectacular the last time he faced the Mariners back on June 23rd in Seattle and was very good in his first five innings yesterday, just blew up in the sixth. Kyle Seeger hit a one-out double,

tie France then singled, great piece of hitting from Frenchie taking an outside slider and he just punched it into right field. I was very impressed with that. That brought up rookie Cal Raleigh, who had collected his first big league hit earlier in the game on kind of a flare of sorts out to center field. This time, he smoked one into the right center field gap. Both runners scored, and Mr. Raleigh earned his first two Major League RBI and his first big league double.

His swing sort of reminds me of Matt Williams. power-hitting third baseman for the Giants from several years ago. Also spent some time with Cleveland and Arizona. Anyways, Raleigh had tied up the game, but the M's were not dud. Oh, no. One out later, Dylan Moore got a ball that caught way too much of the plate, and he crushed it out to left field, no doubt about that one leaving, and it gave the Ms a four-to-two lead.

They would add two more in the seventh against reliever, Tyler Kinley. Luis Torrance, who was pinch-hitting for the pitcher spot, led off with a single, and was followed by J.P. Crawford, who also singled. One out later, Kyle Seeger, pardon me, hit into a force play. Crawford was out at second, but Seeger was safe at first, and Torrens advanced to third. That brought up Ty France, who split the left center field gap for a two-run double and a six-to-two Mariners lead. Rocky's got two runs back in the bottom of the eighth against Paul Seawald.

Charlie Blackman led off with a triple, then C.J. Crohn scorched a two-run home run, but Seawalt got the next three guys in succession to limit the damage. The Mariners did not score in the ninth, and Kendall Graveman was brought in to try to nail it down in the bottom of the ninth. He did walk the lead-off hitter, but then got the next three guys in a row to end the ballgame, six to four Mariners. We're going to move on to the trivia corner at this point in time.

Again, I want to leave enough time at the end of the show to finish up our dive into the fan mailbag. In today's trivia corner, I'm going to speak a little bit about Connor Joe. But before I do that, I'm going to tell you about the Spotify Green Room. This episode is brought to you by the Spotify Green Room, as I just said. Green Room is the first social audio platform made for sports fans. The app is free to download, and once you're in, you can talk with me, other fans, athletes, and insiders in real time about your favorite team or sports.

I host rooms once a week for Locked-on Mariners. I did mine actually earlier today during the later last few winnings of the ball game. John Miller was with me, and we talked a lot about catching, specifically about how bad Luis Torrance is at it, and also talked a little bit about Joe Oliver, who was not the best defensive catcher either. Green Room is a perfect place to start or join conversations about the league. You'll find fans there just like yourself for watch parties, debates, post-game breakdowns, and of course reacting to big news or rumors. Download the free Green Room app now, currently available for all iOS devices with a beta version for Android. Be sure to create

profile and join the Major League Baseball group for the latest league updates. Follow me at Locked on Mariners to be notified when my room goes live. Green Room, changing the way we talk about sports. Connor Joe had a very good game yesterday against the Mariners, two for five, home run and a double, and an outfield assist. Turns out he's got quite the story. He's a former first round draft pick, was selected 39th overall in 2014, so I'm guessing that's the supplemental first round.

He then bounced around a few organizations in the subsequent years, was a Rule 5 draft pick in 2019, played a few games for the Giants before being sent out, and then prior to the 2020 season, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and underwent surgery on March 18th of that year. He didn't play at all while recovering and was signed by the Rockies to a minor league contract on November 20th.

He was called up to the Big League. Biggs by Colorado on May 7. And since then, he's played 27 games and is slashing 254, 353, 356. Yesterday was his first game in the Biggs in a month, having spent the last few weeks back in AAA at Albuquerque. Being a former first round draft pick, laboring in the minors for as long as he did, going from organization to organization, being a Rule 5 draft pick, and then having to come back from testicular cancer, Connor Joe has. certainly had a tough path to where he is now, and I hope he goes on to have a productive big league career.

I will certainly be rooting for him. Coming up, what's up with Darren McCawkin? I don't know. I'll ask him when he gets home. Welcome back to Lockdown Mariners. Here once again is your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you very much, Joey Martin. After the first inning this afternoon, I thought this was going to be another three-and-a-half-hour ballgame.

The first inning took a long time. The rest of the game did not, however, and I was quite happy about that. However, it was almost a lost game from the start. It was another bullpen day for the M's, and getting the spot start today was Keenan Middleton, his first major league start, and he was wild.

However, the trouble started with a bloop hit by lead-off hiter Rameel Tapia. He then stole second base and then scored on a Charlie Blackman single, one out later. Trevor's story followed with a scorched single into right field, much better struck than the first two hits, and then Ryan McMahon singled to load up the bases,

another pretty well-hit ball. Then Middleton throws four pitches outside the strike zone to C.J. Cron, handing him a gift-wrapped RBI. Sam Hilliard struck out, and it actually was a pretty poor at bat for Mr. Hilliard, I thought. But then Dom Nunez hit a basis clearing double off the wall in right center. A few years ago, that would have been a grand slam. They didn't used to have those tall walls in front of the,

bullpen. I honestly do not know when they were installed. But had they not been there, it would have been way out of the park, but it still did a lot of damage, and the Rocks had a five-nothing lead after the first inning. The M's got one right back, however, in the bottom of the second. Kyle Seeger homered on the first pitch of the inning, and then Louise Torenz walked. It looked like the Ms were going to claw their way back into it, or at least try. But then Tom Murphy grounded into a double play, Jared Kelnick struck out, and that was that. Keenan Middleton would not go out for the second inning. Instead, Darren McCawken was brought in to make his major league debut.

He was called up to the big leagues prior to today's game for bullpen depth, and Dylan Thomas was sent back out. Anyways, McCawken pitched five innings in relief and really saved the rest of the pen. He did not allow a hit, but he did walk three and allowed one run on a sacrifice fly. But my goodness, what an effort for the young man making his major league debut. He also got in two at-bats and looked like he had a pretty decent idea of what the heck he was doing up there. He grounded out twice, so he made contact, and in his first at-bat, it began with a 3-0 count. Yesterday's starter, Marco Gonzalez, is also a pretty good hitting pitcher.

He's a former John Olerud Award winner, which is for the best two-way player in college. But I'm digressing back to this afternoon's game, although there really is not that much to talk about following that. the mariner offense did not have many base runners. Three of the five hits they collected were solo home runs against starter Austin Gomber. They only walked once, which was also against Mr. Gomber. The Rockies, meanwhile,

only collected six hits, but they walked five times. One of them scoring a run. It was a basis-loaded walk. Mentioned that earlier. Five of their six hits came against Mr. Middleton in his only inning, and three of their five bases on balls came at the

expensive Mr. McCawken. Not a great game for the Mariners, but at least it was quick. Usually their losses drag on and take forever and ever. Not this one. To finish up some thoughts on Mr. McCawkin, he had been a starter in the minor leagues, pitched five innings this afternoon. He going forward could be a very good candidate to spot start these bullpen games for the Mariners, and they could wind up being more than bullpen games.

He's a legitimate starting pitcher, and if he can go out there every sixth day now, and give the Mariners five innings, maybe more, while Justice Sheffield is on the shelf as well as Justin Dunn, then the Mariners really have something here. Even though he did walk three, I was pretty impressed with him. The M's begin a four-game series in Oakland in Seattle, tomorrow night, which we will be talking about on tomorrow's show, with Locked-on A's host, Jason Burke.

If you have a question or comment, please send it into Locked-on Mariners at gmail.com. We're doing one more mailbag episode, before my finale next Friday, and the mailbag episode will be the day before next Thursday, a week from tomorrow. Questions and comments on any subject are highly encouraged. Does not have to be about the Mariners,

does not have to be about baseball, doesn't even have to be about sports. Coming up, your listener emails, including comments on the pace of play, tertiary colors, and the Japanese stock market. But first, this word from built bar the greatest protein bars in the history of history. Soft and easy to chew.

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a dip, make it fully loaded chew. Fully loaded chew.com. Now back to Lockdown Mariners and your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you very much, J.M. Final segment of the day here on this evening edition of Locked Mariners. Going to continue what we started on yesterday's show, diving into the fan mailbag. There were two emails that we did not get to. And here to read them for us is my personal secretary.

Clive Braithwaite to the fourth. Clive, thank you for coming back. It's my pleasure. I'm happy to be able to appear once more before your final show at the end of next week. That's actually a good point. Also with me to answer the other two emails, Locked on Mariner's contributor,

John Miller, John, how art thou? Thou art well. I gotta stop saying that, don't I? Anyways, we have two more emails. Clive, let's get right to it. What's the first one? Our first email this evening is a simple one from Aidan Soames in East Hampton, Connecticut. He asks, out of all the places in the world,

what place would you want to travel to the most? Thank you again for writing in Aden. Always good to hear from you. I am not much of a traveler, to be honest. I've never had the money necessary to be able to do a lot of traveling. And I also hate to fly. I do not take to flying very well at all. So wherever I go, pretty much, I drive if I can.

If I had the opportunity, though, I'd love to spend some time in Japan. I've always been fascinated with Japanese culture and the Japanese language. But I wouldn't want to go over there until I had at least a decent grasp on the language. I know how to pronounce it for the most. part, but I don't read it and I don't speak it. And I don't think it's fair if I were to travel somewhere where I couldn't communicate. I do have a realistic goal, though. I would at one point like to have visited all 48 contiguous states, and even Alaska too, since you can drive there through British Columbia and the Yukon. That one I might actually be able to accomplish,

and just driving through them is good enough for me just to say I've been there. And finally, there's an inside joke amongst me and my group of friends, John included. I would at one point like to go to Yellowknife and say that I've been there. I'm not going to explain the inside joke on the air because nobody besides my group of friends would find it funny. John, if you had the opportunity to go anywhere you chose, where would it be? Well, since this is a baseball show, I'll answer first in that context. Yes. As big of a Dodger fan as I am, I have somehow never been to Dodger fan.

stadium. So that's on the bucket list, eh? Yes. And since you mentioned bucket list, something else that has long been on my bucket list, I would love to hike the Grand Canyon. Ooh, I hadn't thought of that. That'd be fun. Any other places that you would want to visit John outside of our great home country, or would you rather stay stateside? I have always wanted to visit the Middle East.

Primarily, I would want to visit Israel, but I say the Middle East. least because there are some sites in Egypt or Jordan or stuff like that that I would also very much like to see. There is a lot of history in that part of the world. History is something that interests me, and there's a lot of historical stuff around the world that I, in theory, would like to see. But again, I don't take to flying very well. So that kind of hinders that endeavor.

Plus, it costs a fortune to travel internationally. And I'm probably never going to have that kind of money. But if I had the money, I would endure an overseas flight to spend some time in Japan. But again, a more realistic goal, one that probably is within grasp, is to at least drive through the lower 48 states. Aidan, thank you very much once again for writing in. We have got one more email to get to. Clive hit it.

Our final email is not so much a question, but some observations from overseas from Dan. and I feel a little sense of keenship since Dan is from England. D.C., don't you dare make a joke about England, Dan and John Fort Coley. I actually wasn't going to, but now I don't have to, Clive, so thank you for that. What does Dan have to say? Dan Wright, I've started following the Mariners this season, and your podcast has been a great way to keep up to date, which is quite a difficult thing to do in England. Listening to yesterday's podcast, the topic of slower pitch counts being a problem interested me, mainly because we have the exact same problem in cricket.

I don't know why it is, whether it's the players exerting more energy than they used to and needing longer breaks between pitches or something else. But just know that baseball is not alone with this problem and it's a cricket drum I've been banging for years. It's gotten that badding cricket that the ICC, the governing board, have had to increase fines for slow over rates, i.e. the number of pitches thrown per hour. Anyway, keep up the good work, good luck with school and let me know that Flan recipe. That recipe was apparently very good because you're cheerleaders that you coach enjoyed it. I think it's great that the one joke that the listeners have written in about and continue to perpetuate is the joke that you came up with John. You should be very proud of yourself for that.

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much, Dan, for writing in. Yeah, I mean, this isn't so much a question that it is some comments. And I'd be interested to see what Clive has to say about cricket. I don't know if he watched cricket when he was in England, but he's lived over here for so many years now. We actually touched on this yesterday while speaking about the foreign substances and umpiring checks, John,

in that it would be very easy to implement a pitch clock. It wouldn't be anything revolutionary. And it would seem to me to not solve all the problems baseball has with pace of play, but I think it would solve a lot of them. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I would not mind that. They already have a clock for between innings

to make sure that they're, starting on time. Yep. And as we previously mentioned, they have a clock for the managers to, geez, this major league baseball is starting to turn into the NBA. They've got a clock for everything, where they, for managers to request replay. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that they're starting to implement all these

clocks. There's also a clock that the umpires are supposed to adhere to in reviewing a play that's under review. They don't ever adhere to that clock, but it's there. But in this case, in timing everything, I don't mind that so much. When the idea of a pitch clock first was talked about several years ago,

I was kind of ambivalent, and now I am 100% for it. And as I was talking with Jason Hernandez about this last week or the week before, I don't recall exactly when, You mentioned that the NBA has a shot clock. It's got a free throw clock, which I didn't know until Jason told me. The NFL has a play clock.

The PBA has a shot clock. They give bowlers 25 seconds to begin their approach, you know, to go through their pre-shot routine. And at 25 seconds, there's plenty of time to be able to do that. And another thing, remember when the home run derby, when players started taking so much time between pitches, in the home run derby, and it went from a two and a half hour, three hour event to a four and a half hour event. They had to change that, and they completely revamped the whole thing to a timed format. And I didn't think that that was a good idea going into it, but after the first few rounds, I loved it. And there's no reason why they can't implement a pitch clock.

And pitchers are not the only problem. It is, you know, batters kind of stepping out of the box and pulling a Nomar Garcia para as it were, because he would take a long time between pitches. Mike Hargrove was known as the human rain delay. And there are so many human rain delays around these days who want to, you know, just get set up perfectly. So it's not all on the pitchers,

although they're a large part of it, especially when there are runners on base. But you got to implement a pitch clock, I think, John. and with, I'm not going to say Kaiser Manfred this time, but with Commissioner Manfred willing to drop the seven-inning games for double-headers and drop the T-ball free runner in extra innings, this is something that he might want to look at, because they're also thinking about the, you know, the Universal DH,

banning the shift as another thing that's been mentioned, talked about in recent years, having to have two infielders on either side of second base. And I don't know how I feel about that, quite honestly. John, what are your thoughts on some of these potential rule changes? Kind of getting away from the email, unfortunately, or you can go back to talking about pace of play if you want to. Banning the shift, I don't see where that's going to do any good one way or the other.

That's just kind of off to me. It seems like they're meddling into game strategy where unless someone can set me straight on this, it seems to me that they really don't have any business doing that. I'll jump in, and I'll agree with you. The reason that the shift exists is because hitters do not make the adjustments of hitting the ball the other way. And I remember Harold Reynolds making this point on MLB Network that he was kind of waiting for hitters to make the adjustment so they could kind of collect more base hits and not just kind of ground out into the shift all the time. And his point was that it's obvious to him that hitters are not going to make the adjustment.

So in order to increase the offense a little bit, the shift had to be implemented, I will take the opposite position. It's on the hitters to make the adjustment and you don't reward a poor approach to hitting by changing the rules to benefit them. I agree completely. In regards to pace of play, there technically has been for years pitch clock. one of the umpires will carry a stopwatch. Oh, yeah.

And I've actually done this out on the field. I've had either my partner or myself, we've only gotten as far as three men. We don't have the luxury of four umpires, but one of us looking at our wristwatch, or a stopwatch or something, and making sure that they are moving the game along. One of the umpires will do that.

every now and then, and you can probably find clips of it, does not happen very often, where they actually catch them, and a ball is then called. It's the same thing with hitters. Once the pitcher and the catcher are in position and ready to go, if the hitter, it does not move into the box, a strike can be called on. I've seen that happen. Raoul Mondesie had that happen to him as he was walking to home plate at one point from the batters box. Joe West was the umpire. I don't remember who the pitcher was, but they were in Florida. Was it David Weathers? I don't remember, but they were facing the Marlins.

And Joe West was telling Montesey, get in the batters box, quit spending so much time in the on-deck circle. And then he faced the pitcher in motioned to home plate, and he said, play ball. And Weathers or Pat Rapper, whoever it was, threw the ball in with Montesey not in the box, and Joe West called strike one. And it happened to Dan Gladden, too. and he was called out on this particular pitch that Charlie Hudson had thrown. Gladden was spending too much time outside of the batter's box and whoever the umpire was motion for Charlie Hudson to throw into home plate

and it was right down the middle. Gladden wasn't in the box and that was strike three. I've actually seen a batter strikeout on what would be called the ball because they did not go back into the box. It's rare, but it happens. And it kind of ties into the first. first email we got yesterday in talking about the foreign substance changes, which is really a reinforcement of an existing rule. Really keeping an eye on Pinterest's timing would be a reinforcement

of an existing rule. So now I've just tied a nice little bow on our two-day email extravaganza, and we're going to call it a show. Clive, thank you very much for joining us not only today, but yesterday as well. You're welcome, sir. One more time next Thursday before I cease to exist. It's Kind of a grim way to look at it, actually. But I suppose it's true, since I doubt you'll be appearing anywhere else after my last show at the end of next week. One more email episode next Thursday before I fade off into the sunset. John, I hope you'll be able to join us next Thursday for that email show. I certainly hope so.

Indeed. Where can people find you on Twitter, sir? I can be found on Twitter or on the Spotify Green Room at Seattle Pilot 69. Excellent. Tomorrow, Jason Burke from Locked-on A's will be here to talk a little Oakland A's baseball ahead of the four-game A's-Ms series. Joining us will be Alex P. Keaton, Tukin, Tukansam, and a fishing pole. Please remember to download and follow Locked-on Mariners. Look for us in any podcasting app that springs into your brainhead there.

Leave a rating and review if your podcasting app of choice so allows. And remember to check out all the other great shows here on the Locked-on podcast network. Also, gang, on Friday, I will not be here. But that episode will be guest hosted by the aforementioned Jason Burke. Thanks once again to Clive Braithway to the 4th and to John Miller. I'm D.C. Lundberg. I will talk to you tomorrow. Have a good evening, gang. Get all the sports news you need in under 20 minutes with the Lockdown Today podcast. Host Peter Bukowski will keep you updated on the latest news in every major sport with Lockdown's team of local experts.

Follow the Lockdown Today podcast on the Odyssey app or wherever you get podcasts. This is Joey Martin speaking for Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.