Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Julio Rodriguez Puts Sloppy Mariners On His Back For Series Win in KC

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Mariners just played some of the sloppiest baseball you will ever see over the last four days. And yet they go three and one over that span. Thanks a large part to Julio Rodriguez, who looks better than ever. Let's talk about it here on the lockdown mirrors postgame show. Colby hit it. You are locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the locked on podcast network.

Starting point is 00:00:22 Your team every day. Ahoy, sailors. It is Thursday, August 17th, 2023. This is tiny Gazzal us and Colby Patented for the Locked on Mariners Post. game show brought to you by Fandul Sportsbook, the official sportsbook of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Make every moment more. Visit fandul.com slash locked on today to get started.

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Starting point is 00:01:03 The link as well as our social accounts is in the description of this episode. Six to four, the final score from Kaufman Stadium. Mayors take the series finale against the Royals and win the series three games to one. Julio Rodriguez goes five for five this afternoon with five RBI, including the go-ahead game-winning three-run blast. Help of the mayor to survive yet another sloppy day of baseball across the board. Colby, this series is thankfully finally over. We can finally breathe a little bit.

Starting point is 00:01:37 How are you feeling after the big one? Well, you know, Julio got picked off, so not too good. Right, right, right. Of course I was going to start there. Yeah, we have to start there. I think relief is probably just the best word because. Right. Yeah, let's be just blunt and perfectly honest about this.

Starting point is 00:01:59 The Mariners did not play well. in this entire series. They really did. They played better in the games they lost against Baltimore than they did in the series. We saw just bad. None of the starters did their job. You could argue there's a little bit of bad luck here and there, whatever. In the day, they didn't do their job.

Starting point is 00:02:18 Your two best bullpen guys, each blew a save. You got picked off three times, I want to say. You got thrown out at the plate because of terrible base running, terrible, like, Canzone slows down. and then he doesn't cut the bases right, almost like he was like active, like isn't going to send me. So I'm just going to shut this down.

Starting point is 00:02:37 And like like just mental mistakes. We saw a couple errors. We saw multiple errors. Yeah. We saw balls that weren't ruled errors that should have been. And like they were strikeouts. They were there. Dylan Moore today gives up on a ball that is dropped by the left fielder.

Starting point is 00:02:55 Ends of getting thrown out at first. Like they left a ton of guys on base. Like they did not play well. Kansas City is bad. Like, particularly that pitching is some of the worst I've ever seen. Yeah. And as a result,

Starting point is 00:03:09 you sloppily play your way to a three and one, totally respectable, uh, you know, four game series, uh, in which you probably should have swept, uh,

Starting point is 00:03:19 you know, even with as bad as you played. Uh, so yeah, I think it's just relief because it's not like they played well and they just kind of handled their business and they had one bad game and whatever you write it off. No, they had four.

Starting point is 00:03:31 pretty bad games where at some point at every level they failed, which sounds weird to say for the offense because the offense I think scored, well, it was eight, 10, six and six. And six. Yeah. Yeah. Like more than enough typically, but they left so many guys on base. They missed so many pitches down the middle of the play. They had so many base running mistakes.

Starting point is 00:03:54 If they play like they did in this series against Houston this weekend, they would. will get swept and they'll probably get run out of the building they have to step it up and yet at the day even if they lost today they still would have had a net gain of a half game on toronto just because of you know toronto had two days off so um it's it's frustrating it really is and i don't i don't like to complain about wins and i'm not going to complain about the win but there's between complaining about the win and looking at how you won and saying like can you repeat that can that they didn't they didn't win the way i wanted them to yeah always give me yeah you that's you that's not me oh that that's you that's you that's you that's not because i'm happy they

Starting point is 00:04:47 won like all right yeah but again we have to we we have to as analysts look at how they played yes in this four game series and it is not good enough not to beat the astros probably not good enough to even beat the White Sox. It's not going to beat Toronto. It's not going to beat Houston. It's not going to be Tampa or anybody you might face in the playoffs. You have to play better. They didn't play well.

Starting point is 00:05:10 Thankfully, they got bailed out. Yeah. Today in particular, pretty much by one guy. So, so, and yesterday, you know, pretty much by one guy. And the first and two games before, pretty much Thai France, pretty much to Oscar Hernandez. So they had individual players step up for a, couple of games here and there in this series. But overall, the team did not play well today.

Starting point is 00:05:35 They did not play well in this series. So, you know, it, it's, it's frustrating because it's, you know, it's Kansas city and you just feel like you want to boat race them. But again, they won three or four. So. Yeah. Hopefully it's, it's a, it's a kick in the pants. And they, they realize like, man, we, we can't, we can't try and win like that every single

Starting point is 00:05:57 time out. We have to play good ball. And hopefully that starts. tomorrow. Hopefully this is just isolated to this series and we move on because it did look like just from the way that they were playing like they weren't taking their opponent too seriously. Like they weren't taking the series too seriously. That's why I took issue with Julio's thing when he got picked off. Like it was more just a culminate. It wasn't even to single out Julio. It was just a culmination of everything that's happened over the last four days and

Starting point is 00:06:24 the way that this team has played. It was very like head in the clouds baseball. Right. And by the way, Let's just put this out there. Julio didn't get picked off because, you know, somebody made an amazing play. Julio got picked off because he wasn't paying attention. Sure. That's the long and the short. You watch the replay.

Starting point is 00:06:41 His head is down when the ball is starting. So regardless of, we're not focusing on that. We're going to focus on the way. Don't challenge me. I know, I know you will, but I'm going to divert us off of this path.

Starting point is 00:06:54 It's not just that though, right? It's Dillmore turning his back and running back. It's, you know, not knowing where to go. with the ball. It's not running your hardest when you're trying to score. It's, it's not cutting the bases like you're trying to score. And we saw Julio get mad at Canzone for that. Julio was touching second when Canzone was about a third of the way. Yeah. Like, there's no excuse for Dom Canzone to not be, I don't want to say safe, but like to not be rounding third when

Starting point is 00:07:20 Julio's touching second. Like, there's no excuse for that. They were sloppy. They played some really sloppy ball. And even the lineup today, it looked kind of like a, uh, we don't really care. We don't respect our opponent. So like, we're going to have. have Brian O'Keefe hit sixth. Like, yeah. No offense to Brian O'Keefe, but like sixth. Yeah. Sixth.

Starting point is 00:07:38 Yeah, I'll do respect to friend of the show, Brian O'Keefe, but that's a wild decision. Even with what was behind him in the lineup with Cabiero and Marlowe and Haggurty, I mean, Cade Marlowe had a great game today, by the way. Like, give it up to Cade Marlowe. Cabiero had a really nice series at the plate. Yeah, cabbiero aside from, you know, the error and then getting picked off last night. the plate almost got picked off again today by the way. Yeah, you did.

Starting point is 00:08:04 Yeah, but overall, really good at the plate. Yeah, overall had a really nice series offensively. Yeah, like, yeah, that was just, that was weird, putting no keef there. But anyway, enough of the complaints. Enough of the complaints. This, at the end of the day,

Starting point is 00:08:18 you're a half game out from the third and final wild card. You did pretty much exactly what you needed to do in the series, which was to win the series. You would have liked to see them sweep this series, but you won the series. That's what's the most important at the end of the, the day. And yeah, we're on to Houston. So, all right. So let's talk more about Julio's Day and the rest in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Locked-on Mariners Postgame show is brought to you by

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Starting point is 00:09:43 Royals take three games out of four from Kansas City. They are on to Houston. Starting tomorrow, you can catch that series over the course of the weekend on the Marys hometown broadcast with Sirius XM be the SXM app. So again, Julio goes five for five. today he pretty much carries the Mariners to this series of victory.

Starting point is 00:10:03 He had a great series overall. Today he became the first player of Mariners history with 20 plus home runs in each of his first two major league seasons. He also became the fourth player in Mariners history with 20 plus home runs and 30 plus stolen bases in a single season and the fourth player in Mariners history

Starting point is 00:10:20 to record back to back games with four plus hits. The last one to do that, D Strange Gordon, back in 2018. Julio was a triple shot. of the cycle today. He actually had that triple on the Canzone play we were talking about earlier, but they ended up ruling that retroactively to a double.

Starting point is 00:10:39 So he ends up getting, what, three singles a double, and then the three-run, home run. And the three-run, home run, is obviously the story here, right? This was what I've been waiting for. I have talked about this for so long that I want Julio to be the guy that every team fears in those situations

Starting point is 00:10:59 when you have a one run lead or a two run lead, and everyone in that building is terrified of number 44 stepping up to the plate. Like I am of Yordon Alvarez in situations like that. Like I am with Aaron Judge in situations like that. And Julio had his Yordon Alvarez, his Aaron Judge-esque moment in this game. That was sick. That was one of my most favorite Julio moments so far. And it's exactly what the Mariners need right now, right, Colby?

Starting point is 00:11:29 I mean, you could do without getting picked off. No, I'm jumping. No, I think my favorite part of the Julio home run, which obviously is majestic and fantastic, is that he did it on a pitch that every club has gone to against Julio in that exact situation. Velocity in, and Julio usually can't get his hands through,

Starting point is 00:11:52 and he'll ground it weekly to the shortstop. We've seen how many double plays where Julio has very early in account, first pitch, gotten velocity in or middle in, and he's just rolled over to the shortstop. It's happened, I mean, so much that like it's a meme at this point. And instead, this time, Julio went up there looking for that pitch. He knew how they were going to try and attack him.

Starting point is 00:12:12 He got his hips through. He got the bat through. And I don't care what the exevalo said. I don't care what the distance was. They're wrong. It was hit harder. It was hit further than that because that was a majestic shot. I don't know if you saw the replay.

Starting point is 00:12:24 Garcia, the third baseman, never even turned around. just like, no, I know where that's going to land. Like it was. Yeah. And it was elevated. It was up and in. It wasn't a terrible pitch. It wasn't a great pitch, but it wasn't a terrible pitch from Hernandez.

Starting point is 00:12:37 Who's got some real velocity and some real stuff. So the fact that Julio kind of like sensed almost like, okay, how have they pitched me in the past in these spots? It's off speed away. It's, uh, you know, heat inside. I'm going to sit on the one pitch that I think I'm going to get. And then he didn't miss it. Uh, so yeah, it was, it was just fantastic process, uh, to go behind that and understanding of the situation, understanding of how teams have attacked you in the past. Um, and you know, kind of an understanding of the moment. Like, yeah, I like it, it has to be me today. Like, it sucks that it has to be me today, but also I like embrace that it has to be me today because that's who Julio has to be. Julio is the type of player who should have games like this a couple times a year. Like, five for five maybe not that but like you know what i mean he's going to have to have where he has a

Starting point is 00:13:32 moment like puts the team on the back on his back and he says i will carry us to the finish line and you know this i don't want to say this was his first one yesterday was game was pretty close uh but it feels like this is the first one of the year last year you remember the the Atlanta game uh and all that stuff and so yeah it was great to see uh obviously uh i think my like just like the most impressive hit might be the liner he hit for the double over Melendez because I don't think that thing ever got more than like six feet off the ground it just kept go like Melendez thought he had it. He thought it was right out. And all of a sudden it goes, oh, no, that's got way more velocity than I thought.

Starting point is 00:14:13 Julio, I think had four hard hit balls today. I can't even think about what hit, you know, wasn't hit hard. And it was just kind of funny because, again, we saw the screaming liner over the left fielder's head. We saw the home run. And then we saw two infield singles. Like you saw the entire package from Julio today, um, minus,

Starting point is 00:14:32 you know, stolen base, which, but, uh, you know, you saw, you saw the arm.

Starting point is 00:14:37 He got an assist today. Uh, so yeah, it was just, it was again, it was Julio, the Mariners needed somebody to carry them because this team was dead for most of the day.

Starting point is 00:14:47 Yeah. And Julio after the, what, the fourth, fifth inning, it was just felt like he was like, I'll, fine,

Starting point is 00:14:53 I'll do it myself. Like, uh, I can't wait for somebody. else to step up. I have to do it and he did it. So, um, you know, it's, it's an important step going forward. It is funny, you know, that I think before yesterday's game, Julio was hitting like 255, 251, something like that. Today he ends with his season batting average at 269. His WRC plus has jumped up to 119 on the year. Uh, Julio entered yes, or entered today as the 16th most

Starting point is 00:15:23 valuable position player in all of baseball. Sneaky suspicion that he'll jump a couple guys on that list after today's game. And yeah, since July 1, Julio has been just an absolute freak. He's looked like mooky bets, like, which is what he basically was from May 1st to the end of the year last year. So it's great to see. You needed it. And Julio, you know, today is kind of like the culmination of what has been a really good

Starting point is 00:15:49 six-week stretch for him. And, you know, I'm sure it's some. point he'll have an 0 for 18 uh some point this year something like that but right now he is your best hiter by far and and i think honestly when jp comes back jp can hit second like i i you know there's really not a wrong answer there but um you know it just it'd be nice to have julio and jp both going at the same time especially when you consider tie francis you know didn't have a great game today but he did kind of get robbed by the stadium of a grand slam so yeah yeah baseball ball is cruel because

Starting point is 00:16:24 Julio had four hard hit balls and went five for five. Ty had three hard hit balls and went 0 for five, including what would have been a grand slam and 29 major league ballparks except the Coffin Stadium. Yeah. Of course. Yep, yep.

Starting point is 00:16:40 Sure. Of course. Yeah. Why wouldn't it? But yeah, you know, I don't have the Mariners had a stretch at any point this year with J.P. Crawford, Julio, Ty France, and either Gino or Teo all, you know hitting at their like 100th percentile no they haven't and you know we'll see how soon jp

Starting point is 00:17:00 gets back we'll see how how he plays once he does return but it feels like ties locked in right now hollio's definitely locked in right now gino had a really good first two games really bad next to so who knows what's going on with gino teo again kind of the same he had a five-hick game and then i think he went over a yesterday and then I think he had a double today. Yeah, you had a double today. Yeah, yeah. We'll see. It's really tough to judge the mayor's offense overall, though, because Kansas City's

Starting point is 00:17:32 pitching is that bad. It's really bad. It's really bad. But at the very least, I mean, look, the journey to the destination was ugly, but the destination overall looks like about what you would hope for against this pitching staff. You know, again, what, they scored seven runs in the first game or eight runs on the first game, I can't remember, and then 10 in the first win and then six, uh, last night and today,

Starting point is 00:17:55 like, you'll absolutely take that against this pitching staff. Um, but again, just the way you got there wasn't, wasn't great. It was kind of a bumpy road, but yeah, we're going to talk about George Kirby's start in just a moment, but first, a reminder of this episode of the Locked-on Marriss postgame show is brought to you by Sleeper. Want the chance to win more money with less picks? Head on over to Sleeper where you can win up to 100 times your money on just two or more fantasy baseball picks. Head to Sleeper and swing for the fences with up to 100 times payouts. All you have to do is choose two or more players they like and select more or less on their

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Starting point is 00:18:49 Currently operational in over 30 states, check out Sleeper today. And you're listening to the lockdown Marrars Postgame show. Thank you so much for making us your first listen after the game. Marys went 6 to 4 over the Kansas City Royals. They're going to take on the Houston. Stop looking at me like that. They're going to take on the Houston Astros starting tomorrow. Over the course of the weekend, you can catch all the action on the Marys hometown broadcasts

Starting point is 00:19:13 with Sirius XM via the SXM app. If you're watching on YouTube, you probably just saw a plethora of cuts, edits made, because I could not get through that ad read whatsoever. But I did it. I made it through. Thank you. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:19:29 So let's talk about George Kirby after I just dropped my spaghetti. Congrats on doing that on your, only your second attempt too. Second. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, only second.

Starting point is 00:19:40 Only the second. By the way, definitely not four. Yeah. Real quick, I wanted to give a quick shout out to Cal Raleigh, who's still hitting out of his mind right now. I'll pinch hit home run to add some insurance,

Starting point is 00:19:50 which Matt Brash didn't actually need, which surprising. We actually got good Matt Brash today. And kind of last night. I mean, he gave up the home run, but still he got the job done. He was really good after the home run. Yeah, he was really good after the home run.

Starting point is 00:20:06 So he got the job done last night. He got the job done tonight, despite pitching five games in the last six days. Yeah, I would call this good enough Matt Brash today. Sure. but like yeah he's probably down for tomorrow and i bet if the mariners had their like you know had their preferences play out then he would probably be down for saturday too so once again sassato was hot and ready to go and then oh what's with that man i i don't

Starting point is 00:20:36 i don't know i don't know but weird anyway all right hey let's get we're giving shout out to cow raleigh how about we give a shout out to trent thornton who went one, two, three on 10 pitches against the top of the, uh, the royals order. Um, that it's like the only guy who looked like he knew how to get out Bobby Whit and Michael Garcia. So like, uh, good job, Trent. We needed you.

Starting point is 00:21:06 Um, yeah, well, I'm sure we'll talk about this at some point, but like, did you find it odd that, that Scott took out George after 73 pitches with a bullpen is down. That was as down bad as his is. well George gave up what 13 hard hit balls today yeah like I don't know I don't know if he if he trusted him the rest of the way to go another inning like I don't know because it's just like only two strikeouts as well

Starting point is 00:21:34 like give a lot of hard contact but until the that bottom of the sixth he was pretty much cruising so I don't I don't know if it just felt weird just because the bullpen is in such rough shape. Yeah. And, you know, even at 4 to 2, like, that's not an unwinnable game, but that is a probably sub 30% chance to win that game down by 2 after the 7th or after the 6th, even with the bad bullpen. So I don't know.

Starting point is 00:22:05 I just felt kind of like, huh, that's, doesn't sound like he's hurt or anything like that. So that's good. But I just thought that was a little bit of an interesting call by. Scott. Not a bad call necessarily, just interesting. Yeah, the, the Royals had an 83% chance of winning the game after the Melendez double. Yeah. So, I mean, again, it's not exactly like that because, you know, I don't think win chance or the win probabilities factor in individual teams just like of every game that's ever had this exact situation, this team has won 83% of the time. And obviously that number, if you factored in the Royals bullpen, would go down less than 83. But it's not good.

Starting point is 00:22:50 So again, I'm not not criticizing Scott for that decision. I just thought it was, it was an interesting one specifically because of the state of the Mariners bullpen at the moment. Yeah. So, I mean, whatever, it worked out, right? So I'm not going to give Scott too hard of a time. It was a little strange because, I mean, look, even with all the hard. hit balls, four-arm runs in a game, like after six, when you're only at 73 pitches, especially when it's George Kirby, right?

Starting point is 00:23:17 We're not talking about Emerson Hancock here. We're talking about George Kirby. Like, that's not a disastrous start. It's not a good start necessarily, but it's not a disastrous start either. It's not like you need to yank him. But, yeah, I just kind of wonder if just Scott saw or didn't like what he was seeing and just didn't trust him the rest of the way. Or, you know, maybe George is sick.

Starting point is 00:23:38 kind of a weird day for for George though five whiffs on 47 swings yeah weird only 11 called strikes like this this royals offense they're annoying they're swinging dude like they're really annoying they're really really really

Starting point is 00:23:52 freaking annoying like here's the thing too right like they didn't chase a lot so it's not like you just like oh we'll just throw balls and they'll chase well and also they've had they had multiple hits throughout the course of the series on pitches outside of the zone yeah their outside zone contact rate

Starting point is 00:24:07 It was like, like Kansas City knew exactly what pitches each one of them could hit. Every player in that lineup knew exactly what type of pitch they could hit. And if they saw it, they saw a pitch that they could put the bat on, they were going to swing at it and just kind of let the bathe of gods take over because there are pitches that nobody should ever swing at. And yet they somehow did. And they, you know, hit a jam, a jammed line drive over Dylan Moore's head or Cabrero's head. And it happened repeatedly over and over again, but like the only two guys who hit the ball, hard consistently in this entire series were wit and and perress everybody else felt like they were hitting like 89 to 90 mile per hour bleaters and they just kind of find a spot and

Starting point is 00:24:47 it doesn't matter the pitch was three or four inches off the outside corner or you know at the shoulders of somebody like if they could get the bat to it they were going to swing at it and they put the ball and play a lot uh the mariners only had four strikeouts today and they only had i think five or six yesterday like this is that the mariners pitching was not able to uh, you know, put guys away. And that is in large part why the Royals were able to score so many runs because they'd get a guy on third base. He was going to score.

Starting point is 00:25:18 Like they didn't leave anybody on third base because you couldn't get the strikeout. They just put the ball in play and your infield is usually drawn in. So they'd get a hit out of it. And it's just really pesky type of offense. And they have just enough power from guys like Witt and Perez. And yeah, they're on a bit of a heater right now too. So it is kind of a perfect storm for, for you know kind of a offensive driven series but at the end of the day

Starting point is 00:25:41 Seattle is a team that's built on pitching they need to pitch better like it that just facts it doesn't matter how hot a team is if you are built on pitching and you threw out you know your two best guys in these last two games and they to be charitable survived their outings against this team like they weren't good enough that really what it is the mayor's pitching was not good enough in the series but you know get credit to kansas city too they're really aggressive team they're really hot right now at the plate you could see why despite you know being one of the best offenses for the last month they're still 50 games under 500 or

Starting point is 00:26:17 whatever it is like yeah you can see why uh because of the pitching but yeah uh give them credit they they're definitely swinging it right now well at least we don't have to see them again this year oh right that'll be different at team mobile that is true coffin is something It's a word that I cannot say on this podcast, but on the Control the Zone podcast. We'll just leave it at that. Subscribe, by the way, Patreon.com forward slash control the zone. That's going to do it for our show today. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown on Marrace postgame show,

Starting point is 00:26:50 which has been an absolute cursed recording, but we made it through. We made it through. For Colby Paddode, I'm Tiding Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-E-E-T-1. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok as well over at Locked-on Mariners. That's one word, Locked-on Mariners.

Starting point is 00:27:11 You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Thank you again for making us your first listen after the game. Again, you can catch the Mariners and the Astros starting tomorrow on the Marys hometown broadcast with Sirius XMV, the SXM app. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Julio Rodriguez Puts Sloppy Mariners On His Back For Series Win in KC

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