Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Luis Castillo's Worst Start in a Mariners Uniform

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Unable to put some separation between themselves and .500 again, the Mariners saw Luis Castillo spin his worst start in their uniform as the Red Sox jumped on Seattle's ace for seven runs in a brutal 9-4 loss on Tuesday. Ty goes over what went wrong at Fenway Park in this quick postgame show.Help us out by filling out our survey!Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. 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.

Well, that was certainly something. I'll be getting into the issues that plagued Luis Castillo. And what I would say was his worst start in a Mariners uniform to date and more coming up here on the Locked-on Mariners Post-game show. Let's get into it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on podcast network. Your team every day.

Ahoy, sailors. And a welcome to the Locked-on Mariners Post-game show. I am your host, Tiding Azales, is Tuesday, May 16th, 20-23. Thank you so much for joining me this evening, taking time out of your night to come chat Mariners with me. Wish we were speaking under better circumstances because unfortunately the Mariners lost by a score of 9 to 4.4 tonight to the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Red Sox take game two of this series. And the rubber match will be tomorrow at 4.10 p.m. Pacific. You can catch that game on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Series XM via the SXM app.

Rough night for Luis Castillo. And that's honestly putting it lightly because to me, This was Castillo's worst start in a Mariners uniform today. We'll get into the reasons why. We'll also talk a little bit about this offense, which was, aside from a four-run inning midway through this game, pretty pathetic against a struggling Nick Povetta

and a bad Red Sox bullpen. This is going to be a pretty quick show because this is not a fun game to talk about, really. I do have a few notes that I want to go over, but after that, we're going to ball this game up and throw it in the trash. How does that sound? Sounds pretty good to me.

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your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem promo code locked on MLB for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute ticket's lowest price. Guaranteed. So late last week, we spent a good chunk of the show diving into the weeds of Luis Castillo's recent struggles over his last four starts heading into this game. We talked about how the barrel rate has gone up significantly from where it was through the first four starts of his season. We also talked about how he just wasn't throwing as many quality strikes as he was through the first four starts of the season when he was just absolutely magnificent. And both of those things unfortunately showed up in a pretty big way tonight at Fenway Park. The final line for Castillo tonight, five innings pitched, six strikeouts, two walks, five

earn runs, seven runs allowed in total on six hits. The big number here, though, three home runs, which matches his season total heading into this game. And the other big number, 11 hard hit balls. by this Red Sox lineup, which was really aggressive tonight, seven lefties in the lineup, and they executed their game plan against Castillo to perfection, and were able to take advantage of what was, to me, the worst command we've seen out of Castillo since he came over in that trade with the Reds last July,

just terrible command, no way around it, just 13 of a possible 24 first pitch strikes, but more importantly, the fact that he was just not just catching some of the plate, all of the plate, consistently. And the Red Sox took full advantage of that. They did a ton of damage against Castillo. They ate every single cookie that he gave him, it seemed. And this game couldn't have gotten off to a worse start, right?

You have the error by Colton Wong, which I know everyone wants to point the finger at Wong for a lot of the issues tonight, and I get it because he's an easy target right now. but this game ultimately falls on the shoulders of Castillo just being flat out bad. He was really bad tonight because after that error, he just wasn't able to settle in. He goes middle, middle fastball to Masataka Yoshita for that RBI triple in the second abat of this game.

Then middle middle fastball again to Justin Turner for the two-run, home run over the green monster. Then a couple batters later, he hangs a slider in the middle of the plate for Tristan Kossis, who deposits that over the right field wall to make it for nothing. Now, he was able to settle in innings two through four. That was great. That's where most of his six strikeouts came from.

It seemed like, you know, hey, the damage had already been done, but it's Fenway Park. You should still have a chance to be able to get back into this game. Maybe you can salvage at least a decent start out of this. He didn't give up a hit during that stretch, but then, unfortunately, once we got to the fifth inning, he reverted back to the woes that plugged him in the first inning middle middle fastball to Alex of Redugo for a leadoff double then middle inside third of the plate sinker to Yoshita for ground rule double and then hangs a slider to Jaron Duran for the third home run of this game

and that and that's your ball game right there really what's interesting about Cassio is that like Kirby like George Kirby last night, his velocity ticked up on pretty much all of his pitches except for the slider. He saw a one and a half mile per hour increase on his fastball average.

He saw nearly a full mile per hour increase in his changeup. And by the way, he used his changeup a hell of a lot more than we've really seen him since he's come over to Seattle. He threw that pitch 27 times tonight. we also saw a 1.4 mile per hour increase in his sinker velocity. So he was feeling good tonight.

Just the command was terrible, absolutely terrible. And he wasn't unlucky enough to survive that. The Red Sox were all over it. Again, they were incredibly aggressive and they rewarded for that aggressiveness as well. So just wasn't Castillo's night. And that put the Mariners in a pretty substantial. substantial hole, even though that they were able to knot things up at four piece in the, what was it? I believe the fourth inning, maybe the fifth inning.

I believe it was the fourth inning. It was the fourth inning, yeah. Cassio immediately, after a clean bottom of the fourth, came out in the fifth and gave the lead right back to the Red Sox with that rough fifth inning. And that was his night. And that's the story, ultimately. Like, again, I know that I talked about how bad this offense, was tonight, but the reason that you lost really is because Castio was as bad as he was. You're not going to win many games when your starting pitcher, let alone the ace of your

rotation throws the way that Castillo did tonight. So it's just the way it goes. It's a bit concerning when you pair this with how his last four starts had gone, but Castillo is also notorious for having a month like this. This is kind of the reason why a lot of folks don't label him as an ace because this has been a running theme for Cassio where he just has a really bad month. This predates his time in Seattle, obviously,

to his days in Cincinnati. So hopefully that's just kind of what we're experiencing right now and what we're enduring, and hopefully there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but this was bad. No way around it. This offense was also pretty bad. tonight again and colton wong was pretty bad tonight he did get a double that's just a second

hit uh since the wrist injury that he suffered against the astros a week and a half ago a week ago however long it's been uh but obviously had the really bad error uh to start this game and then lost the ball in the lights or had miscommunication with teasker and nandez and the seventh inning, which allowed a runner to get on and moved a runner up to second, which eventually scored to add some insurance for the Red Sox. Not like this Mariners' offense was going to score any runs, really anyway. They just, their at bats look pretty pitiful ever since that four run inning that they had.

But, you know, on the second miscue, defensive miscue from Wong, that might actually be, like, in all fairness. And again, I know it's really easy to point the finger at Colton Wong right now, and I get it. He's been really bad. He's been really rough to watch. But in all fairness, I kind of feel like that might have been on Teo because that ball landed like 10 feet behind Colton and Colton's backpedaling. Teo is running forward. He has the momentum.

He has probably the best track to go catch. that ball. So I'm not quick to point the finger at Wong on that front, but still just a bad play overall. It doesn't really matter. Whose fault it was at the end of the day?

Bad play and kind of exemplifies just the issues that that plug the Mariners all night long. Just a microcosm of the struggles tonight that this team endured. Again, offensively, not a good

night. You're going up against Nick Povetta, who's been statistically one of the worst starting pitchers in baseball to start the season. They got nothing off of him through the first three innings of this game. We're able to erupt for four runs in the fourth, but that was it. Couldn't take advantage. They had a chance to take a lead at one point. Couldn't capitalize on that. Julio generated an out. Jerich Kellnick struck out with a runner on third. They couldn't get that run in. the one positive note here Tay Oscar Hernandez continues to hit he had an RBI triple that got past

a diving Jaron Duran in center field that scored two so his red hot road trip I think that's what we can actually call it at this point because he's been really good he's four for eight in this series not sure exactly what he is for the whole road trip

but he's been pretty damn good on this road trip and so that's a huge plus here that's a silver lining ultimately here for the Mariners but the rest of this offense terrible Taylor Tremel at least had a game tying two run home run that's cool to see he has four hits since being activated three of them are home runs his other played appearances haven't looked particularly great but yeah look that's that's as much as I want to focus on this offense and then in this game really really. The other thing that I just want to touch him on real quick, I don't blame Scott

Service for doing this. It just, it sucks. They use Paul Seawald with the Red Sox up by three, which is not really a situation that you want to put Paul Seawald in or waste Paul Seawald on, but he hadn't pitched for six days, so he kind of needed to use him. But he ends up throwing 27 pitches, gives up a run. That stings because now you're you likely don't have him available for tomorrow's game, which is a pretty big game. All right, my camera disconnected, so weird jump cut for those of you watching on YouTube, but I was about to wrap up anyway. So with that, thank you so much for tuning in to the Lockdown Mariner's Postgame show.

Really appreciate you checking in here, even after a brutal Mariner's loss. Let's do it again tomorrow. We're going to be doing another Lockdown Mariner's Post game show. Hopefully, Colby will be able to join us for that one, and hopefully Marriers will actually be able to win that game and give us something to be happy about but for now, thank you so much for tuning in. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day. See you tomorrow.

Peace.