Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - How the Mariners' City Connect Uniforms Came Together + Pitching Matchup of the Year So Far?!

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

The Mariners kick off a three-game set with the visiting Pirates tonight at T-Mobile Park and will be rocking their City Connect uniform for the second time this season. Mariners Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications Kevin Martinez joins the show to provide a behind-the-scenes look at how the new threads came together over the course of a three-year process. Afterwards, Ty and Colby get you set for the Pittsburgh series with an emphasis on tonight's marquee matchup between George Kirby and Pirates ace Mitch Keller.Help us out by filling out our survey!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 | @CPat11RocketMoneyStop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions -- and manage your expenses the easy way -- by going to RocketMoney.com/lockedonmlb.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase.Ultimate Pro Baseball GMTo download the game just visit probaseballgm.com or look it up on the app stores. Our listeners get a 100% free boost to their franchise when using the promo LOCKEDON (ALL CAPS) in the game store. 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.

On today's episode of Locked-on Mariners, Kevin Martinez, the senior vice president of marketing and communications for the Mariners takes us behind the scenes of how the team's city connect uniforms came together. Colby and I will also get you set for the Mariners weekend series with the Pirates 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. It is Friday, May 26, 2023.

This is Taday Gazzalus and Colby. for the Lockdown Mariners podcast brought to you by Game Time. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use promo code Lockdown MLB for $20 off your first purchase. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. Thank you so much for making us your first listen. Subscribe, like, and turn on alerts if you're watching on YouTube, or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear.

And if you're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. The link as well as our social accounts is in the district. description of this episode. And on this episode, I'll be talking to Kevin Martinez, the senior vice president of marketing and communications for the Mariners about the creation of the Mariners City Connect uniforms, which of course they'll be wearing tonight against the pirates. We're also

going to get you set for this weekend series against Pittsburgh, including tonight's electric pitching matchup between George Kirby and Mitch Keller. You can catch all the action on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Series XM via the SXM app. But first, Colby, let's talk about last night's game. The Mariners sweep the A's in four games with a three to two victory last night. Logan Gilbert goes eight strong on just 77 pitches. What did you think of the decision to not let him go the distance? Yeah, well, first of all, I want to say thank you so much for inviting me on the postgame show. Much appreciated.

Were you not at work? I just assumed you were at work. You know what they say about assuming? Yeah, I thought the decision not to let Gilbert go for the complete game. was a little weird. I understand it's the fourth time through the order, but facing the, the,

uh, the, uh, A's lineup four times through is not the same as facing the Braves lineup four times through. And at this point, Gilbert was cruising. He, I don't think he had a,

a, a, like, inning where he threw more than 15 pitches, uh, you know, after the first. So, uh, uh, he'd only allowed one base runner or two base runners.

I think two base runners since the first like, he was cruising. Like, it was as easy as easy gets for Logan Gilbert. And so at 77 pitches, you know, with a one-run game, I don't know. Like I trust Paul Seawald, but I think I'd probably trust Logan Gilbert a little bit more in that situation. Just because of how dominant he's been. So, yeah, that was weird.

I know the Mariners don't care about things like pitchers wins or complete games or anything like that. And they probably shouldn't most of the time. But in this particular case, you know, you've already won the first three games of the series. You have Seawald hot and ready to go anyways. Like, why not give him the shot? Why not give him, you know, with a guy on base or something like that? And then you make the move to Seawald. I thought it was a little weird.

But, you know, it is what it is. And it all works out. Hopefully, Logan wasn't too upset because, like, he, I doubt he ever felt better. you know in the in the eighth or the ninth inning than he did last night uh there's no way there was a fatigue issue there or maybe there was you know maybe logan came off the mountain he's like hey you know i felt something or like hey you know like i think blah blah blah we don't know the whole story but yeah it was just it was weird it was weird because i mean aside from one mistake which maybe wouldn't have happened if cabbiero could tag somebody uh the dude was going for a maddx like

He was that good last night. So it was a little weird, but ultimately not that big of a deal. Yeah, I saw some comments on the postgame show last night that, you know, I think Paul Seawald was the safer option there. Are you sure about that? Are you sure about that? Because like, again, Gilbert was at 77 pitches. He was feeling really good. All of his pitches were ticked up both velocity-wise and spin rate-wise.

He was, this is what might have been the best we've seen. from Gilbert just mechanically this year. And I just, there's no doubt in my mind that he would have shredded right through them. Now, did it have a negative impact on the Mariners at all? Not really. Paul Seawald had a clean, you know, top of the ninth, but why not let Gilbert go after him? See, like, all right, if he gives up a base runner, then fine. Put in Seawalt.

Yeah. I mean, 59 strikes on 77 pitches, I think it's the final count. I mean, come on. Like what it's not like he was, you know, laboring at any point in this game. And, um, yeah, it was, it was just weird, uh, to be perfectly honest. It was, it was just kind of a, like a, not a head scratcher, but more of like a, you know, like, not going to Gilbert, huh?

Interesting. So like, yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't pissed off. No, I want to make clear, but yeah, that's like, hmm. I feel like maybe the. is one of those times. You're like, Logan, you want to go try and finish this out? Okay, you get what you get for batter per batter. So if guy gets on, you're out. Like, yeah, why not?

Also, like, also, let's say that, you know, maybe Seawald doesn't have a blow up any or anything like that. He doesn't, you know, give up the lead or, you know, let the game get tied, whatever. But he throws like 20 plus pitches. What if he's not available for tonight? It just seems like a potential waste of resources when, yeah, it just, it just felt very unnecessary to do that. But I would have liked to see, like I said last night, I would have liked to see Gover get the chance to go the distance on this one and get his first career complete game. I know it's not a complete game shutout opportunity, but still, like he had allowed just one hit over his last seven innings pitched.

Come on. Yeah. Yeah. It was weird. Side note, completely different tangent. Go the distance. Top five Disney song of all time. Debate in the comments below.

Anyways. I assume we're talking about Thai France now. Yeah, you want to talk about Thai France? Let's talk about Thai France. Not really, but I feel like the people expect it. Sure, sure. Hit the same home run twice. I know, which by the way, it went two feet farther,

but he hit it like six miles per hour lower than his first home run. I don't, I don't get it. Yeah, but yeah, I thought it was a replay when I first saw it. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, they're showing the replay. Oh, wait. The scoreboard says 2-1. And now it says 2-2. Wait, oh, okay, cool.

Figure that one out, uh, good for you. No, oh. Of course you couldn't. Yeah, yeah, of course. All right, so, yeah, Thai France, uh, doesn't look like the wrist is much of an issue right now, at least as far as last night goes. No, it,

apparently the ball caught him on the, the fatty part of his hand, which I'm not quite sure what the fatty part is. Like, I guess right here. Yeah, it's the, uh, Yeah, so it's everything looked fine. We haven't seen Thai France have this much power in like forever. So yeah, two home runs, both no doubters.

He also scored the go ahead winning run. He scored all three runs in this game. So yeah, France looked good. Starting to see a little bit more pop out of him, which is good. Because we talked about how the Mariners infield is not generating nearly enough power. So you need France to be 20, 25 home runs at least. You need Gino to get back to. you know, 25, 30 home runs.

And Gino is starting to find his power. Gino flew out to the warning track and Dead Center field like three times in the series. So it's like you feel like he's getting there. But no, overall, it was a pretty interesting night for the Mariners' offense. Not a lot of it. They only had, what, five hits. But, you know, you're looking at 14 hard hit balls, I think it was, like 51% hard hit balls last night. that's pretty good.

So just a little bit of bad luck there mixed in. But France was great last night. And it's good to see his numbers are slowly creeping up to where we expect them to be. He's right now at 266, 759 OPS. I think we kind of expect him to be in the 280 range. And hopefully he pushes an 800 OPS. And hopefully he stays healthy. But we know at some point again,

Ty France is going to get hit probably in the wrist or the hand or the elbow. Because that's just what Thai France does. So it was great to see him last night get back in there and really explode. And yeah, and, you know, kind of allow the lineup to stack naturally instead of trying to force something. Well, he's got the risk guard now. Hopefully he continues to wear that. I mean, he seems to feel pretty good with the dawn. I was going to say, clearly, clearly.

Clearly, the risk guard is to tie France what the mask was to rip Hamilton. Oh, interesting. I was going to go with the Bengals to Kamala Khan, but sure. Yeah. I'm on a Disney kick today. Sure. Sure. All right.

Moving on. Coming up next, I'll be chatting with Kevin Martinez about the Mariners City Connect uniforms, but first a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Mariners podcast is brought to you by our favorite sponsor, Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills all in one place. Over 80% of people have subscriptions. forgot about and chances are you're one of them. Rocket money will quickly and easily find your

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No, yes. Maybe one more time. Okay. If you insist, rocketmoney.com slash locked on MLB. You got to know? Yeah. Yeah. This episode of the Lockdown Mariner's podcast is also brought to you by GameTime. buying tickets to your favorite events shouldn't be stressful game time is a fast and easy way to buy tickets for all the sports music comedy and theater near you and with killer deals on last minute tickets and their best price guarantee you can stop stressing over the tickets and start getting hype for the fun you'll have so forget planning months in advance game time has deals on tickets right up to the day of the event snag the tickets without the stress with game time download the game time app create an account and use promo code locked on MLB for 20 dollars off your first purchase terms apply again create an account and redeem promo code locked on MLB for

$20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. You're listening to the Locked-on Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. Again, you can catch the Mariners and the Pirates tonight on the Mariner's hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. Let's now check in with Kevin Martinez to talk about the Mariners City Connect uniforms. Hope you enjoy. Joining us now on the Locked-on Mariners' SVP of marketing, Kevin Martinez, Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time out to chat with me today. How are you doing? Doing great. Ahoy, ahoy, hi, Ty, ahoy.

Ahoy. Ahoy. I see you've tuned in to a few shows. That makes me very happy. You gotta love it, man. Absolutely. I love it. I love it. Well, ahoy to you, Kevin. So tonight against the pirates, the mariners will be wearing their city connect uniforms for the second time this season. You obviously played a role in crafting these, so I wanted to get you on the show. and take a deeper look into what went into the process. Can you first off take us all the way back to when planning for these began?

How long ago was that exactly? And when did you officially wrap on the project? Yeah. I mean, if you go way back, the first meeting that we had with Nike was in 2019. And we had started ideating in 19. And then the pandemic comes and sort of wipes. everything out from the city connect and the timeline. And then they, you know, came back to us with a new set of dates on when we could unveil and launch it. So we really went to work on the design in January of

21. We needed to have the entire design finalized by the end of the summer in 21. So it was about, you know, an eight-month window in which you're ideating and going through designs and making tweaks and that sort of thing. But, you know, it was a pretty swift process. The folks from Nike were terrific to work with. They had, you know, had done it with other teams before. So they had a lot of learnings from that and how to make the process, you know, smooth and efficient, for sure. So, you know, looking at the city connects that have come out around the league, there doesn't really seem to be one set way to go about it. Some, for example, honor a city landmark or celebrate the fan base. You guys decided to focus on the history of baseball in Seattle from, you know, the steelheads to now.

Was that the plan from the start? Was that, you know, hey, like this is something that like this is the guidelines for it or did that just develop over time? Yeah, so Nike does a wonderful job in conjunction with Major League Baseball of coming to the clubs, and they bring some thought starters. And they brought about six to seven. And of course, as you might expect, as you might do, you're thinking as the club, you're going into this first meeting. What are the things that perhaps we would want to do? But Nike took the lead, and there were a few different paths.

that they presented, we saw that they had a path to where you look to the past of your organization or your city, maybe a particular player or something, and then how do you present that, you know, in a fresh, bold way? And it was one of the initial ideas that our group internally had brainstormed, and there were others as well. And we were not only aligned on sort of putting the focus on baseball. There were a couple other ideas that we were aligned with Nike. And then, you know, we just had to, through conversations and ideas and what did we think was going to really make for a sharp uniform on field, you know, what path to pursue. And so after, you know, some back and forth, we looked into, hey, how do we look to our past, but present it in a totally fresh way

that's more representative of this team. Now granted, this is 21. We're working on this, right? January, February of 21. And knowing that we're going to be releasing in 23, you know, we wanted to be really representative of this incredibly dynamic team that we have and do something bold that when you see it on your field, you say, feels familiar, but wow, it's really fresh.

And so that's when we were working through those conversations, that's when we went all in on the history of Seattle baseball. Yeah, and I was glad that you guys did that too, because I don't know if you've seen, but I'm very big on the blue and, you know, the royal and the gold, obviously. So that was one thing that I was hoping you guys would hit. And, you know,

I was hoping you wouldn't play it too safe either. And now just go with like some color variation of what you already got going on. So I like, I like the direction of it a lot. You know, there was unfortunately a leak that happened during the off season. You know, I don't know how much you wanted to talk about that, but we did get an early look at a T-shirt and then the socks that are ultimately a part of the uniform. But those featured a different logo than the one we ended up getting.

How many logo mockups did you guys go through? And how did you end up landing on this, the Trident, as the way to go? Ty, you know, there were probably, you know, somewhere, between five and 10. Again, in working with Nike, they're so darn good at design. I mean, they're incredible. And the stuff they came out with was really compelling.

And then when we introduced new era, the cap company into the process, they have some amazing designers as well. They brought some thought, especially to the cap. That was, you know, we were very grateful full for and then we'll give some feedback. What about this idea? What about this tweak? So it was a super collaborative process. Yeah, the one leak, the sock, I mean, full transparency, that mark was, you know, that's in the identity of the city connect. We chose not to put it on the

sock as we evolved the process. It was a very early design. Somehow, got out and we moved to the trident right and the trident went on the sock so yeah i mean again that that was you know those those leaks where you know for people that are working on the project you want to have the big to da moment you want to you want to delight your fans and and have this you know build up but you know we got hit with that early leak and then of course you know i think it was, you know, about a week before the jersey was released. There was there was the jersey release, which was, you know, disappointing for us, but it was really, really wonderful to see the early response from fans.

Like, this is pretty cool. This is pretty sweet. It's pretty clean, you know, that's what we kept here. And, you know, we were excited. Nobody knew, nobody saw the cap yet and some of the other details. So we were excited to finally unveil the whole uniform. Yeah. I also need to say thank you for not doing Pike Place, coffee, rain, any of those tropes.

So thank you. Thank you for that. That was also, I'm sure, part of the positive reaction when we all saw the leaks. If I could flip the script a little bit and ask you a question, you know, because look, when you're talking about uniforms and you're talking about fashion, it's incredibly difficult, right, to make everybody happy because, I mean, just everybody. has a different spin on it. You know, and we heard, you know, quite candidly after we released it,

why didn't you do Pike Place or why didn't you do something like that? So from your perspective, I'd love to just learn, you know, why were you against something like that? Because we've seen it in other teams, right? We've seen other teams kind of celebrate some aspect, non-baseball aspects of their community. well so while those things are all part of the identity of seattle it ultimately feels like some like something that someone outside of seattle would come up with right that's why i know about seattle's rain coffee pike place right it's too easy it's too easy to me yeah so that's again that's why i really enjoyed what you guys did here in terms of kind of flipping it on its head and more so focusing on the history of baseball in seattle and not just the pilots not just the early days of the mirrors but also going to the steel heads, which I know you guys have seen all the positive, you know, reaction to the steelheads, uniforms in general. I mean, honestly, I would have been super thrilled if you guys just made the, the steelheads, the city connect uniforms as well. So, yeah, yeah, those are, those are super dope as well.

They're incredible uniforms. They really, really are. So the black pants. Yeah, yeah. I know you've seen the response to them. Yes. A lot of positive to be sure, but certainly, yeah, some negative as well. Sure. No. I'll be honest. I'll be honest. I fall a little bit into that latter category. That's cool. I know you love them, though.

Yeah. And I think it goes back to something you said earlier in that, look, we looked at it with white pants. And some of the comments within our group, you know, was it feels safe. It feels expected. And again, I really credit the Nike designers. in pushing us, you know, we described what we envisioned our team to be in 21 and all of these young, dynamic players, pitchers, position players. And we were forecasting the identity of the team, right? This is before we ended the drought and made the playoffs.

But we said we want this look to really be something that. hasn't been done before in Mariners baseball. And so they pushed us to the black pants, which I will be honest, made me very uncomfortable when I first saw it. And then I lived with it. And then we looked at it on the field. And other people in our group that probably have a ton better, more progressive fashion sense than I do. I saw the enthusiasm that they had in terms of Yeah, this feels aggressive. It's forceful. It's bold. It's definitely non-traditional for baseball, a major league team. And, you know, one of the ideas, Ty was the blue top with the same color pants. And we felt that had been done on some of the city connects as well. And we wanted to explore something different. So, you know, we knew the black pants were going to be a sticking point for a lot of people. people. It's been interesting to even hear the response after seeing them on field on our first game and we're excited to see them back on field tonight to see if it grows because it grew on

the group working on the project over those eight months that I talked about. And we'll see if the if the whole look, right, with the black visor on the cap, the black sleeves, black pant, if it really starts coming together. I'll tell you, Jared Kelmick on the first game, wore those gold or yellow cleats. And it was just, that whole look, he looked amazing. So we'll see what the players continue to do and involve the look. But yeah, there's no question. The black pants were polarizing.

So, you know, on that note, too, I do like them more when I see them on. the field yeah uh as opposed to like what it looks like on hose rivares phone camera but uh but yeah it's going to take a little little time to get used to but i am i am i am admittedly coming around on them to be fair give it a chance and look man if you at the end of the day you still don't feel it i i get it and uh sure know let me let me know um it is good to hear though it made me feel a little bit better that you were a bit hesitant on it. Yeah, no. Look, man, I've been working in

the game for a long time. Baseball is my true love. You know, I was, my mom told me how to keep score at five. You know, it's, baseball is a part of my DNA. So I have to, you know, we've always tried at the Mariners to,

you know, be progressive and do some fun things and be surprising with the types of promotions and the way we present the team. You know, it made me pause at first for sure. So, but again, you know, that's, that's, it's important to listen and observe and to see the enthusiasm of, of my colleagues. You know, it convinced me to say, hey, man, let's, let's give this a shot and let's do something that, that does make an impact on the field. And I'll tell you, when the team took the field last Friday night, it was, I don't know, it was, it was pretty cool.

We were pretty pumped. Well, especially, yeah, you, you said this was all. wrapped up in 2021, right? So yeah, yeah. So yeah, that's been a long time coming a long time that you've had to sit on this. So yeah, I'm sure that was a pretty amazing moment for you and everyone else who worked on the project. We had some last minute tweaks, like the core design was finished in 21, but it's all on paper. And then they go into the sampling process, right?

So now you're getting the jersey and the pants and the cap and the socks. And we finalized it down in LA at the All Star game last year where it was like, okay, like we had the jersey and it was the colors were right, right? And all the detailing, the drop shadow, all of that stuff was exactly how we, how it looked on the paper originally and then you have to make it on the jersey. So there's a little bit of a process there. So before I let you go, obviously you got the All-Star game coming up in less than two months. What are your days looking like right now?

Who's your prep for the midsummer classic? Yeah, I mean, they start at, they start here about 8 a.m. And if there's a game going, it, you know, it ends at 10, 10.30. And then you do it all again. And then the team goes out of town. And then you're still working on this season. But you also put on your All-Star hat because we couldn't be more excited to be privileged to host the game and, you know, showcase this ballpark and showcase the city of Seattle.

There's no more spectacular place in, in the middle of July, than Seattle, Washington. And to have, you know, the entire baseball world coming to Seattle is such an opportunity. And yeah, it's a lot. But, you know, myself and the people I work with, we can't get enough of it. This is why you do it for things like that. And, you know, what we experienced last October. You're going, you're going all day, all night and over the weekend. But there's such an adrenaline that fuels you.

And when you see the community come together the way it does, and that's the power of our game and sports in general, it's incredibly special. Well, Kevin, it's been a pleasure. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy. scheduled to come talk with me and our listeners for a few here. Thank you so much. Hey, man. We appreciate all you do. Thanks for continuing to talk about the ball club and your enthusiasm and your perspective. We love it. So continued success. Tell Colby, I said hello. I was looking forward to saying hi to him and have a have a great day. And thank you for having me on.

Appreciate it, time. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Great conversation. Let's do it again sometime. Yeah, we'll make it happen. Coming up next, the pirates are in town and they're bringing their big guns to the bump this weekend. Colby and I will get you set for that one in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown Mariners podcast is brought to you by Ultimate Baseball GM. Ever dreamed of becoming an MLBGM and managing your professional baseball franchise? Well, your dream can come true. And this game is definitely for you.

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And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. Mariners and pirates getting underway. This is the first time the pirates have come to T-Mobile Park since 2016. So it's going to be Fun to see them. They've actually been playing some pretty good ball this year, which is really unexpected.

Not so much lately, but sure. They've tailed off a bit as of late. Pretty significantly. Yeah. At one point, they had the best record in the National League. They did. Now they're a game over 500, so. We're going to be seeing Mitch Keller tonight on the bump for Pittsburgh.

He's been their ace. He's been one of the 15 best pitchers in baseball, according to F. He's an all-star. He's been fantastic. But the Mariners are countering with their own potential all-star in George Kirby, who's been brilliant, especially as of late. So what do you think about this pitching matchup tonight? It's a fun one.

I'm sure, you know, pitching ninja will be all over it. If you're a fan of the Mariners scoring runs, it's probably not the best, you know, matchup you could hope for. So overall, it's a really good pitching matchups. Probably one of the best matchups of the night. You know, Keller, we know about Keller. He was a big time prospect.

And now he's finally kind of putting it together. This is the breakout year. And you kind of look at the data on him. He's fastball heavy, but there are three distinct fastballs. He's got a four seamer, a two seamer and a cutter. So 25% four seam, 24% cutter, 24.7 to be exact, cutter. 21.2% sinker. Like, he's going to come at you with the fastball, and it's a good one.

He gets a lot of whiffs on that pitch. He's going to throw strikes with it. Opponents are not barreling it up, really, at all. It's a pretty high spin rate fastball, too. Yeah, Keller can spin it. He's a spin guy. He's got the sweeping slider, which, you know, 2,700 rotations per minute.

He can spend, you can spend the baseball. And right now he's getting a lot of whiffs, particularly on the four seamer and the slider. So he's going to use all of his pitches tonight. He's except for the changeup. You can really just spit on the changeup. You don't need to honor that pitch. But yeah, you're going to have your hands full because he's going to come at you.

He's going to throw a ton of fastballs, but they're all going to break a little bit differently. It's not going to drop nearly as much. It's kind of like Bryce Miller's fastball, just obviously not as good because nobody. fastballs as good as Bryce Miller. So, yeah, Mariners' offense, they're going to have to, you know, find a way to scratch out a couple runs.

Maybe Keller has a bad night and you jump on them early. But yeah, for the most part, I think if you're going to try and win this game, Kirby's got to go pitch for pitch with Keller and you're going to have to try and win this game like two to one or jack up his pitch count and get them out of the bolt, get them out of the game because Keller is going to be a tough customer for the Mariners. So I want to ask you this because last year on this same very show, you proposed a trade between the Mariners and the Pirates that would have sent Mitch Keller to Seattle and Jared Kellnick to Pittsburgh. So both of these guys breaking out right at the same time after not a particularly great start to either's major league careers. What do you think about that deal now in retrospect, knowing what we know now?

I feel like I nailed it. I knew Mitch Keller was good. Sure. Nailed it. Sure. Nailed it. Would you still do, would you still do that deal? No. No. I have Bryce Miller now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But nope, I nailed it.

So let me, let me pull up the pitching matchups here for the next two games. We're going to see Luis Castillo on Saturday. We're going to see him tomorrow. He's going to be facing, I believe, Roeancey-Contreras, yes. Yeah. Roiancy Contreras is going for Pittsburgh tomorrow against Castillo. and then we got Marco Gonzalez against who is this Ortiz Luis Ortiz

yeah so yeah Marco whatever but let's talk about Castillo Castillo if he you know challenges the team the pirates like he did Oakland

then he should be fine the fastball 8 at the top of the zone he was 98 to 99 last time out so he should be fine if he can carry that that game plan but yeah, he'll have to be a little bit sharper just because Pittsburgh is a better lineup than Oakland. But if he has the same stuff and the same control and command he did last time out, he's going to be just fine against the pirates. And, you know, Roancy is a guy who good stuff, certainly, but he's pretty hitable right now.

So the hype on him, the prospect hype on him, carrying a little more weight than his actual performance so far. But he can surprise you. but I do like that pitching matchup for the Mariners because Rancy just, he's just not missing bats and he's walking guys. He's 16.4% K percentage, 10.8% walk. So Castillo is pretty good in that game. Then the Mariners are going to have a really good shot to win that game.

Yeah. And then again, like I said, Marco, whatever. That's always going to be a toss-up. Coin flip. Yeah. So we'll see. I still feel pretty good about the Mariners' chances in this series. Hopefully they can get two before they head into a really tough series.

against the Yankees Aaron Judge and the Yankees judge is just on an absolute terror right now. So that's, I mean, something's got to give a judge against this pitching staff. It's going to be quite the show. Only because he's cheating, obviously. Right, right. According to

John Schneider and the Toronto Blue Jays. Yeah. By the way, also coming into town, Andrew McCutcheon, who's having a really good year. Yeah, he is having a really good year. Yeah, I think Ty and I have talked about McCutcheon as a train.

like candidate for the Mariners each of the last two years. So yeah, obviously we're fans. And this will almost certainly be his last time in Seattle, though. I wouldn't say it's impossible. He's on the All-Star team. He's been that good and he is definitely a big name. So we'll see how that goes. But yeah, Mitch Keller will definitely be back in Seattle in a couple months or six weeks after he makes the start.

So, yeah, it's definitely a dangerous pirates team. But the Mariners are a better roster. So the pitching matchups, the first one is probably a draw. The middle game is advantage you. And then the last game is who the heck knows. So hopefully you come out of this winning two out of three. But again, the nice thing is that you swept Oakland, who is just a dumpster fire of a team. And you bought yourself a little bit of wiggle room.

So if you have a step back series, it's not the end of the world. But it sure would be nice to keep the street going and go ahead and win another series and just kind of start build on what has clearly been a much better month of baseball in May for the Seattle Maritors. All right, well, that's going to do it for a show. Thank you again to Kevin Martinez for hopping on

and talking City Connect uniforms with us. And thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Maritors podcast. For Colby Pad node, I'm Tadang Gzalas. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. That's D-A-N-ZL-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-E-N-E-L-E. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Locked-on Mariners.

That's one word, locked-on mariners. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first to listen. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and a beautiful baseball weekend. And we'll see you next time. Peace.