Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Despite Rough Ending, Seattle Mariners Get the Homestand They NEEDED

Starting point is 00:00:00 Well, it didn't end well, but the Mariners go four and two against two of baseball's best. Let's talk about it. 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 it is Wednesday, August 26, 2026. My name is Tadang Azal. I'm joined, as always, by my co-host, Colby Patnode.

Starting point is 00:00:29 So today's game is technically not over yet, but it's basically at the end of the marines are down like six to nothing so we're getting out ahead of this now uh today's likely loss aside though it was a really good homestown for the marries they get four and two against the cubs and phillies george kirby and cal raleigh especially seemed to get their groove back and now they're six games away from the easiest stretch of their entire schedule still ways to go lot can happen in that time of course but the marines did what they needed to do at home and they're close to setting themselves in solid position to make a run in September. Yeah, you know, it's just, it's a little unfortunate because when you're so far back of so many teams,

Starting point is 00:01:12 not that they're super far back, but, you know, every win, you're probably going to pick up ground on somebody that you need to, which is nice, but every loss, you're probably going to lose ground on somebody. So every loss, unfortunately, does sting a little bit more, regardless of, you know, how good the homestand was. But at the end of the day, the Mariners took four out of six from, two playoff teams after going on the road and playing pretty well against arguably the best team, at least record-wise, in baseball, and taking two of three and probably should have swept the hated Houston Astros. So they have been playing better ball as of late.

Starting point is 00:01:46 I think they won eight of their last 13. I mean, maybe nine out of 13 if they can mount some kind of impressive comeback in this game. But yeah, they're playing better baseball, something we've talked about gradually. like they're making fewer mistakes or having better at bats. And yeah, a lot, you know, a lot can be said about them, you know, going four and two. And the two losses were by a combined score of pending 25 to 2. And that's obviously not great.

Starting point is 00:02:16 But at the end of the day, the loss is the amount of runs you lose by does not matter. It just matters how many of those games you win. And they won four out of six against two really good, you know, teams, two teams that are definitely going to the playoffs and two teams that are, absolutely world series contenders and they went in there and they took two out of or they took two out of three in both of the series and you could squabble over like oh did they get lucky against the cubs and like oh what an un you know can't count on wins like that blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah doesn't matter they won those games those count and they played better they played better than their opponent for long enough in order to win both of these series which is something they had to start doing uh again

Starting point is 00:02:58 we sit today or as we sit right now recording this they're probably 11 and 12 in the month of August with today's loss but that's not awful at all considering the quality of the opponent they've had to play pretty much all month and it doesn't get easier on the next road trip but after that it does at least on paper we know how much what what is happening on paper matters to the 2026 Seattle Mariners but sure this is the reality of where they are so At the end of the day, hopefully the Yankees can help you out. Hopefully the White Sox can help you out and you can gain some ground on your off day tomorrow as well as not losing any ground tonight. But you're still in pretty solid position despite everything.

Starting point is 00:03:44 And you are starting to play better ball. So that is the big takeaway from this from this homestand, not the fact that they got dogwalk twice. It is that they won four games against two really good teams, including, you know, beating up on on Zach Wheeler. and finding a way to win against a good Cubs team with your kind of backups to backups, contributing big and also getting some big games from your stars, which is nice. There's been a nice mix of how they won on this homestown. And again, we started to see this turn a little bit on the last road trip.

Starting point is 00:04:21 So it's been a couple weeks of really solid baseball. The results haven't always been what we've wanted. But overall, the baseball has been much, much better for the last. 10 to 14 days. It absolutely has. And, you know, we'll talk more tomorrow about what this team needs to do on the upcoming road trip to kind of just stay in the mix of things. But honestly, like, we'll say one thing and the complete opposite will happen.

Starting point is 00:04:44 You know, the Marys could go one and five and the, the Rangers will go two and four, or they'll go one and five or they'll go one and six or whatever, because that's just kind of like how this division has gone. But as long as you can stay within striking distance of both the Rangers and the Astros, you are going to get two head-to-head opportunities against those teams. You've got three games against the Rangers and two games against the Astros in the month of September. All five of those games are at home as well.

Starting point is 00:05:11 So if you can stay within reach of those teams going into those series, then you're in a pretty solid spot. Yeah. And, you know, again, the rest of the schedule, aside from those five games. the Boston series runs into September, but after that, it is those two teams and a whole... Four against the A's, three against the Rangers, three against the A's, three against the Angels,

Starting point is 00:05:37 three against the Rockies, two against the Astros, four against the Angels. Yeah, the Angels playing some decent ball recently, by the way, but we'll see where you're at when you play them. You've got to focus on the series right in front of you, and, you know, look, you're going to face some good pitching regardless. That's just kind of the way the schedule is going to work. work out like this weekend you have to face cease and soriano so and also scherzer who even though he

Starting point is 00:06:02 sucks is still dominated you uh despite being you know terrible now uh so yeah i mean we'll see how it all goes but for now the mariner's playing good baseball they get an off day tomorrow to travel and hopefully reset the bullpen a little bit the dan emptied out the the pen today to try and keep his team in this game. Thankfully, he has an off day tomorrow to kind of let everybody reset. But, yeah, they're in pretty good shape overall in terms of where they're at the standings. Mike Ed Donovan back this weekend, hopefully by the Boston series as well. And again, they're finding contributions from, you know, role players.

Starting point is 00:06:41 They're finding contributions from some guys who had struggled recently in their bullpen. And, yeah, today, notwithstanding, they got some major contributions from Cal Raleigh. and Julio Rodriguez on this homestand as well. And we know how important those two guys are to the whole operation. So again, difficult way to end it as, you know, has kind of been the thing in these last four or five series. Just one really absolutely brutal loss, either because it was, you know, awful how you played and you just got dogwalked or you blew a game you probably should have won. It's been like that. But, you know, in large part, you played very good baseball.

Starting point is 00:07:18 You won three of your last four series. Could have easily been one five series in a row. there's obviously questions about Wu and Miller and, you know, how back is Cala Lolly, if at all. But yeah, we'll get into the Wu and Miller stuff here in a few. But yeah. Yeah, but obviously, really good sign for the Mariners. And I get it. If you're if you're like, nope, nope, not believing yet.

Starting point is 00:07:43 Like, yeah, no, I mean, I get it, man. Ty's trying to pretend that he's not buying in, but I could tell just from the tone. I mean, like, text messages that he's like, not believing yet. he's like, ah, they're going to make me believe, aren't they? Well, no, what I, what I texted you last night, and it's true. And I said this on my short last night after the game as well. It's like, is like if Cal Raleigh, shut up, Cal Raleigh is indeed back, that changes everything for this club. It does.

Starting point is 00:08:10 It changes everything. Yeah. I mean, obviously he's the rising tide that lifts all the boats. He's the most dangerous hitter in this lineup. Again, rough day today. doubt about that. Who had a good day. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:08:28 Is that Johnny Parada had a decent day? Paradei reached base twice. I think Taylor Ward had three hard hit balls with nothing to show for it. So a couple of guys had a decent day. The bullpen was really good in support of Brian Wu, who sucked. So. But yeah, anyways, yeah, if Cal is anywhere close to what he was last year for the first for the last five weeks of the season, uh,

Starting point is 00:08:54 you're going to win the division. I feel very comfortable in saying that, but we have to see he did it. He had three really good games on the homestand and he had a couple. And today was a real stinker. So, you know, who knows how this is going to end up and, and Cal has to do it for multiple weeks in a rubble like we talked about the other day. In zone contact rate is way up over the last, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:15 two, three weeks now. The strikeouts are down. The walks are up. We're seeing him get to the power easier. So we'll see. see if it can continue. But yeah, Cal is an absolute game changer. And he is the X factor, him and Julio. Either one of them hits to their capabilities, you know, when they get red hot and we know what they can do. If either one of those things happen, this team's probably winning the division by a couple of games. And if both of those things happen, they're a legitimate threat

Starting point is 00:09:40 in the playoffs, regardless of how you feel about, you know, how they got in. Yeah. Because those two guys can absolutely carry a lineup for weeks at a time. Agreed. And again, to reiterate, rate, we're not talking about Cal potentially being back because he had four home runs in two games. We're talking about overall. Yeah, it does help, but it's overall the quality of a bat has gotten way better

Starting point is 00:10:03 since really the start of the last road trip. It's been very encouraging, and so hopefully that continues again today a little bit of a step back but also a pretty bad day for pretty much all the boys in the lineup. Not going to get easier on Friday either. Going up against, you know, probably the

Starting point is 00:10:19 Siong. So, yeah, we'll see it goes but yeah i i did the math the mariners split or the mariners win on average obviously you know you can sweep a series and lose a series and it evens out the mariners win every series and split every two game series and four game series down the stretch county today is a loss they'll go 81 and 81 which might honestly win the division 80 might win the division like that is very much on the table here especially if they like sweep the the rangers like if three of their 17 wins come against the rangers yeah odds are yeah but again you probably have at most after today at most 12 losses if you really want to push it

Starting point is 00:11:06 to have a legit chance to win the division although then again i don't know they might win it with 78 games who knows uh but in general in general there are 20 29 games after today i believe probably have to win at least 17 to give yourself a decent shot. And so we'll see how it goes for them. But like we talked about the schedule, certainly benefits them. And when you look at who Texas still has to play and who Houston has to play, they have a massive advantage there.

Starting point is 00:11:35 But if the 2026 Mariners took advantage of every advantage they had all year, we wouldn't be talking about this. We'd be talking about what wild card team do you want to, do you want to win the wild card round as you, you know, are sitting at home on your bye week, like, which team would you most like to face if they had done that? And maybe we'd be talking about home field advantage throughout the entire freaking playoffs. But, right. Alas, we are not. We are talking about scratching our way in with 80 wins with a losing record. And that would be very, very, Mariner. And, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:08 honestly, part of me hopes that happens that way. I think that'd be pretty funny. All right. Coming up, I want to talk a little bit about the pitching. I want to talk about George Kirby's big night. I want to talk about Brian Wu struggles today and talk about how the rest of the rotation might line up as Maris hit the road in just a moment. But first a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Marriss podcast is brought to you by Amazon. This back-to-school season, spend less on your kids with Amazon. We all know how crazy the back-to-school shopping experience can be. It starts with a few items on the list. Then suddenly you're shopping for supplies and clothes and lunch gear and tech and about 10 other things you didn't see coming.

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Starting point is 00:13:32 Shop back to school at Amazon and spend less on your kids. And you're listening to the Locktime Airs podcast, part of the Locktime Podcasts Network, your team every day. thank you so much for making us here first. Listen for all things, Mariners. And also thank you for making the locked on the number one sports podcast network. And as always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more

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Starting point is 00:14:01 forward slash Control the Zone. Link in the description of this episode. So last night, the Mariners 4 to 1-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies. George Kirby goes 7 and 2-thirds, strikes out 9, walks just one, gives up six hits and only one earned run. Per pitch profiler, like all of his pitches, except for his sinker,

Starting point is 00:14:26 graded out at an above average or better clip. In fact, three of his offerings or four of his offerings, really, graded out at an elite level. He was nasty last night, went right after this Phillies lineup, especially with the fastball, which was a tick up. Velocity-wise, he was hitting 99 with regularity. And after, you know, three of his last five starts and going into that start had just been absolutely horrendous. It's been surprised to see how dominant he was against this specific opponent.

Starting point is 00:15:06 But what a bounce back from George Kirby. Yeah, you know, it's funny. He stopped. He didn't throw the sinker last night, which is good because it's a terrible. pitch for him. The sinker sucks. Like it is getting demolished. Now, to be fair, George doesn't really have a good pitch this year.

Starting point is 00:15:23 All of them have been hit fairly hard. Maybe the sweeper is the lone exception there. But one thing I did notice from George is that he didn't throw the sinker that often. It was mostly for Seamer, but he threw a lot more cutters than we've seen in the past. I believe it was

Starting point is 00:15:38 11% cutter. Last night, 12% cutter. And his season average was 2%. So I don't know. Is he ditching the sinker for a cutter? Is it just because there were a bunch of lefties in the lineup? Is it just a matchup thing? Like we talk about when we see something different from these pitchers,

Starting point is 00:15:57 like you got to see him do it more than once or twice before, you know, you can just say like that's a new thing that he's trying. But yeah, I noticed a lot of cutters last night. And same thing you did, just attacking guys. Like he threw a ton of forcing fastballs. But all the other pitches were. pretty even mixed. I think he had three other pitches that were thrown between like 15 and 12 percent, maybe even four other pitches. So it was get ahead with the fastball, challenge guys with the

Starting point is 00:16:25 fastball through a bunch of cutters for first pitch strikes as well, which is a nice wrinkle there. But he was going after guys with fastballs and then he would, you know, kind of kitchen sink it a little bit, but didn't throw that many splits or sorry, well, he did throw like two registered splits, but they were very similar to his changeup and like spin. and all that. So those might have been miscategorized because we know that he kind of shelved. Yeah. When I corrected myself from like, oh, three of his pitches graded out as elite, actually four,

Starting point is 00:16:55 like the fourth was the two splitters. Which, yeah. Yeah. And weren't discernibly different than the changeups that he threw, at least in terms of below and spin rates and things like that. So it actually had to go back and watch and see if I could see the grips. But yeah, he basically shelved the sinker, which again, his worst pitch. that's good. And he just went power pitcher George Kirby and went right after these guys and challenged them. And, you know, again, for there's been no question, even with all of his

Starting point is 00:17:23 struggles that George is capable of having outings like that. The issue is always that for every outing he gives you like that, he gives you one where he just gives you no shot to win the game whatsoever. He just gets lit up and he gives up seven runs and two innings, you know. And then everything in the middle of that is like fine, but not spectacular. Like that, is the George Kirby that we know is that the highs are really high. The lows are just as low as the highs are high and everything in the middle is usually fine. It's good, solid, but not like number two type of stuff. But on any given day, George can look like an ace. And he certainly looked like an ace last night. Yeah, absolutely. So Brian Wu did not today, however, push back from when he was

Starting point is 00:18:10 supposed to start on Saturday, comes out today, and immediately gets rocked, gives up a lead off double to Kyle Schwarber, then Bryce Harper hits a two-run bomb to left center field, which is an incredibly impressive piece of hitting at T-Mobile Park specifically. Yeah, hits off at the top of the wall, though.

Starting point is 00:18:26 Julio had a shot to Robbett. Wasn't able to do that, though. Just missed. Yeah, Wu ends up giving up a three-run home run to Schwerber his next time around in the lineup, and that pretty much spells how the day would go for Brian Wu and the Seattle Mariners this afternoon.

Starting point is 00:18:45 Wu goes four innings, gives up six earned runs on five hits, five strikeouts, one walk, on 76 pitches, eight hard hit balls in total. I guess the good news here is that Wu's arm looked fine. He looked healthy. He just didn't execute. Was catching a ton of plate. And this is not a lineup that you can be doing that and hoping to get away with it against. So yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:11 No chance. Yeah. I did. I tweeted after the first bat. Like, you better make an adjustment quick. Otherwise, this is going to be a short day for him because it was just middle third of the plate. And maybe it was up or down a little bit, but it was in that middle third section of the plate. And you are not going to get Kyle Schwerver and Bryce Harper out throwing the baseball right

Starting point is 00:19:31 there. And guess what? He didn't get them out all day. And again, the Phillies, good lineup, especially that, you know, that. those two lefties right there can do a lot of damage obviously arise different type of hitter but he's also dangerous uh but at the end of the day uh you know it just was middle middle all night long or all day long and you're just not going to survive against most teams like that but certainly not when you're serving up meatballs to bryce harper and and kowl schwarber there's just no chance uh and again lazardo was so good today that even if woo had settled down it's just hard to imagine they find a way to win this game.

Starting point is 00:20:09 Not to mention the Phillies have their full complement of high leverage arms available since you won the first two games and they didn't get to use them. So, yeah, I mean, again, it just didn't really feel like a winnable game today, regardless of how Wu pitched.

Starting point is 00:20:23 But he did not pitch well. And he seemed healthy. Vila-wise, everything was fine and all that. But got pulled after only 76 pitches. Like, is that just because they didn't want him facing the top of the order again? maybe but

Starting point is 00:20:40 I don't know I think it was more game state related than anything yeah but it's 6-0-0 you've lost this game and now you had to go Pereira had to throw an inning Spire had to throw in any Bizarro had to throw an inning

Starting point is 00:20:54 Vargas fresh off the IL had to throw two like it's just not the way Dan has typically managed these games once they get behind it's Rucker and it's Davila and guys like that so by the way Vargas 3Ks when it's two innings of work today.

Starting point is 00:21:08 This stuff looked pretty good for him from Vargas in his return, which is nice. Maybe there's some more swing and miss there. We've speculated there might be.

Starting point is 00:21:17 So yeah. Flag player Carlos Vargas. Yeah. Yes. Coming in at the last second to try and steal a win for tie, but yeah, it was just not good.

Starting point is 00:21:32 And it is unfortunate right now. The Mariners have a bit of a problem in their rotation where for Bryce Miller right now, no chance. And Wu with his shoulder thing, again, we don't know how much it's affecting him, but he's gotten pulled at 75 pitches each of the last two starts. And he had to get pushed back after his last start. So Cal Raleigh with the Golden Sambrero, by the way.

Starting point is 00:21:54 This one against Duran. I mean, Lazzardo and Duran. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay. But anyways, against Cased tomorrow, or Friday. But yeah, it was just brutal. And so, you know, it was good to see George bounce back.

Starting point is 00:22:11 Wu actually pitched well on the road. And then he just served up, you know, meatballs down the middle of the plate to the two guys you absolutely cannot do that to today. And we'll see. We'll see. I am a little concerned that they pulled him after 76. Probably the only interesting thing that happened today was Miller taking that walk out to the bullpen with Munoz in the fourth or fifth inning. Could that be a hint of things to come? possibly, certainly possible.

Starting point is 00:22:37 And I still think that the best route for that would probably be a piggyback with Cade getting the start and Bryce, you know, relieving him. But, you know, you also in, what, five days, you're getting to add another arm to your bullpen when rosters expand. So the idea of having six starters doesn't really hurt your bullpen all that much. So we'll see what they want to do. But yeah, there are some interesting questions left to have Amman. answered and we just we don't know how they're going to manage it quite yet uh so yeah so the mayor is off to toronto and boston for the next six games starting on friday and uh daniel kramer uh earlier today reporting that the mayor still don't really know what they're going to do with their rotation

Starting point is 00:23:21 uh at the very least they haven't they haven't announced what their rotation is going to look like uh part of it is kind of waiting to see what happens with woo but uh my guess i my guess is that Hancock and Cade are locked in for Friday and Saturday respectively and then everything after that is kind of up in the air at the moment so yeah

Starting point is 00:23:46 could it be Bryce Miller piggybacking with Kate on Saturday and then everyone gets bumped up a day or does Bryce make that start on Sunday I don't know update tomorrow so everybody would be pitching on normal rest anyways so yeah but yeah yep

Starting point is 00:24:02 all right that is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown podcast part of the lockdown podcast network. Your team every day for Colby Patnaud. I'm Tadangazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Tadig and Colby at C-Pan 11. That's C-PAT-1. We're also on Blue Sky.

Starting point is 00:24:19 You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB Colby in the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok at Lockdown Mariner's. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Despite Rough Ending, Seattle Mariners Get the Homestand They NEEDED

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