Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - IT'S GO TIME: Seattle Mariners Kick Off Postseason Run With ALDS Bout vs. Tigers

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Ty and Colby react to the Tigers emerging as the Mariners' ALDS opponent and get you set for the series.Check out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYEnough with boring, flavorless caffeine, it’s time to give your caffeine a flavor upgrade with 5-hour ENERGY®️ shots. Get the favorites you love or be bold and try something new in-store and online at https://www.5hourENERGY.com or Amazon today. NutrafolSee thicker, stronger hair with less shedding in just 3–6 months with Nutrafol. For a limited time, get $10 off your first month’s subscription and free shipping when you go to https://Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code LOCKEDONMLB. ZippixGo to https://ZippixToothpicks.com and use promo code LOCKEDON for 10% off your first order.Zippix Toothpicks—energy and focus, anytime you need it.PrizePicksDownload the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONMLB to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.PrizePicks — Run Your Game.Click Link Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONMLBMonarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at https://monarchmoney.com/lockedonmlb for 50% off your first year.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's official Mariners, Tigers, kicking off this weekend. We'll talk about it all coming up here on the lockdown Marrars podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors, and it's Friday, October 3rd, 2025. This is Tadda Gonzalez and Colby Patnaud for the Locktime Marys Podcasts podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

This episode is brought to you by Fandul. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if you bet wins, you'll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the Fandualdl app today. And as always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, you can check out our Patreon. All you have to do to check that out is click the link in the description of this episode. So the mayors have their ALDS opponent.

The Detroit Tigers are coming to town this weekend, game one tomorrow at 538 p.m. Pacific in game two on Sunday at 503 p.m. Pacific. Tigers with a six to three win over the Guardians in Cleveland yesterday to win that series two games to one. We're going to get into who the Tigers are, the challenges they pose and a whole lot more on the show today. But first, Coley, just reaction to the Tigers being the team. I'm glad the series went to three games. The potentially nice thing there is that they use the three starters that they wanted to use in this series in the last one.

So they're going to have to kick off this series probably with a bullpen day. Maybe they use Chris Paddock as an opener who kind of dominated the Mariners in Seattle earlier this year. So, you know. But yeah, it seems like a bullpen day. So that's all good. The downside is that you're going to have to face scuba at least once. If you get to game five, you'll have to beat him in game five to advance.

So let's not get to game five. gang but yeah it's again like i don't i think continue to maintain this seattle is better they're more talented than both of these teams uh we have 162 games of data that tell us that we also have the head to head which saw seattle destroy detroit's three best pitchers all in a row at their home ballpark before they added josh naler and before they added a eugenio sweres uh so uh yeah i mean i i think that There's a lot of reasons to like this matchup. There are some concerns, as there would have been with Cleveland.

So, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it is what it is. It's kind of what I expected to have happen. I guess, you know, again, if you took scuba out of it, Detroit's not really much of a threat in a big sample size. They're just not as talented as you. But scubel is an equalizer, obviously. And the fact that you're going to have to face him at least once, maybe twice in five games, is going to be a challenge, a real challenge.

And again, it's worth noting. We've said this a lot as well. In the playoffs, talent doesn't really matter. There's not enough of a sample size to have the talent take over. So it really comes down to who plays better, who gets hot at the right time, and who performs. And that's really what the playoffs is. The major league baseball season is a marathon where large. sample size and, you know, just talent will eventually, in theory, take over and it will push the better teams to the top and push the worst, you know, the worst teams to the bottom. And it's why we see, you know, teams in April who are in first place in April, they finish with 90 losses pretty regularly at the end of the year. Talent is eventually going to rise to the top. And the playoffs, not the case. Not always. Because it's a small sample size. You're playing four small sample sizes. When in the regular season, you're using, you're using.

in large samples and all that to kind of form conclusions. So just a completely different animal. Detroit is dangerous in the same way that Cleveland is dangerous and the same way that New York is dangerous and the same way that Toronto is dangerous is that they all have, you know, good players. They all have good parts of their team. And they also have holes in their roster. And when you look at what Seattle has to offer and what Detroit has to offer,

Seattle is going to be the better team every day that Terrick Scoobble is not on the amount on paper at the very least. Uh, will that mean anything? No, it doesn't mean anything. You have to play well. You have to win the game. You have to play well. That's ultimately what matters, but again, whether it's Detroit or whether it was

Cleveland, Seattle is a more talented team. They should be favored in this series. It doesn't mean anything that they are. No. And I wouldn't overlook this tiger's team. And I feel like I'm seeing some fans and creators in general kind of doing that, uh, but this team like yeah, they, they had the,

complete utter collapse there over the final two months of the season. But they were able to survive that collapse and get in for a reason because they were just so good for most of, you know, the rest of the year. And this is a club that went on a nice little run last year, kind of developed their identity that they carried into this year when they were red hot, right out of the gate. they again they were able to survive and avoid complete total disaster to punch their ticket kind of reset themselves or reset their year they pulled a pretty large pervary monkey off of their back by getting past the guardians who have been a problem for them they eliminated them last year they have a j hench who has managed a lot of big games uh you know and right now they kind of have this road warrior mentality after going into

Cleveland and taking that series. So this is definitely not a walk in the park. Like the mirrors are definitely more talented on paper than this Tigers team. But could I see the Tigers winning the series? Absolutely. And it's not just because of Terrick Scoble. That's obviously a big part of it. But this is this is still a very talented team with guys like Kerry Carpenter and Riley Green and Glaber Torres. Like they have some real dudes Dylan Dingler is another guy. They're also potentially going to get healthier going into this series. Colt Keith could potentially be added to the roster after dealing with a rib injury and Matt Veerling, who's kind of like a do-it-all player for them. He's been out with an

oblique. He might also be back on the roster for this series as well. So, you know, and there's a lot of different ways that they can attack you. You know, there's the platoons that they have, which we'll get into later, because that's going to wait to be a big part of the series. And that's going to be a big key for particularly one player on the Mariners roster. And we'll talk about that later. But yeah, I mean, and that bullpen definitely regress from how good it was last year. I mean, at times it just carried, yeah, at times it just carried that club last year. But there's still some talented arms in that bullpen.

They're going to be able to create some problems for you. And yeah, I'm fascinated to see just kind of how this chess match plays out between these two clubs. We watched this Mariner team play inferior opponents for pretty much the entire month of August. And they got their doors blown off several times by bad teams. And the Tigers are not a bad team. So anything can happen because, again, it is a five-game series. It's based five random baseball games. Anything can happen.

And again, it is not like Detroit is without talent. Riley Green is one of the most underrated players in the entire game. he's a really good player. Obviously, Torkelson's broken out, and Baez was an all-star, even though he really didn't deserve to be, but whatever. Baez was an all-star. He's had a nice year, especially relative to the last couple. Like, you know, we know who Glaber Torres is, and yeah, they have plenty of matchups that they can throw at you and they will throw at you. And you have a first-year manager on the other side who's going to have to try and deal with all that.

Like, those are all going to come into play here. So it's certainly not a walk in the park. Again, the meritors should win this series. but there's no guarantees. Like the Mariners aren't really exactly a battle tested playoff group. I mean, most of them have been to the playoffs, but it's been a couple of years. And, you know, they've never been really the favorite.

And right now they're, I mean, right there with the Yankees is the favorite to win the American League. So it's all new for them. They're pitching. The Mariners pitching right now pretty inconsistent. We don't think we're going to see Brian Wu, at least in the first couple of games of this series, if at all. Logan Gilbert's been wildly inconsistent. Luis Castillo kind of seems like they're lining him up to start on the road, which why. But yeah, I mean, there are a lot of things here that can go wrong. And as we see in the playoffs, even when there is a talent discrepancy, ball bounces an inch or two one way versus the other. It can make all the difference. Like, Detroit is more talented than Cleveland. Cleveland very well, very easily with just one.

one or two more bounces could have swept Detroit right out of the playoffs. Like that's the difference. One smart base running decision and maybe we're not even talking about this. Maybe we were talking about Cleveland yesterday because we knew that that's who they were going to play. So the margin of error is smaller. And it always, always, always in the major league baseball playoffs comes down to which team plays better, period. Teams don't get outplayed and win games in the playoffs. It just doesn't happen.

Not in baseball. It just, you have to play better. You play better for longer than your opponent. You're going to win these games. And as we know with the Mariners, they're entirely capable of playing like the best team in baseball. And they're also capable of playing like one of the worst teams in baseball. There is a very high ceiling on this team. There's a very low floor.

So what version of this team you get in these five games or hopefully, you know, three games that you win, you know, is going to determine everything. And throw out everything else that happened in the regular season. none of it really matters anymore it's a brand new year all right so we're going to dive deeper into the tigers uh talk a little bit more about the challenges that they pose also talk about some key players for this specific matchup we've kind of done the key player thing just like in an overarching sense for just the whole postseason but we're going to talk about some guys that are particularly important for playing against this detrit tigers team in just a moment but first a reminder of this episode of the lockdown airs podcast is brought to you by prize picks

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That's promo code LOC, KED, O N-M-LB for $50 in lineups after your first $5 play. Price Picks, it's good to be right. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast for instant reactions following every Mariners playoff game. Be sure to tune into the Marriss Postcast with Anderson Hearst, Christopher Crawford, available on both the Lockdown Marries YouTube and podcast feeds. So looking at this tail of the tape here, really nice graphic made by our friend Jake from Raised the Triton. The Mariners pretty much have the advantage in almost every major statistical category over the Tigers.

The Tigers have hit for three points higher and batting average. They have an ERA, six points lower than the Mariners, a FIP, about, 18 points lower than the Marriers, but other than that, the Marrars have the advantage here. And I mean, that lines up with everything that we just said in the first segment. But let's get a little bit more specific here, Colby. What are some of the challenges this Tigers team poses to the Marers? Yeah. Obviously, the biggest one is Scoople.

And I know that he's only going to pitch in one game guaranteed, maybe two. But that is the biggest challenge. It would be foolish for us to sit here and not think that Terrick Scoobal is the biggest obstacle in the Mariners way. But Detroit is very good at manipulating matchups to work in their favor. They have some platoons that they like to use. They have a manager who is willing to and been shown capable of managing those situations well and getting his guys into the favorable matchups, you know, for the most part, every single time.

So that really is their strength is, is that they have a lineup that is kind of matchup proof in a way. Like you can't just be like, oh, I'll just go to the left of here. It's like, okay, well, we'll go to Perez off the bench or we'll go to maybe Virling now off the bench or we'll just go to the right of here. And it's like, okay, well, here comes Parker Meadows, who is, you know, one of the, or Parker Meadows and, uh, Carrie Carpenter. Yeah.

Yeah. Who just like they mash right handed pitching. It's one of those things where, look, Detroit kind of has to be this way because they lack the overall talent. Like you look at Seattle, they don't really have a lot of platoons that they use. Why? Because they're talented enough that these guys can play against righties and lefties. They don't need to do that.

Detroit kind of does, but because they do have to do that, you have to counter it with your bullpen and that's going to create some undesirable matchups for you late in games in particular. So Detroit is very good at, you know, playing these matchups and getting the, the little advantage that they get with their, you know, with the switch hitters and the ability to pinch hit and be aggressive on that front and all that. So really, it, the tiger's strength aside from scuba. And Casey Mize for the most part, although he's kind of falling off here in the second half,

or he did. but like whatever. Like the starting pitching is okay. The three guys they have, scoble brings everybody else up a level or two, but it's not like Flaherty and Mies are scrubs, right? Like those are guys. No, and Flaherty especially has pitched in some big games too. So he has this experience.

Yep. Yeah. Who usually comes up big in the post season. Like he's battle tested and all that. But yeah, had a solid game yesterday, game three. To me, the thing that gives me the most concerned. from the Tigers, aside from Scoobel,

is Hinch's ability to manipulate matchups to give his guys an advantage. And he's very good at that. And he was in Houston where it didn't really have to be. He had a lot of talent, but he would still find a way to do it. And we saw it against the, we saw it against the guardians,

is that he kind of has answers for whoever you want to bring out of the bullpen late in the game. He has an answer for that. And he's very good at knowing when to pull that trigger and when to pull back and let his guys go through the at bat and all that. So I think the matchups that they can specifically throw at you late in games because of how they deploy their bench is going to be critical. And as we've seen in these playoffs, pretty much every game is close. Every game comes down to the last day. There's very

few blowouts, if any, like the Yankees won last night four to nothing and it felt like a massive blowout. Like they just destroyed the Red Sox. And that that's a four one four run game. You're one swing of the bat away from tying that game. And it felt like a blowout. That's how close the playoffs are. And so when you can get an advantage late in the game, even if it's only a one or two percent advantage, it makes all the difference. So that that's my biggest concern with this Tigers team. So this Tigers bullpen, we talked a little bit about it in the first segment. This Tigers bullpen has three former Mariners in it. Will vests is their closer. Raphael Montero is in here. And Paul Seewald.

Not exactly 2022 Paul Seawald, but. No, but it's, you know, it's interesting. I just thought that, you know, it was worth mentioning. Sure. But winning game one, though, is so, so massive because like you mentioned earlier, it's going to be a bullpen game for the, for the Tigers, most likely. Either Chris Paddock or more likely, it seems like it's going to be Kiter Montero, who the Mariners have had mixed results against.

Yeah. and frankly this year the merits have actually been able to handle good pitching great pitching right they've won a couple of games in which school bowl has started they beat carrot crochet you know they won a couple of games that hunter brown started they won a game that max freed started it feels like they're actually at their best

when they go up against guys that they have a ton of film and data on it's when they start to, you know, face guys that they don't know as much about that there starts to be a little bit of a problem. So the bullpen game actually in a way kind of concerns me, even though on paper it shouldn't. Even though on paper like that is massive advantage in the mayor's favor. Right. And to me, if you lose game one, you might lose the series. That might. Yeah.

Like everything might. I don't know if the same. be applied to the tigers, which is crazy to say because the merrers are the team that, you know, they're the favorite. They have home field advantage here. But if you lose home field advantage tomorrow, when the tigers are rolling out a bullpen game and scubel is starting game two, that is a tough, tough thing to come back from. There's a high probability. You're down to oh. Yeah, you are staring down the barrel of a two oh deficit. And keep in mind, scubal looms in game five. So even if you win game three and four, scubles there,

you're going to have to beat him at least once. If you lose, if you lose tomorrow, you have to beat scubal at least once, maybe even twice. So tomorrow's game is critical, but I, you know, I saw a lot of people like, oh, it's a bullpen game. Seattle should crew. And it's like, no, no. I mean, look, Detroit's bullpen, I wouldn't classify it as great. It's serviceable. It's pretty good. Will Best had a very nice year. You know, Kyle Finnegan's got really good stuff. They get a ton of ground balls. Like all of their arms, pretty much 50% ground ball guys or higher.

Like it really is insane. They have a couple lefties in there that can make things really difficult. Will Best has a, you know, the super change up, which makes also difficult on lefties. So, and, you know, they, yes, they, they used a lot of their guys yesterday. None of them really threw that many pitches. They have a day off today. And as for does this give the Mariners an advantage later in the series? it might if you can make all these guys work.

But keep in mind, they have a day off on Monday. And also, scoobel is very likely to go seven plus. Right. Right. And if scoble can go seven plus, then even if you do kind of, you know, exhaust some of the middle options, then you don't need those guys. You have your back and guys to come in after scubel. So the bullpen game is not as much of an advantage, I think, as a lot of Mariner fans want it to be or think that it is.

It's not as ideal. Let's say like the Mariners just being able to roll out a well-rested George Kirby or a well-rested Luis Castillo or Logan Gil, whoever it is, right? It's not as ideal as that. Yeah. But it's far from like, oh, this is stupid. Like what are what are the what are the tigers doing? Like no, no. Again, it's it makes sense.

And it's something that the Mariners are going to have to deal with. And it's tough. You know, when you, when you have that. you don't know who you're going to face when you go when you know come up to the plate like if you're hitting sixth you don't know who's going to be throwing you the ball in the bottom of the second yeah you don't know like it's just one of those things so you have to be prepared for everything if you and it also complicates how dan and it also complicates how dan fills out this lineup right again what he should do is you should fill out his lineup the best way and if it just so happens that you know they have a lefty ready to go for dom can zone then whatever dom can Zone takes the up at bat because I know I'm going to want Canzone in the seventh inning against, you know, Vester or Paul Seawald or whoever. How funny with that, Paul Seawald versus Dom Kanzone. But I didn't think about that. Oh, my God.

Probably in like the seventh inning. Oh, my God. Yeah. Could happen. Could happen. So, yeah. It's again, it's because the tigers are, you know. pretty deep in terms of like their roster building because they have they have a manager who understands how to pull the the right trigger at the right time they can they can present some really tough matchups for you even on a day where they're bullpening so again it is it is far from a you know l.L tigers or it's far from a well that's an easy win no no it is also they did this last year in the playoffs so like they have experience doing this and again it's a j hench who's who's done this and he's managed a lot of big games and all that's

all that like yeah i to be fair they did this last year in the playoffs and it led them right to where they are right now where they lost a series three to one like so there's a bit of an expiration date but they also don't have it's also not just here's scoble and then games two three four is all bullpen like it's not that because they have mys because they have flaredy so uh we'll see how it works out for it but yeah Detroit you know again their bullpen their number overall pretty mediocre and they're going to have to more or less throw some of their middle guys at some point in this game to just get through nine innings and those are the guys you have to attack you have to score runs off of those guys but you know you get to the back end of that bullpen

and it's a close game they can you know match you kind of again Seattle's bullpen is better but Seattle's bullpen has also had some sketchy moments you know Munoz didn't have a good outing his last time out. Matt Brash has been pretty sketchy recently and missing and not missing bats. Bizarro had a couple of pretty outings towards the end. Hopefully the rest that they've gotten can kind of give them a quick reset. But yeah, bullpins are sketchy in general and in the playoffs, those things go up and every little, you know, every little detail really matters. So we'll see how it goes. But yeah, Detroit can can, you know, constantly kind of make the odds ticking their favor just based on how they manage their matchups.

They're built very well to play the matchups, which can mitigate some of the, you know, the talent discrepancy that Seattle clearly has more talent than Detroit. But if you can maneuver the matchups a little bit, you can get the playing field level and then anything can happen in a baseball game. So, yeah, you're going to need to get to Montero at least a little bit, though,

assuming that he's the one that starts. You see someone that can go multiple innings, that could give them three or four theoretically and maybe a, Jay Hents wants to squeeze as much juice as he can there because every inning that Montero pitches, that's an inning that Tommy Canley doesn't have to pitch or Troy Melton doesn't have to pitch. Raphael Montero doesn't have to pitch or Paul Seawall doesn't have to pitch. So you need to get to Montero. If you want to get to some of those middle guys that Colby just talked about, you have to get to Montero at least a little bit. Maybe that doesn't mean necessarily scoring runs, scoring a bunch of runs, but at least getting a couple of hits, driving up that pitch count.

the things that we talked about heading into the Astros series and those pitching matchups, like even if you don't score a run and a inning, at least make sure that you take a piece of that pitcher with you, right? Make sure that he has to earn it. Make sure that even if it's three up, three down, it takes them 15 to 20 pitches to get that three up,

three down, right? So, yeah, I will say the one nice thing about, nice thing about facing Detroit is that when you look at the types of teams that give Seattle problems, right?

The hyperathletic, they run the bases because Seattle pitching cannot hold runners and all of that. That's not the Tigers. The Tigers don't even try to steal bases or anything like that. So the Mariners, you know, the little things that I talk about that the Mariners are really bad at, one of them is controlling a running game. and one of them is like the tagging and stuff like that. Detroit's not really going to test you on that front,

at least when it comes to stealing bases. So that is a positive. And one of the underrated positives in your credit is that you're better at stealing bases. You can put more pressure on these guys than they can on you. Your lineup's steeper. So again, like we've talked, we've pumped up Detroit a lot, but you guys know how good the Mariners are. Like you know what they're capable of.

So we're not sitting here telling you. you're like oh Seattle's not going to win this series because we're just trying to kind of like give you guys a snapshot of who the tigers are why they can beat you but could the Mariners win the series yes could the Mariners sweep this series yes

that course they could especially if they win game one and they beat Scoobble in game two oh it's over at that point at that point you've snatched their soul now you're just going to Comerica to handle business right it just you got to win one of the next two and you'll be doing that against Mises or Flaherty.

You've already handled. Well, at least in America you've handled. So yeah, it's just one of those things where I think winning game one is incredibly important. And I think it's more so for the Mariners than the Tigers. Yeah, yeah. Well, because I mean, again, if you're the Tigers, it's like, okay, we lost game one. But we have Scoobo. And he can just as easily give us, you know, a one-to-one tie.

And then it's a best of three. Anything can happen. So, yeah, but I do think winning one is really important. The Mariners did beat Scoobled twice, you know, granted the first time he really dominated them, if not for the funniest home run of 2025. But, you know, second time in Detroit, they actually handled him really well. They got him for like, what, five runs and they got him out in the fifth inning. And so again, it's not a guarantee.

Scoble is scubel. School is school, though. So, you know, I don't want to just like, I see a lot of people being like, oh, I'm not scared. Like, they handled him just fine. This year. Look, dude, it's Terrick Scoobel. He's the best pitcher in the game. Like, and he's.

And he's going to make, yeah, maybe it's skins, but you get what I'm saying. Like, he's going to make the necessary adjustments, right? Yeah. Again, like even Prime Pedro Martinez had bad outings in the playoffs. Yeah. Like, it's totally possible that, you know, Scoobo goes out there and we're hyping him up and he just struggles. And the Mariners tag him for six in like four innings. What's more than likely going to happen, Seattle's going to have to scrape and claw to get one or two off of them in seven innings and try to

get him out where they can still have a shot to, to, you know, attack the bullpen. That's probably what's most likely going to be necessary to beat him. And again, if you lose game one, you're pretty much going to have to beat Scoobel at least once, but probably twice. So winning game one is pretty important tomorrow. And again, can Seattle do it. Yes. Am I pretty confident that they'll win this series?

Yeah, I think they'll win the series. I think they're just better. But again, we need to point out Detroit. there are no bad teams left. That's not a thing. So while you may be more talented than them, it's not like Detroit doesn't have any talent. They're a talented group.

There are a team that can absolutely go to the World Series. Yes. Everybody left can. I mean, like it really does feel to me, like right now, after the wildcard rounds, the four best teams in the National League are still playing. The four best teams in the American League are still playing.

Yeah. Like no disrespect to Cleveland or Boston or, or, you know, the Padres or whatever, like the riffraff has been eliminated. These are the four best teams in each league, which means anybody can win this thing. It's a wide open field. This year of all years,

there is no dominant team. Detroit can beat you. Absolutely. But you can also beat them. We are going to switch gears and focus more on the Mariners. We're going to go over some key players for this particular matchup. Talk a little bit about Brian Wu as well in just a moment. But first a reminder,

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And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. So on Tuesday when we had Anders Hurst on here, we talked about key players for the postseason as a whole for the Mariners. But let's talk about some key players for this specific matchup. Because Colby, I think one of the most important players for the Mariners in the series, maybe the most important player for the Marys in the series, is actually Gabe Spire.

because of when he's going to be deployed and the platoons that the tigers deploy, like we talked about earlier on, because spire is going to be put into this game, as well as Caleb Ferguson, by the way, to a slightly lesser extent, to get Kerry Connor and maybe Riley Green out of this game, right? And the Tigers showed a willingness to pinch it for

for Green in the Cleveland series. So that means that, Gabe is going to have to face Jemai Jones, maybe Andy Abagnas, maybe Matt Verlaine if he gets activated in these situations. Now, Gabe has been pretty darn good against both handednesses,

but it's quite possible, and it feels silly in a way to say this out loud, but it feels possible that the biggest at-bats in the series could be Gabe Spire versus Jemai Jones, Gabespire versus Andy Abanjas, Gabe Spire versus Matt Verlaine, etc. Sure. I mean, we all think it would be like Scoobel versus Raleigh.

Yeah. No. No. It's probably going to be, you know, Gabe Spire versus, you know, like you said, Andy, Andy Abagnas, or it might be, you know, Matt Brash versus Parker Meadows. Like, again, it is one of those things where, and this is why it's a big test for Dan Wilson, who we talked about this the other day. Or was it yesterday? I don't know. All the shows are starting to run together the other day. Um, you know, Dan has gotten better at things as the season has progressed, but he's still not very good. And these are the tough decisions he's going to have to make that AJ Hinch has made a thousand times that Dan Wilson has never had to make. Uh, so there, there's a real chess match coming in. And one of them, one of the managers is a novice.

The other one is an expert, you know, a ranked player. And so yeah, you're, you're in a bit of a predicament there. And Gabe Spire's ability to get out whoever he faced. is going to be huge. Of course it is. You know, and again, like you said, Gabe Spire has been pretty good against Ritey's. He's dominated lefties. But one thing that could come into play here also is, let's say it's the sixth inning, Riley Green's coming up. You go to Spire, you force AJ Hinch, okay, am I going to take out my best player in the sixth? Or am I going to let him face a lefty who's just dominated lefties and lose this scoring

opportunity? Like, it can work both ways. You can use the matchups to your advantage. Will Dan Wilson do that? I don't know. But I think Gabe Spire is going to be a huge part of this because he probably has been the most consistent reliever all year. Like he's had very few hiccups. He's mostly been dominant. And he's the guy who kind of is being treated as, you know,

the closer before the closer. Because Dan has been unwilling to use Munoz. Let's be clear. And situation comes up where it's like you're up by one and there's runners on second, third with one out in the seventh. That should be Munoz. You should be using Munoz in that spot. Will Dan do it?

Probably not. So who should he go to after that? Probably Gabe Spires, the guy you trust the most. So, yeah, Gabe's going to be a big part of this, and he's going to have to get some Ritey's out because A.J. Hinch will not just let him feast on his left-handed hitters. He will make changes. But again, that could be a way for Dan to get some of these guys out of the game for later. So maybe you can set up a, instead of a Riley Green versus Andres, Munoz type of thing.

you can have Munoz versus, you know, Jemai Jones in the ninth, which is much more favorable. So again, it could work both ways here. We just don't know if Dan is capable of making those calls and doing them correctly, whereas we know A.J. Hinch certainly is. But yeah, Gabe Spire is going to play a huge role here. You know, Spire and Bizarro kind of been combined to make one really great high leverage guy, Bissardo against Rides and then, you know, Spire against Lerdo. Lefties, how Dan manages those two guys and how he gets them into specific pockets to get big outs is going to be a huge thing.

So, yeah, Gabe Spire, probably going to have to play a pretty big role in this series. What do you think Bryce Miller's role is? What situations can you imagine Bryce Miller being put in? It's tough because you might want him to make a start. Because Wu, I don't think he's going to be on this roster. You know, he's talking about like, I hope by next week I'll be 100%. It's like, series ends on like Tuesday or Wednesday. Like that's, that doesn't fill me with confidence that he's going to be able to start game four or game three.

So maybe we'll see. We'll probably get a big, I mean, obviously, he's not on the playoff roster. He's not playing. But if you don't think he's going to pitch in this series, why would you put him on the playoff roster? That's just a wasted spot you could use on an arm. So tomorrow we'll probably know just about everything when they release the rosters in the morning. Um, you'd think that they would just go with a three man rotation though, right? Because that's what they were planning on doing in 2022.

Right. But you go, uh, whichever order, right? Let's say it's Kirby, game one. Then you have game two, day off, game three. Uh, so game four would be on his fourth day of rest, right? Yeah. So you could still pull it off. Um, so yeah, I don't know though.

Are they going to want to do that? I mean, the other thing too here, which is kind of like an underrated aspect of this. Now, obviously, it's because they both dealt with injuries, but both George Kirby and Logan Gilbert are well under their career high in innings. They're a lot fresher than, you know, most pitchers are at this point in the year. Sure. From that standpoint. Right. But also, you're throwing at 85% all year.

But also, you know, Logan. Yeah, Logan might be dealing with an elbow thing still. I would say that's likely. I don't know if George is still dealing with. anything from the start of the year, the shoulder thing? He's never returned to his to his old arm slot. He's still throwing much lower than he used to. So I would say, yeah, it's, I mean, I don't know.

Maybe that's a conscious decision that just made. He just liked it and he'd just stuck with it. I don't know, but I mean, four days rest is still four days rest. But just my point, though, is like they aren't in a position where they haven't, they don't have the, um, just the natural wear and tear of a season that they typically would at this point in the year. Sure. I just don't know.

There's that big of a difference. they miss time with an injury also. So I don't know if that actually changes anything, but it might. Sure. Yeah, Miller is interesting because, um, like we have these visions of what he can be coming out of the bullpen,

uh, with the fastball and the splitter, especially the splitter. Um, and the Velo would be cranked up a little bit. We assume because he's, he only has to get, you know, three, four guys out.

Uh, but are you going to ask him to come in in the middle of an inning to get a big strikeout? That's not something he's done before. Or are you going to, you know so i'm i'm not sure how it goes i think the first time out they're probably going to want to try and give him a clean inning um like yeah i can't imagine that they're ever going to give him inherited runners no i i don't think at least not in this series maybe if he performs well and and you advance maybe in toronto or new york but yeah i mean the nice thing about

miller though is that with that splitter he can be effective against lefties so you put him out there there's a real decision by hitch like do i stick with with my righties or do I stick with because traditionally righties have struggled off of Miller lefties have hit him pretty well but the splitter is a game changer. It's a great pitch to throw against lefties and in a playoff or in a playoff situation and in

a short relief situation there's no reason for Miller not to throw as many splitters as his elbow can handle. Like he doesn't have to mix in anything. He just throw splitters if that's his best pitch. So yeah Bryce is kind of an X factor here. I'm not sure how they're going to use them.

I would think that they would try to give him a clean inning. And I would think that his job would be like, hey, you know, we have three righties in a row here. And then, you know, a couple lefties that we like to match up for. And your job is to face these five hitters. So you might have to go out there, sit, come back to the dugout, sit down and go back out there. Which he's done, you know, a hundred times in his major league career as a starter. So that part should be fine for him.

It's the, you know, getting hot at a moment's notice. I think they're going to want to take Bryce and give him like, hey, right now. it looks like you're pitching the sixth so in the fifth inning get up start doing your thing and like because they do have to you know not necessarily baby him in because adrenaline will handle a lot of of the getting ready and all that but yeah yeah it will be interesting to see how they handle it because there is no easy answer for this and and you know it's kind of why i wanted them to you know test run some of this after they clinched and all that uh even you know sometimes in september even before you clinch. It's why I wanted these dry runs, you know, of doing this in a regular season game that they

never got to. But yeah, Bryce, I don't think they'll give him inherited runners, at least not, you know, in this series if they can absolutely help it. Any other key players for this series to you? I mean, Cal Raleigh, it's like if those two guys are really good, then you're going to run away with this series. Like, Detroit just doesn't have anybody who can match those guys. All due respect to Riley Green, who's one of my favorite players. Riley Green's awesome. He's a really good player. He's not anywhere close to what Julio can do when Julio's playing at his 100th percentile. He's not anywhere close to what Cal Raleigh has done. So the stars still have to be stars. But I think that's a given. I think we all know that. The stars have to be stars.

I think a potential big key here is going back to the bullpen. Matt Brash has not missed bats. He went through a stretch where he wasn't missing any bats. Then he started missing a ton of bats. and in the last week or two, he hasn't missed bats. And that is the role for Matt Brash. You need him to get swing and miss. That is where you want to use him. And if he's incapable of doing that, then you need to change his role to where he gets the clean inning and he can go get three ground balls and he can give up a single.

And it's not the end of the world because he can easily get the double play ball. Like Brash is still a very effective reliever. It's just if he's not getting swing and miss, it changes what kind of leverage situations you can use them in. Because often when we talk leverage innings or leverage moments, you need a strikeout. That is the ultimate leverage when you need a strikeout. And they used to be Brash's specialty. Like, oh, we need a strikeout.

Brash strikes out, you know, 35, 40 percent of batters he faces. This year he hasn't. And I think it's mostly just a result of him returning from Tommy John and, you know, trying to figure it out. And it usually takes guys a full year after they return for them to get back. So I expect 2026 Brash to look much closer to 2023 Matt Brash. But the swing and miss is. it's still a problem right now.

And so it does change the calculus a little bit there. So if you get nasty Matt Brash who can command and control his stuff enough to get some whiffs and to get some strikeouts in this series, I think it could be an absolute game changer in the back end. But if you just kind of get like the still very good Matt Brash, but one who's, you know, ground ball heavy and gets maybe a strikeout per inning, it kind of changes. He's really no better than Bizarro if that's who he is. And frankly, I trust.

Rizardo more to throw strikes. So, you know, what, what version of Matt Brash you get is going to be fascinating. And unfortunately, you're not going to know that until you put them out there, probably in a super high leverage spot. So I think Brash and Spire are two, you know, big critical components of this because of the matchups that the Tigers can throw out there late in a game. Absolutely. Specifically talking about the matchup with Scoobel, J.P. Crawford has been the mayor's best hitter against him. He is four for five against Scubel with a double figure. three singles has a struck out against him so uh randy a rosarana five for 18 uh with a double

it's pretty good Mitch garrver two for 14 with eight strikeouts however he does have a home run against tarrick school look garver's going to be in the lineup in game two and i'm going to hate it but he's going to be in the lineup he's going to be in the lineup um worry polanco seven for 26 against scoble with the home run so that's that's another guy to keep and eye on. Cal so far has been two for nine against scubel with three strikeouts. He also has a home run against scubel. And Julio's two for eight against him with a home run. With a home run.

Yeah. If you're hitting above 200 against scubel, you're doing a pretty good job at something. Yeah. And you see him pretty well. If you're hitting over 200, that's how good he is. There are five Mariners hitters that are hitting over 200 against him. Right. again, that that's pretty good.

Like for anybody else, that's not very good. But when you're talking about the scubles and the coals and the skeins and like the hundred Browns, if you're putting up a 200 batting average or better against these guys, that's pretty good. Because relative to the rest of the league, you have had success against him. But we'll see. Hopefully you win game one tonight. It doesn't make game two like gravy or anything like that.

But it does relieve some of the pressure because you do not want to be, trailing in the series and have to face tarik scoble yeah so we'll see how it goes um again tomorrow after the game uh obviously and chris have you covered on the marris postcast ben rini of sea level and i will also be recording a post game episode that'll come out you know a couple hours after the game uh colby will be back uh with us on sunday after that game uh to recap it uh and then uh mailbag money day of course and all that good stuff another post game on tuesday wednesday if they have to play game for etc tomorrow morning uh i'll be dropping a pretty lengthy conversation that i had with stacy joe ross of seven 10 seattle sports uh so look forward to that so you'll have some pregame content uh to listen

to if you're you know on your way to the ballpark or just getting ready for the game all that uh both of the mariner's games are going to be on fox sports one uh by the way so plan accordingly. Again, 538 p.m. Pacific time start for game one tomorrow, 503 Pacific start on Sunday. And again, both of those games on Fox Sports One, not just Fox. So that is going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown Marreras podcast for Colby Patnode. I'm Tadang Azales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L.O. underscore Marrers. You can follow me at Tadeng Azales. And Colby at C-Pat 11, that's C-PAT-1.

We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB Colby, in the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram at Lockdown Mariners. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.