Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Jarred Kelenic Helps Stagnant Mariners Offense Explode For Nine vs. A's

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

The Mariners' offense has been abysmal for most of this road trip, but Jarred Kelenic, in his first start since being recalled from Triple-A Tacoma, helped the struggling unit explode for nine runs in a much-needed 9-5 win over the Athletics. Ty and Colby discuss Kelenic's day, George Kirby's struggles on the bump and Julio Rodríguez's injury.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/ 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.

Jared Robert Kelnick. That's it. That's the cold open. 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 Thursday, September 22nd, 2022.

This is Tadang Azales and Colby Patnode for the Locked-on Mariners Post game show. Thank you so much for making us your first listen after the game. Subscribe, like and turn it on. alerts if you're watching on YouTube or subscribe to the show and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear. And if you want to hear from us even more, consider signing up for our Patreon. The link as well as our social accounts are in the description of the show wherever you're watching or listening to this. Oh man, it feels good to talk about a one today. Seriously. Like the last few days have been utterly depressing to watch,

particularly from, you know, when it comes to this offense, this mayor's offense has been atrocious. But today, they explode for nine runs out of nowhere, out of seemingly thin air. They pull nine runs and overcome a five to three deficit. It looked like, oh, no, the mariners are in danger of getting swept by one of the worst teams in baseball. And, you know, we're going to be talking about the Julio Rodriguez injury. We're going to be talking about George Kirby's struggles, but Colby, we need to start with the man of the hour. Jared Kellnick, who in his first start since being recalled from AAA Tacoma in Disney movie script fashion

helps a stagnant Mariners offense do what it did today and hopefully break out of this pathetic slump that it's been in over the last few days aside from that one game against the Angels. By the way, a message to the Mariners. You guys know that you can win games on days

that we don't do a post-game show, right? Like, that is allowed. You know, we don't need to just only talk about wins on here. But I digress. What a day it was for Jerry Kellnick, who goes two for three with a walk, an absolute moonshot of a solo home run, and an RBI double that knotted things up at five apiece.

The Mariners, of course, jumped out to a three-nothing lead in this game with a big first inning against Adrian Martinez. But then, you know, George Kirby, and we'll talk about him a little bit later, had a very uncharacteristic day. The A's get a five spot in what was it, the third or fourth inning. And fortunately, that was it for the A's.

But Kellnick led the way here for the M's. The solo home run brought things within one run, and then he was able to get the additional run that they needed to knock things up, his next time through the lineup. How big was this for Jared Kellnick? And, you know, considering the way that Jesse Winker continues to play, last night was another rough night for Winker. He, of course, was the DH today.

kind of seems like Kelnick is or at least should be getting most of the starts there in left field, right? I'm just trying to figure out what Kelnick did. That was so impressive today. He took a walk in a 440 foot home run. Like hustle double where he broke the 30 feet per second mark that is considered elite 30.1 feet per second. like didn't really show off much of his game. No mistakes in the field. Just kind of,

you know, just kind of was. That's all it was. It was what it was. Yeah, Jared is in a really good position right now to produce numbers because he did make some changes at AAA. He's covering more at the zone right now.

He is swinging and missing at a lot fewer pitches. he's missing a lot fewer pitches when he gets them to hit and that that's been true since he got sent back down again in what was that mid-August he went down there and he made the changes and the numbers beared out his strikeout rate continues to drop his hard hit rate I think before he was recalled in August 14th I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but it was hovering around 20% hard hit rate when he got sent back down to triple A until he made his like fourth debut today that hard hit rate in triple a was 44%. So yeah, he did make some changes. He's covering more of the plate. And for the next two weeks, he's going to be facing largely major league pitching, no doubt, but certainly not. I mean, it's it's 4A and it's not Carol and Esther Cortez and right. It's a bunch of bad pitching staffs, more or less.

maybe a few good arms sprinkled in there. But for the large part, it's going to be mostly, you know, major league arms, which is something Kelnick should hit because he saw a lot of those in AAA. So he's in a good position right now, both at the plate and based on the quality of opponent he's going to face here in the last few weeks to kind of get on a roll and hopefully carry that. Because, yeah, his defense is significantly better than Jesse Winker. There's no question about that. It's better than Mitch Hanager, too. But you can't replace both of those with one guy.

So, yeah, I think Kellnick is going to play a lot. There's no reason for him not to. They probably still protect him against a tough lefty. That's probably when we see Dillemore out there in the outfield, Sam Hagridy in the outfield. There's a lefty coming up, I believe, in this Kansas City series, if I'm not mistaken. So we'll see what they decide to do.

They might not have a choice with Julio, who we'll talk about later. But yeah, Kellnick, this was the first time he came up and performed in his first opportunity. The first time he came up, he went 0-4 the first night. You know, the second time he came back up in September, he wasn't very good for a little while. Or what was that July last year? He wasn't that good for a little while. And then this year he came, you know, wasn't good, got to it back down, came back up, wasn't very good.

And so this is kind of the first time he started out on the right foot. And, you know, you kind of saw the entire game today, the power, the patience, the speed. It was all on display today and it's just a good reminder of this is the ceiling of Jared Kellnick. And if he can, if he fixed some of those issues in AAA, mainly, you know, making more contact and making more consistently hard contact, uh, that he can still be a very good player at this level. He's only 23 years old. And I feel like people sometimes forget that. Does he look a little slim down to you? I don't know about slim, but he looked more athletic in the batters box. Like the swing didn't look like a blacksmith.

It looked more like an artist, right? It kind of had flow to it. It was quicker. In the past, we've seen Kalnick just looked like he's, you know, a giant carrying a toothpick at the plate. And it just,

it didn't look like it had natural flow. Today it did. Granted, it's only one game. So we'll see it wasn't against top-notch pitching. But it's okay because, you know, that's who he has to face.

And Kalnick face these type guys in in April and you know in May and he wasn't doing this so it's definitely a step in the right direction so not to take anything away from Jared I would just you know be a little cautious here we have to see how it plays out but my assumption is we are going to get to see him a lot I said this yesterday on CTZ when you know we found out that he had been called up and there's really no reason to call him up if you're not planning on playing him 60 70% of the remaining games it just it doesn't make sense. Scott's service saying after the game today that he will get plenty of opportunities to play.

And part of that, of course, is the Julio injury, which we'll be talking about in just a moment. But, you know, this is, I mean, this is now the 12th straight game that he's gotten a hit in. You know, if you count his AAA games, it's like his seventh or sixth or seventh multi-hit game in that span as well. and you know you look at the home run specifically you know just going back to the swing and how fluid it looks it's a difficult pitch to drive the way that he did that's a 95 mile per hour sinker near the bottom of the zone and he got around it it's a cookie for a lefty I mean it was 90 it was 93 it was it was 90 it was 90 it was inner third it was about thigh high like that's it was 94 I'm not going to give him credit for hitting that pitch

A good hitter should hit that pitch regularly with authority. 440 feet, though? Not 440 feet, but he should hit it hard, and Kelnick did. And that's the difference between Kalnick and just another player, right? That Kelnick can do that. And Kelnick, you know, at his best, isn't going to miss that pitch that often. And, you know, for, again, for the first 500, most of the first 500 plate appearances, that's a pitch he would miss or he would roll over on it or he would pop up.

Like that's, so it's still. good sign, but like, I don't want to go crazy with it. That was a pitch right in the, right in the loop zone, and he didn't miss it, which is good, because, again, in the past he has, but I'm not going to say that was a really, really hard pitch to hit. It wasn't exactly a cookie, but it, I mean, it wasn't like, you know, George Kirby's two seamer

over the inside corner. No, but I mean, you know, that's a, that's a pitch that he will or has missed in the past, that he's not driving like that in the past. Like, that's a good sign to me, at least. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a pitch that Jesse Winker this year has seen a lot and he has fouled it off his foot, essentially. And Kelnick didn't. So that that's good.

It just, I don't know. I didn't think it was like a particularly amazing piece of hitting aside from the distance. He's so strong. And, you know, bat speed's not an issue with him. So it's, again, it's a pitch that I think most good lefties hit hard, probably in the gap. or you know hit it hard and see what happens not a lot of guys can turn that pitch into what was it 435 440 whatever it was like that's the difference and he hit it so high too that's the other thing I think the apex was like 120 120 120 feet in the air like it was it was a boomer and they needed it

because it was right after the beginning right and it's like oh no here we go again and you know got got them right back on track and the momentum you know you was able to kind of start pushing the or back up the other side of the momentum hill and it worked out. The data on it 427 feet 33 degree launch angle 108.4 miles per hour off the bat. Yeah. So just absolutely smoked off the bat. All right. We're going to be talking about how the or just all about the Julio Rodriguez injury.

We're going to also be talking about George Kirby's day in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Nuggenics. Feeling like you just can't get in shape, it's not your fault. As men age, our body naturally loses free testosterone, the man hormone. It happens to every man and can make it more difficult to stay in shape and be energetic and active. Want more energy to counter the negative physical effects of aging? Nuggenix Total T testosterone booster with Tessopin will help you turn back the clock, re-energize your workouts, get you better results at the gym, and help you look and feel like the man you really want to be.

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Text MLB to 231-231. Text MLB to 231, message and data rates may apply. Terms apply available at Nugentex.com forward slash terms. You're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you so much for making us your first listen after the game. So Colby, not a great day for George Kirby. The average velocity was down about half a tick. He was really struggling to find the strike zone, which is very uncharacteristic for Kirby.

It's the first time he's walked multiple guys in his major league career today. Three walks and just could not get out of trouble. He was really tempting fate through the first few innings of this game. The A's finally got to him a basis clearing triple by Stephen. Vogue really broke things open for the A's offense. But that was also the only inning that they were able to score. Matt Brash was able to come in, limit the damage in the bullpen carried it the rest of the way.

But yeah, what went wrong for Kirby today? Yeah, just control and command at the end of the day. We saw a lot of near misses, pitches that were close to the strike zone, but they were off by a couple inches, and he didn't get any of those calls. But that's fine. They weren't strikes. So it's not the umpire. fault. Kirby was just off by a little bit. And, you know, Kirby is a pinpoint control guy right now.

The off speed stuff, it's fine, but it's not plus, right? It's something that he still needs to work on. But because he has the fastball control and command that he usually does, and the control and command of his off speed pitches, like those pitches all play up. Well, if you don't have the pinpoint command and you've got to challenge guys in the middle of the strike zone, the average, you know, good 55 grader, stuff in the middle of the zone drops to 45. You know, it's worth noting the Big Haiti gave up the triple. It was a blooper and it just fell right on top of the foul line. So it's not like it was crushed or anything like that. So a little bit of bad bit luck there, but you can't walk three guys and then complain about

bad bit luck. It just, you can't do it. Not in three innings, three and two thirds, whatever it was. So, yeah, for Kirby, it was just all about control and command. Velocity was down slightly today. I don't know if that was to try and, you know, counteract the fact that he, you didn't have a good feel for, you know, with the command, to maybe try and guide pitches in instead of just throwing them. Or if it's fatigue or if it's just one of those days where you just couldn't really get loose.

So to me, it's nothing to panic about. It's nothing to be concerned about. It's the first time we've seen anything like this since the Baltimore start. And, you know, we're getting to the end here. And, you know, maybe there's a little bit of fatigue setting in, maybe. But we got an off day coming up on Monday. He's going to get an extra day's rest. and then Seattle can and probably will at some point really start to consider skipping him,

maybe going to Flexen for a game or pushing him back another additional start. So to me, it's nothing I'm concerned about. It's just it was just all about command and control today. And Flexen, who's normally, or sorry, Kirby, who's normally a, you know, 70, 70 grade control, 65 grade command guy was, you know, in the 40s, 45 today. And that's just not going to work with his current stuff. And it just felt like, man, you know, you finally get some offense of the first inning. You get a three nothing lead.

And then George Kirby, who's just been, you know, immaculate for the most part this season, has like one of the most uncharacteristic starts you could think of against one of the worst teams in baseball, against one of the worst offenses in baseball, an offense that's starting Stephen Vogue in 2022. And it's just like, is this team cursed? Like, I don't believe in curses, but it's moments like that where you actually, actually like you start to doubt yourself a little bit it's like wait like what what's going on here like why why is this happening right now thankfully the mariners were able to mount to come back and they were able to tack on some insurance and it was a non-issue but it's just so like I don't know

a lot of things that that happened in the series it's kind of inexplicable like it's just completely you know unexpected and just out of nowhere and doesn't really make any sense and and kirby's start today i think was kind of the the the peak of that like it was it was the biggest thing that that didn't make any sense in this series and it's just like i'm so glad we're done with oakland because the last couple series in oakland have been a nightmare uh so really glad that that we're done with that that was wow yeah it's it's such a it's a it's a difficult ball ball ball park to play in largely because it's big and empty. It's tough to, you know, get juice from

the fans or anything like that. And, you know, the Mariners, they kind of fail to produce their own juice the last two days. And really the last few times they've gone down there. So it's just going to be one of those things where, you know, you kind of, you kind of write it off and, you know, be happy that you're done with Oakland. You only have one more divisional opponent left. and you get to play them at home, where there should be plenty of juice in the stadium for you. So it's one of those things they have to play better. You know, it's something that they'll, they can't really fix right now. But in the offseason, they'll address and the way you play better in those stadiums is you have a deeper lineup, right?

You don't need Dylan Moore to get a big hit. You don't need Adam Frazier to get three RBI because you're just better than that. And so that's something that they'll address in the off season. But for now, yeah, it's nice, you know, you're done with your road. AL-West schedule. Now you just got three more road games and you're back home to finish it off. And we'll see where they land in the wild card standings. And if they get to host playoff games or not, it seems unlikely.

But we'll see. You never know. Just got to get on a little bit of a role here at some point. You got to start stringing some wins together. You don't need a seven-game win streak. But can you win three in a row, four or five? Can you start to do that and kind of turn the momentum around before we get the playoffs hopefully we'll see um 13 games left to do it and the magic number is nine so at least

right now yeah um as we're recording this orio's up to nothing on the astros actually got two runs off of justin verlander go figure imagine those the mariner's lost this game astros are getting no hit by the way yeah yeah so that's uh that's fun uh so potentially the magic number is not going down to eight tonight. We'll see. Right. Tampa Bay is up, by the way, six to three in the bottom of the fourth, and they have two guys on with one out. So, well, big series there for the Mariners. If you're a mariner fan, you're probably rooting for Tampa.

They do have the tiebreaker on you, but, you know, it's going to be easier to catch Toronto if Tampa wins three or four. If Tampa loses three or four here, you're pretty much guaranteed the six. based on how everybody's playing at the moment. So we'll see. So Mariners will see this A's team one more time in Seattle for three more games. You know, they also get the Rangers and they'll have the Tigers right after the A's series.

But thankfully, they're done in Oakland. They're done with the Coliseum. That place has been kind of a house of horrors for them this year, as weird as it is to say that. So it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows today for the Mariners, though. you know, obviously the Kirby start, but Julio Rodriguez, after doubling to lead off this game and later scoring on an RBI single by Mitch Hanigur, ended up having to leave the game in the second inning.

He ran out to the field, ran out to his position, and his back, which has been bothering him for the last week or so, held him out of a couple games in Anaheim, started to, quote unquote, lock up on him, as Scott Service said and service even went as far as to say that it's concerning the injury. They're going to do an MRI tomorrow in Kansas City

and Julio's going to get some work done, going to get some treatment. I, you know, if it was up to me, I don't know what the severity of the injury is, obviously. We don't know if it's just, you know, more tightness like how it was back in Anaheim or if there's even something worse, you know, fingers crossed, knock on what it's not.

Um, but if it's just kind of, you know, more of the same as it was in Anaheim, I wouldn't play him in Kansas City. Wouldn't play him in Kansas City. Um, and an I L stint at that point shouldn't be out of the equation. Uh, if you feel that it's something that's going to take, you know, less than 10 days to, uh, for him to recover from, fine, but you need to be absolutely sure. You can not do the same thing that you did with him last time, basically take his word for it. and just roll with him again because like if he reaggravates it again if you put him back on the field and say you know the second to last game in Kansas City or the last game in Kansas City or you know one of the opening games against the Rangers here and he react you know and he reagravates it you're looking at him missing time in the postseason potentially so you got to use this little bit of time that you have left here this little bit of buffer that you have left here to try and get him healthy because you need Julio. Because, I mean, you know, obviously you got to play the games when you get to the postseason,

but if they don't have Julio, they're probably one and done. Yeah. Two and Q this year. Yeah. It's one of those things. The Mariners' handling of their injured players down the stretch here has been puzzling. You know, and I know some of the Seattle beat disagree with that, but, you know, Thai France never went on the IL and Thai France never figured it out.

I just, is Thai France just a bad hitter now? I find that hard to believe. So I don't know about that. But, you know, I look at a guy like, you know, Mitch with his thing, they didn't put him on the IL and he's come back and Mitch, that hasn't been very good. You know, you kind of look at Julio, the back thing, no, we don't need to put him on the IL.

We don't need to put him on the IL. comes back, plays one or two games in one inning, and all of a sudden he needs an MRI, and he needs, you know, some treatment on the lower back injury. It's the same thing, right? It's the same thing that popped up. Cow Raleigh's thumb. No, we're not going to put him on the IL. We don't need to.

And Cal hasn't been the same. He did have a double today. It was good to see. And, you know, he caught fine. So it's just one of those things is that the Mariners have been kind of, I would say, not cautious enough. And I get why maybe they push it because they're trying to get that number one wild card. Like that's, I understand that, but at some point, right, you have to, you know, you have to do what's best in the long term future. And, you know, what good is it to have the home

playoff games if Julio Rodriguez, Cal Raleigh and Thai France can't play in them, right? It just doesn't make a difference. So I think for me, it's puzzling how they've handled this. My hope is, is that, They didn't get an MRI last time, which to me is dumb, like objectively just dumb. Why wouldn't you, hey, I got a sore back. Oh, that's cool. We just paid you $400 million. Yeah, we're just going to trust that. We're going to trust your word that you're healthy and that you can't do that with any

player. A player is going to tell you he's healthy if he is, if you thinks he is. And you just can't trust that. So, yeah, we'll see what happens here the rest of the way with the, you know, with the, with the injuries. I wouldn't be opposed to putting Julio on the I.O. I don't think they have to

because there's really nobody they could call up right now. That would help them more than hopefully getting Julio back in four or five days. But they need to be extra cautious with this and maybe it means you know, Julio D.Hs a couple times down the stretch here just to make sure of things. It's just weird

right because he hit the double in the first. He ran the bases. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. Everything looked totally fine. And then it just all of a sudden went on him. Like it was out. And so that's pretty concerning to me. So we'll see.

And you look at the violence of Julio's swing on top of it. Like, yeah, I'm not surprised that there have been some torque issues with Julio just because the swing is so violent and so fast and so powerful. So we'll see. I don't want to play doctor. Maybe it's something he just needs a day or two when he's back. But maybe it's something that he's going to be out four or five days. And maybe you should just consider putting him on the IL and making sure he's healthy for the playoffs. It's kind of a tough spot to be in right now, but you got to do it.

Yeah. And if you got to put them on the IL because it's an injury, you can bring Taylor Trammell back up. You don't have to wait the 10 days and all that stuff. So that's a pretty easy fix there. And Kelnick looked fine in center field today. So, you know, all things are good. Yeah, he'll be okay. Yeah, so, you know, he'll be fine there.

And, you know, if you got to play Dillon Moore out there, you got to play Dillon more out there for a game. For a game. So, you know, it is what it is. but I mean you know just you got to play it safe you got to play it absolutely safe here because like the closer that you get to the postseason the the further your your magic number goes down and it looks all but certain that you're going to lock up a wild card spot here like you said you know there's only so much you can do about the wild card one and there's no risk in enforcing these guys to play if you're not going to have them you know if you're running the risk of not having them for those games right. It doesn't matter at that point. So one of the issues, too, is that they can't just cycle guys through the DH right now either because like half of their team should be the DH. You know, there's three or four guys who should be the DH on a nightly basis. And then there's a couple of guys, you know, Gino has to be the DH when he comes back.

And, you know, what are you going to do with Julio? I mean, you can't get Julio, Ty, France, Carlos, Santé. Tana and Gino in the lineup every single night together. It's going to be a very tight fit, right? So just one of those things that it's part of the issue, the way when you build your team this way, and part of that is because of injuries, but it is the reality.

And so we'll see what the Mariners can do, how flexible they can get. But, you know, the Julio concern is a concern. It's, you know, we'll see what they say again. I'm not going to start to panic until we get more. We see what the MRI says. But it's obviously a pretty big damper on what was, you know, a good day. And, you know, ultimately, despite losing a series, their magic number drops by two again.

So it just, again, the idea that, you know, the Mariners are in danger of missing the playoffs, they're not. They're not in danger of missing the playoffs. What we're seeing right now is the high likelihood of playoff games. They're losing that possibility. still out there. Tampa Bay is up right now, eight to three. Houston just got its first hit.

Brandish, was Brandish? Bradish. Bradish just retired the first 17 mini-faced. So we'll see. Maybe Houston can win this game and you can drop the magic number again. But yeah, to me right now,

I can't care about whether or not you get home playoff games when the health of so many key players is up in the air right now. So to me, if you have to sacrifice home playoff games to be as healthy as you possibly can, that's a sacrifice you have to make. You need Julio in the playoffs more than you need the playoff games to be in Seattle. So you got to do its best for him. But yeah, again, not concerned at all about the,

about not making the playoffs right now because like Chicago is six back. They have to be six games better than the Mariners over their final 13 games. 12. In order to, well, they got 13 including tonight. I think it's 12 including tonight. but there's 76 and whatever 76 and 73 oh yeah so it would be yeah you're right sorry yeah 13 so so the you know that's incredibly hard to do yeah that's incredibly hard to do yeah Tampa just scored again so yeah yeah it is I mean like if Seattle has to be five games better because of the tiebreaker you know

right if the Mariners go six and seven you know Chicago has to run the day table. They have to go 12 and 1. Come on. Come on. And if the marons go 6 and 7, Baltimore has to go 11 and 2. It's just it's not going to happen.

I mean, I don't even want to say the marries are going to go 6 and 7. I think there's a decent likely that they finish better than that. But even if they don't, if they just finish 6 and 7, Chicago's not going 12 and 1. Baltimore's not going 11 and 2. So to me, it's just about getting healthy. Get as healthy as you can for the playoffs.

And let's, you know, cross our fingers and hope that a starting outfield against, I don't know, Cleveland isn't Calnick, Tramel, Dylan Moore. So fingers crossed, baby. All right. Well, that's going to do it for us on the Locktime Mariners Postgame show here for Colby Patnaud. I'm Taday Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez.

D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-A-11. That's C-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 after the game. Now make your second list on the Locked-on MLB podcast. MLB expert Paul Francis Sullivan brings humor, passion, and unique perspective on every team

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