Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - George Kirby 'Stars' in Mariners' Mother's Day Win

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode discuss George Kirby's highly impressive MLB debut, the impact of Tom Murphy's injury and preview the Mariners' upcoming series against the Phillies.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order. 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.

Six losses later, the Mariners are back in the wind column, but snapping their losing streak may not have been the biggest story on Sunday. All that more here on today's episode of Locked on Mariners. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on podcast network, your team every day. It is Monday, May 9th, 2020,

and this is the Locked-on Mariners podcast, brought to you by Bet Online. Bet Online has you covered all season long with more props, odds, and lines than ever before. Bet Online is where the game starts. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available on all platforms. I am your host, Taday Gonzalez, reporter and editor over at all Seahawks.com. Join, as always, by my co-host, Colby Patnode. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners.

You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-E-Pat-E-E-E-B-E-E-E-B-S-E-E-E-E-C-E-E-Pat-E-E-E-E-1. Be sure to also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more and also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Visit patreon.com forward slash control the zone for more information on that if you are interested and want more of us. And if this is your first time joining us here on the lockdown Mariners podcast, welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to this. And if you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notification bell and give this video a thumbs up. We greatly appreciate it.

We're going to be talking about the impact of Tom Mariner. Murphy's injury on today's show. The Mariners also have a rare series with the Phillies starting tonight. We'll get you set for that. But first, we got to talk about George Kirby, who made his Major League debut. And yesterday's 2 to 1 win over the raise on Mother's Day. Kirby goes six innings scoreless, seven strikeouts, zero walks, 55 strikes on 81 pitches, 15 of those swinging. No Mariners pitcher has.

ever done what Kirby has done in their major league debut. Colby, what work for him? The fastball, more than anything. 48 fastballs, nine of them were called strikes. He got 27 swings on the heater, 13 whiffs. So basically half of the fastballs that were swung at were missed by the raise on Sunday. everything just really built off of that pitch. The slider was kind of his go-to secondary pitch in this outing.

It's the one he feels the best about it. He tunnels it very well with the fastball. And the velocity is not so great that the fastball, you know, averaged about 96. We saw some 93, 94 for a lot for a stretch, but we also saw some 97, 98, once or twice, I think. But you look at the fastball. It's 96.

The slider was between 88 and 90 most of the night or most of the day. And they were coming out of the exact same arm slot. They just tunneled really well. So the race had to respect the slider, which is why the fastball played up more than it normally would. Because Kirby's got a good fastball, but it's not like a Logan Gilbert fastball where it's his best pitch. It's not explosive. it doesn't run super crazy like some other guys. It's not straight, but it's certainly not an 80-grade fastball.

But yesterday, that's 80-grade results on the fastball. So it was really coming off of the slider. The reason they had to respect the slider is that he was able to throw for strikes. They got five called strikes on the slider. You got one with. He got 10 swings on it. I mean, he threw 20 sliders. It appears 15 were for strikes, which is, you know, a lot.

So it was the fastball on the slider. He threw a few changeups, a few curveballs, particularly the changeup. He threw a couple of Wander Franco, including in a 3-0 and 3-1 count, you know, to one of the best hitters in baseball. And he just challenged him with a change-up. So, yeah, it was the fastball slider show for Kirby. Ironically enough, the curveball might end up being his. his best pitch. But right now he's really just is locked in with that slider. And when you're

throwing it from the same tunnel as you are the fastball, it's very difficult to, in a split decision, if you're a hitter, to decide whether or not it's a slider or the change up. And as a result, the raise width on a lot of fastballs that were generally well placed by Kirby. These, these weren't fastballs down the middle of the plate either. So it's about his control. It's about his command and it was really about those two pitches this time out. In the future, he'll have to throw the change up in the curveball a little bit more, but hey, you don't mess with what was working yesterday and it worked for six, you know, brilliant innings. So it was just, I don't know if you could ask for anything else from a guy making his major league debut.

And as you were saying, you know, with the control, with the command, you know, those are, you know, some of his calling cards. And now, you know, it's, it's weird to say that someone looked vintage in their major league debut. But I mean, anyone who's watched George Kirby pitch down on the miners knows that this was pretty much vintage George Kirby. This is everything that he comes

as advertised. And he looked fantastic. 55 strikes and 81 pitches, like I said, 15 of those swings and misses. You don't see that out of a guy making his major league debut.

I know you got asked this last night. in your AMA that you do on the Control of Zone Twitter account. But who would you say had the better Major League debut out of George Kirby and Matt Brash? Kirby, it's not close either. Kirby was obviously sensational. He did it with his fastball. Brash was good. Don't get me wrong.

But there's a lot of sliders. It was a lot of chases. It was first time out. We know how nasty Brash's stuff is. And it just basically was. the slider and the curveball, mostly the curveball in that first outing. Didn't really get a lot out of the fastball. You know, worked a few deep counts, which Kirby really didn't.

He was able to go deeper, throw more strikes. So for me, the answer is Kirby. It's not all that close. That's not to say that Brash wasn't good. It's just Kirby was that much better than Brash was. And it certainly seems more repeatable than what Brash did is, especially when you look at Brash's control. control issues, those aren't going to come into play with Kirby now.

There's a good chance that this is the best outing we see from Kirby all year. I mean, 14, 13 whiffs on your fastball. That's highly unlikely to be repeated. But either way, you know, either way you want to spin it, we definitely saw Brash's best start of the year, his first time. So we'll see what happens. The league is going to adjust, which is why Kirby's going to have to throw a slider and his change up a little bit more.

But just in terms of comparing those two starts, you know, Brash, you could say maybe did it against a little bit better of a lineup, but the rays aren't a slouch. They're not, you know, a bad lineup whatsoever.

And Kirby just frankly dominated them. And honestly, my favorite thing about Kirby's start is that is that when he was, when this is crazy. he fell behind 3-0 to three different hitters those three hitters went 0 for 3 fell behind 2-0 to 5 hitters

they went 0 for 5 he fell behind 1-0 to 10 guys they got one hit it was a single wow so when Kirby was behind in the count there were there was behind in the count in any in any you know situation one whatever uh 10203 oh when he was behind in those counts uh the raise were uh

one for eight total so i mean i i just like that's a guy who fell behind and then he didn't always give him with the fastball we saw a couple three oh changeups and sliders uh but the fastball he got back in the count with it and he wasn't just throwing it down the middle of the plate he was hitting the corners he was up and down inside outside and that's that's incredibly mature because i feel like when you watch somebody like say matt rash or even logan gilbert lately he gets to two oh three one and you're like well he's probably walking this guy um Kirby was not i mean it just just insane his ability to throw strikes in those situations and to throw them effectively right not just you know trying to just catch the zone by

any means necessary. There's a reason behind it. There's purpose with those pitches. That's the thing that separates him. That's the thing that has separated him early on in his professional career down in the minors. And that's what I would assume is going to separate him at the major league level as well, whether that's now,

whether that's down the road. But we certainly saw a glimpse of that yesterday. And the Mariners needed a start like this because the bats went cold again. Because of course they did. they didn't score their first run of the game until they had two outs left in the bottom of the night. Abraham Toro with a solo home run to knock things up and send things to extra. Paul C. Wald came through with a big scoreless ending in the top of the 10th to set up Ty France's walkoff single in the bottom half. But yeah, the Mariners finally ended their sixth game losing skid, which is huge.

We're actually talking about a win on today's episode of Lockdown Mariners, which is it's nice. It's been a long time. It's been 84 years as the meme goes. But yeah, it's nice to finally talk about a win here. But the six days that led up to this moment were pretty, pretty brutal to watch. And one of those last days, one of those last losses included the loss of Tom Murphy as well, who dislocated his left shoulder on Friday night. We're going to be talking about the impact of his injury in just a moment, but real quick, a reminder of this episode of lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Bet Online. Our partners at BetOnline continue to be the number one source for all your betting needs and sports info. Find all the latest odds, news, and

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of the day for your next listen. Check out the Lockdown Now podcast. There are recaps of MLB games and analysis from our local experts, taking fans through the season like no other network. It is free and available wherever you get your podcast just like us. I also just realized in the BetOnline ad,

they misspelled NFL in our ad. And so I read that as NLF as they had it in there. But we were talking about NFL futures and at ad rate. So let's talk about Tom Murphy here, who is going to be out for some time with a left dislocated shoulder. That is incredibly brutal for the Mariners on a couple of levels. One, because Murphy was actually hitting pretty well at the plate for the most part.

He had kind of slowed down a little bit here as of late, but was still contributing offensively. this also means that they've had to bring up Cal Raleigh, who they just recently sent down and try with hopes of giving him what Jerry DePoto said, called a life preserver. And, you know, because obviously Raleigh was struggling mightily at the major league level. He was also not able to play that often. That obviously is going to be fixed a little bit here. He's going to get into the lineup a little bit more.

But Louis Terence right now is the number one catcher. Colia, I mean, it seems like there's probably not going to be an opportunity for them to figure or to, you know, fix this thing from the outside, at least right now. But, I mean, if that opportunity presents itself, no matter what the situation or, you know, when do they need to maybe jump on that to, I mean, because again, like I said, they were trying to give Cal Raleigh a life preserver here. they don't want him up it seems so but they kind of just have to right now so do you just roll with brian o'keef later on down the line if raleigh continues to struggle or do you just do what you can to try and get someone like wilson contraris someone like that yeah i'd be pretty aggressive on the on the trade market kind of the issue with that is that there's not a lot of good catchers available and the ones that are typically aren't getting traded. Wilson Contreras is a pretty good, he's kind of rare, actually. And we don't know if the Cubs are ready to sell yet or not. So I don't know if he's actually available. It doesn't sound like there's going to be an extension done. I fully expect him to get to free agency. And the Cubs might just trade him anyways. So it's kind of rare when you have

a catcher of that quality, at least offensively, that is available. Because typically those guys are either on good teams or they have multiple years left and catching so valuable, you just don't really want to give it away. So I'd be pretty aggressive on that, assuming that the Cubs are open to it. But short of that, there just aren't a lot of options out there that are clear and obvious upgrades. So if the time comes where I need to send Cal Raleigh back down, then yeah, I'm probably just going to roll with O'Keefe. He's a pretty good defender, at least. and Terence has been really solid beyond the plate as well. So at the very least, maybe hopefully Luis figures it out at the plate a little bit more.

And that could happen with more playing time and the further he gets away from his, you know, the week or so he missed with COVID. But we'll see. And if he doesn't, you know, hit like he did last year, then you at least need that spot to be manned by competent defenders. and Louis Terrence has proven that that's what he is throughout another guy yesterday, you know, continues to work very well with the young pitchers. So if he can turn it on, great. If he can't, well, he's still contributing defensively and Keith can do the same.

You just can't have a black hole at catcher, and there are stretches where that's what Ralee is. And he's not a good enough defender to just kind of cover that up. So I'd be pretty aggressive on Contreras. I, you know, check in on, I'm sure the merits have talked about other guys, too. I mean, I don't know if Sean Murphy's actually going to be available or not, but check in. You know, you never know what's going to happen. And don't be surprised if they make a small deal for, you know, a 28-year-old catcher we've never heard of who's going to go to AAA. Well, yeah, in all likelihood, that's probably going to be the outcome.

Because at some point, you are probably going to get Tom Murphy back this season. You know, because assuming that there's no further structural damage there. Also, it's not his throwing arm, so that's good. but yeah you know yeah but obviously any sort of injury to the upper body is bad for for catchers but yeah um so i would assume that probably at the end of the day we're we're going to see like a deal like you you described there uh the mariners got a little bit fortunate though with another injury that occurred uh with j p crawford who had to leave um saturday night's game but it turns out just back spasms which still sucks but

not something that is probably going to put him on the 10-day injured list. He's day-to-day right now. He obviously missed yesterday's game. Dillam Moore stepped in for him. Had a decent game, too, in his place. But we'll see. He got the butt, your favorite play. He got the butt down.

Was yesterday the day that he hit that ball to deep left center? And Brent Phillips made the catch up the warning track? Yeah. Yes. it was it's still an out and even the productive out really didn't matter because Ty France line in the left field corner

which would have scored anyone anyway so yay productive out that did not help you win a game at all neat I mean you know it got them to win like two seconds earlier than it would have no it didn't

so yeah uh jp's good at least so it seems they should have him back in short order I would assume maybe tonight we'll see would it like for him to get back tonight

with the Phillies coming to town I want to see the J.P. Crawford Revenge series we need it. The people deserve that. This would be his first time going up against the Phillies since being traded by Philadelphia so that would be cool and he's been red hot so far to start the year. Let's also check in on Kyle Lewis

what can you tell me about Kyle Lewis right now in his recovery. Sure. So I think we all know by now in his first swing of his rehab, and he had a home run. Went three for five that day. Went back out the next day, played left field for seven innings. They took him out. That was the plan. Then he got a scheduled day off.

Then he was supposed to play the day after that. But they scratched him late, which caused some concern. It was raining pretty hard in the area, apparently. So there maybe have been some. field condition concerns with him. Or maybe it was just, hey, let's just be ultra careful here. But either way, he's now played in the last two games consecutively. He had another home run the other day.

He is so far in 18-played appearances. He is hitting 353, 389, 765, which the numbers really don't matter. He's sitting in the ball hard. He's sitting in the tall fields. One of the home runs wasn't the opposite field. So really, again, it's just about getting his timing down. It's just about making sure he's 100% ready to go and play four or five times a week. And I think one of the big hurdles left to clear is can he play, you know, three days in a row?

Can he, you know, left field, DH, left field, or whatever it is. Can he do that? And I think once he proves that he can do that and then still be relatively healthy enough to play a fourth day if needed, then I think that's when we can really start to have this. conversation. But he's four games, four games in. He's got five days total. So two weeks to go. But again, the Mariners have an option on Lewis. If they don't feel like he's ready after this rehab sent, they can just option them down to AAA Tacoma and keep him down there. But everything seems to be tracking towards him coming back to the big leagues when his rehab assignment is

officially over. And the Mariners could use him. So so far mostly good. Lewis also scored yesterday slid into home. We know the history of Lewis sliding into home and obviously with the new knee injury and all that stuff. But he was fine. Popped right up. No concerns there. So it looks like he's pretty good.

Again, it's just a matter of making sure he can play, you know, fairly frequently without re-injuring himself or without too much wear and tear. And so they're going to be cautious. It'll be interesting to see if he plays today. I don't know if the rainiers are off today or not But if he is if they are playing and he does he is in the lineup That would be three days in a row Which would be a pretty good sign for where he's at right now

Yeah, so I would say next homestan Sorry next homestan might be a good mark Maybe Boston when they go to Boston after the Toronto series Maybe more than likely next homestan Yeah So we're getting closer we're getting closer and he would be a huge help like you said like we've talked about you know we we talked about him quite a bit on last week's slate of locked on mariners episodes and yeah we'll continue to say it that would

be a huge huge boost for this team right now offensively you know in particular so the mariners have the fillies coming to town tonight should be interesting don't really get to see the Phillies much so that should be a lot of fun we're going to be talking about that getting you set for tonight's game in just a moment but real quick a reminder this episode of Lockdown Mariners. It's brought to you by Built Bar. Summer is coming and with summer you're going to need some food on the go and Built bars are the perfect snack to take with you on family vacations. Just throw them in your bags and your kids backpacks. Make sure that everyone has a bar so you are fueled for your summer adventures. And the best part about built bars, they're healthy and

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flavors are coming out all the time. Check them out at built.com. Use promo code locked 15 for 15% off your order again that's LOC KED 1 5 for 15% off your order at built.com so we got the Phillies coming to T-Mobile Park tonight and we have Robbie Ray or no it's actually not Robbie Ray tonight it's going to be Chris Flexen tonight I thought the plan was to have Ray on the bump that's interesting all right so we got Chris Flexon on the bump never mind against Ranger Suarez who's been solid this year for the Phillies Phillies right now though scuffling 12 and 6th 12 and 16, pretty much in the same spot as the Mariners, where they are incredibly talented,

just underperforming right now. The offense has been pretty solid, though, for them. J.T. Real Muto, Kyle Schwarber, Alec, Baum, Bryce Harper, Nick Cassiano, Gene Seguera, D.D. Grigorious. They're all over WRC plus of 100 right now. But, yeah, the big news with them, though, is that Zach Wheeler and Zach Eflin are now on the COVID list. neither one of those guys will be appearing for the Phillies. I believe that Eflin was not supposed to pitch in the series,

but Wheeler was. So that's kind of a big help for the Mariners. They are going to face Aaron Nola tomorrow, though. We'll talk about that tomorrow, of course. But yeah, so Flexing gets an extra day of rest here to make way for Kirby's debut yesterday. Where are you hoping to see out of Chris? Yeah, just kind of keep doing what you've been doing. It's going to be a pretty,

I mean, obviously, you know, you have to watch out for Harper. You can take over a game in a matter of seconds. And Schwabber, tremendous power as well. So those two lefties are going to be kind of the dangerous bats to watch. Obviously, Cassiano's a good hitter. He's struggling a little bit right now. Alec Baum is off to a great start, another lefty. So there are going to be some lefties in this lineup that are going to

to necessitate flexing to have his good cutter. And that's really the pitch that matters the most. Flexon has this good cutter. He'll keep you in this game. If he doesn't, it could get ugly pretty early, but that's pretty much the scouting report on Flexen, regardless of who pitches. So it's really not that big of a difference between matchup for Flex.

And if he has the cutter, he's got a shot. If he doesn't, I mean, he better have a plus changeup or it's going to get real ugly real fast. So we'll see how it goes. but it does feel like this is a decent matchup for Flexen but it's certainly not one that you can kind of you know kind of

laxadaisically pitch against did that make sense? Like he's got to be aggressive with the cutter and it has to be a quality pitch because particularly Schwerber and Harper you leave one of those suckers middle in it's going a long way so yeah yeah

you have to be aggressive, but you have to get in on in their hands. So we'll see what style or what type of pitcher we get from Chris Flexen. But he's probably been your most consistent starter all year. So you have to feel reasonably good about it at least. Yeah. You want to get into this bullpen too. It is top 10 right now in F-4, but you look at some of the numbers, 356 FIPP, 4-4-3 ERA.

They're walking basically four guys. per nine. It's not a great unit. So I want to try to get into this bullpen here, especially with guys like Aaron Nola on the bump. Swares can be had. He has looked good at times this year, but he can be had. 4-6-3 ERA for Ranger Swares heading into this game. But yeah, this is a good opportunity for the Mariners to hopefully string together some wins here and make up for that losing streak that they had. Best way that you can do that to make up for that losing streak, go win six in a row. That'd be a good way to start.

Let's take it one game at a time, though. Yeah. I mean, the starting pitching probabilities for the Mets series, Max Scherz or Chris Bassler, Carlos Carrasco. Well, even if they were coming out with, you know, whoever, you know, me, I could be pitching. the Mariners would still, you know, maybe only get one run. So in that situation. So does it really change anything? Does it really?

But seriously, does it really change anything who's on the bump for the other team? Does it really with the Mariners right now? Does it? It's been rough to say the least, though. It's been rough for the offense lately. They did have a good night the other night, though, before, you know, Manwell, Margot tapped into his Salvador Perez and snatch our souls. Yeah.

Otherwise, I know a huge, huge respect and admiration is due to Paul Seawald, who absolutely got torched and lit up and in all probability cost the Mariners, you know, at least a series split, which would have been huge for momentum right now. He was bad. And then what does he do? He comes out yesterday. Guy on second, you know, the Little League X-Ring rules, as Jason Churchill likes to call it, absolute nails, pure nails.

you know, doesn't give up a run, doesn't allow the guy to advance even. It just absolutely incredible. So that's what great relievers do. So Paul Sewell certainly is putting himself in that category. So I wanted to make sure we gave him some credit here before the end of the show. Yeah, absolutely. That's one of your leaders. And he's handled himself in a very leadership way over the last couple days.

You know, like you said, he gets knocked around the one night. basically loses the game for them after a huge momentum swing too probably one of the best moments of the season had they won that game we'd be looking back on with the Jerry Kellnick's pinch hit home run instead they end up losing that game because you know Seawald obviously gets torched for the for the three run shot it's Margo and again stop pitching to Manwell Margo at least thankfully for now they are done with Manwell Margo

for this year barring a trade maybe they should have listened to us and trade it for Manwell Margo this off season. Just a thought. Us? Well, I mean, I liked him. I liked him. I like that was the mostly me thing. But yeah, sure, whatever.

You know, we're a packaged deal here. You know, it's like a marriage. Your money is my money and my money is your money, right? Right? Right? Since when? Since four years ago when we started podcasting, we we entered a binding contract.

It's interesting. So when can I expect my split of the all Seahawks money? That's what I thought. And that's going to do a fresh show today. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariner's podcast for Colby Patnode. I'm tidying Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez,

and C-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-E-P-E-E-E-P-A-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen of the day. Just like you do here every day, we greatly appreciate your support. Now make your second listen to the day, the Lockdown MLB podcast. That's where Paul Francis Sullivan and please call him Sully brings you his unique perspective on the major leagues present and past. It's free wherever you get your podcast just like us. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we will see you tomorrow.

Peace.