Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINER POSTCAST: J-Rod LEAVES WITH INJURY in loss to Los Angeles Angels

Episode Date: June 8, 2025

Anders and Chris break down Saturday's loss to the Los Angeles Angels. The biggest news is Julio Rodriguez leaving with an injury, but Luis Castillo also struggled -- as did his defense -- and another two Cal Raleigh homers weren't enough. Are the vibes bad? They seem bad, folks.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Wonderful PistachiosGet snackin' and get crackin' with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit WonderfulPistachios.com to learn more!Supply HouseJoin the TradeMaster program today at SupplyHouse.com/TM and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus, use promo code S-H-5 for 5% off your first order. That’s SupplyHouse.com! Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. 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.

This is the Mariners Postcast. Your instant game reaction for the Seattle Mariners. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Yikes, man. I'm going to have to try not to swear with you guys today because there are a lot of expletive thoughts. I'll put it that way. Welcome into the Mariner's Postcast, Anderson Hurst here to my left is Christopher Crawford.

live from the beach house over the weekend because I decided to try and get some good vibes in elsewhere in my life because the Mariners are not providing that for me right now. They are not at all. Julio gets injured. I think that's the biggest story of the night. We're waiting to see.

I'll try and refresh the news as much as we can to get you guys an update. But yeah, we kind of saw what this roster would look like without him for the last, what, six innings of that game. Sure. And it doesn't look good, guys. It doesn't look good.

This roster is terrible in more ways than one. The pitching has come back massively in terms of regression and injuries. You're wasting an MVP-level season from Cal Raleigh, who has another two home runs tonight that don't matter, which sucks. It does. It sucks. It really sucks. Like, the dude is just an animal. And the fact that, like, oh my God, I can't.

I just can't. We'll talk about J. Rod's injury. We'll talk about Castillo's start. Probably better than the result was, I think. Didn't have his wipeout slider that we saw last time out, unfortunately. But he wasn't awful, I don't think, by any stretch of the imagination. There's actually a couple shouts around Sun Heroes today as well. Yeah.

Well, we'll try and get you through this one because the vibes are not great. Mariners lose five in a row. And I think that is, what, 10 of 13 or something like that that they lost? Something along those lines. Yikes. It's not good. Chris Crawford, initial thoughts. Ah, I mean, the main takeaway that I keep thinking is, please be okay, Julio.

Not just for the Seattle Mariners in 2025, but I just love watching Julio Rodriguez play baseball. I love the joy that he has. I also kind of love the frustration he has when things flail. You know? I love how much he loves this game. If you can say anything about Julio Rodriguez, the one thing you can't say about Julio Rodriguez is that he doesn't have a passion for this game. And seeing an injury like that,

one of the flukiest injuries I've seen in a long time. Yeah. It's just heartbreaking, and it goes to tell, it goes to show, excuse me, those people who believe that the Mariners are on a burial ground might be right. It keeps happening. You keep having this history of having otherworldly seasons and nothing to come from it. And it really looks like we're going to get another one of those from Big Dumper. That sucks, man. That just really sucks.

It's such a special season, and it might mean nothing because this team just isn't very good. And tonight, they played probably, I mean, they've played some bad games. Don't get me wrong. I think they played maybe their sloppiest game that since we've started doing this in 2025. And like, I know it's immediately when you think of this stuff, it's like, oh, okay, it's on the players, right? but these are a lot of the same players that wouldn't be making these mistakes before. It's JP getting doubled off on a line drive with one out. Totally forgot about that.

It's Laoti Tavares just somehow used to be a center fielder and a good one. Somehow? Oh, like, I was told he was good at defense. I guess that's not the case anymore. It was really bad today. It was really bad. And, you know, I don't want to go too kukukes. banana pants here. My problem is, is that I saw that defensive game after I have seen him

just flail spectacularly in that extra inning game as well, where he was just flat out guessing where the baseball was. That first play, that's kind of a tough one. It's one that it was sinking down a little bit. You got to just knock it down, though. You can't let that runner get to second base. Once it plays in front of you, if you are going to let that play in front of you, you have to make that play throw to second base keep the runner at second base yeah and then that fly ball i i'm not saying that that's even an easy play it should be caught though it's a play that should be caught and there is hindsight 2020 me all you want there's no way Julio doesn't make that catch either of those i think he makes both touches there's no way oh yeah well number one Julio gets to that

baseball quicker Tavares is by no means slow but Julio's a different level of speed he gets to that baseball with ease. And Julio also probably gets to that baseball a little quicker and has a little bit more time to adjust the jump. If he even needs to jump, because, you know, he's taller than Louis Jodi Tavares as well. Man, that is just, that was terrible defense. And we'll talk about Luis Castillo and all of that in a second. But just real quick on the defense, too, I was going to come on here, Anders, and spend 45 minutes yelling at scorekeepers for giving that air to Cowrally at first. What?

I was furious. Like, remember we talked about remote throws? Oh, we almost got a remote throw today over some stupid. But I was so ticked off, the night's way to put it, when they gave that an air to big dumper. Look, it was a sinker. It wasn't his best throw by any means. I couldn't catch that baseball.

Your first baseman has to catch that baseball. And that is a massive play in this game. If Peles catches that. baseball, it's four to two. It is four to two. And you feel so much more confident. Yes. Then the next two runs scoring. And you get out of the inning. It's not like that's the first out or second out. The point the inning is over. Vince Carter is over. Like, yeah, everything looks completely different for him. It was just so sloppy. And, you know, I totally forgot about J.P. Crawford. I have no idea where Crawford was going on at play whatsoever. Um,

Dylan Moore makes an air in right field. I'm sorry. Dylan Moore sucks at baseball. I cannot watch him play anymore. I can not do it, man. It's not my favorite experience either. I do think Dylan Moore serves a purpose on this roster playing against left-handed pitching and left-handed pitching only.

But I will say this, his last three at bats have been pathetic. Pathetic. It's not very good. It's not a very good time to be a Seattle Mariner. I think we can kind of move on to Castillo now. Yeah. The line is six innings of, I believe, six run baseball, four earned. So, yeah, the defense hurt him.

This was pretty easily the worst we've seen Castillo in a while as well. Yeah, it was. He just didn't have command of any of his pitches. Those two homers to Joe Adele were located about as poorly as you can locate a pitch. Chris Taylor also got a thing good for Chris Taylor for reviving his career. a little bit for the Angels man. Hey, you get right game against the Seattle Mariners. Who else needs one?

Come on. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Juvenate their season. Come play us. And it, uh, you know, we are reminded of that wonderful Zach Lee for Chris Taylor trade that the Mariners might have lost Anders. That might, that might not be a trade.

Really? Yeah, Seattle Mariners won. Hey. But, but Castillo wasn't good today. He deserved better. And it's frustrating because if he would have pitched a semblance of how he pitched on Sunday. against the Twins. Seattle Mariners win pretty easily, you know,

like a one or two run game. But like we've said, I think this is six episodes in a row. The Seattle Mariners are not a good enough team to overcome average starts. I would call this a slightly a below average start from Luis Castillo. Six runs of four in baseball shouldn't have you cooked. And it ends up being six innings of six run baseball

because of the absolutely, I wanted to swear there too, defense. but Luis Castillo didn't help the Seattle Mariners very much, and even though his defense didn't help him either. And I can't say yesterday when we do this, that we lost because of Bryce Miller and then today not say that we lost because of his Castillo. But there's other context to it.

Like, the defense around Castillo is so much worse today. I think Castillo overall pitched a better game, but he still didn't pitch great by any means. So I'm just in terms of consistency, I'm going to say the same thing. Like he was probably the main reason why you lost today. Sure. It's just. And Nelson brings up a great point here, too, that Castillo was kind of due.

He had seven really good. The Houston start wasn't great. You know, that's the one you did by yourself. Did Andres Munoz pitch in that game, by the way? Still not. We might go another week and a half, unfortunately, in Andres Munoz, because apparently he only comes in in ninth inning save situations now. I would go seven solid starts in a row because, you know, he dealt with a lot of traffic

in that used and he battled for sure. Yeah. And he battled in this one. You know, he got to overcome some bad defense and he had to overcome some bad pitching from himself. Like, you can't give up three homers and say, oh, Luis Castillo pitched a great game. Right. It's very, very difficult to do that.

But I don't know. well, Julio. I'm so sad. Yeah, the vibes are not good, as you guys can probably tell, especially after losing five in a row. I wonder if you guys knew that. The Mariners have lost five in a row. Yeah, I popped up a question from our good friend Brian O'Connell earlier. I want to ask about the Dan Wilson dynamic because we're starting to see a lot of things that would not happen with Scott's service teams. Like, you can, you know, criticize Scott's service all you want for a lot of reasons, right?

There's a reasoning he got fired. He lost the clubhouse, yada, yada, yada. He was pretty, he talked down to media. He probably didn't react quick enough in terms of, you know, kind of kicking his guys in the butt. But I almost feel like- I got to interrupt you. I got to interrupt you because we have Julio news.

Oh, yeah, let me know. From Daniel Kramer from elbowb.com, Julio Rodriguez had x-rays taken tonight here at Angel Stadium, which came back negative. He is day-to-day and Dan Wilson is, optimistic that he'll avoid the IL, but they won't know more until tomorrow. That's pretty good news. Good update.

Yeah, and it kind of looked like it was kind of a stinger when it first happened. But the fact that he couldn't put any weight on, it was a little concerning for me. It was how long he was down for me. Like, how long he was on? And look, the Mariners may have just told him, dude, do not get up. Like, we need to make sure that there is a history of the Mariners may be asking guys to get up a little bit too soon if we're being completely honest. Julio.

Including Julio Rodriguez. But that's good news, that there appears to be no structural damage. That's good. I would be shocked if he's in the lineup tomorrow. Probably not. And I would be shocked if, you know, he didn't miss a couple of games.

Maybe you need to DH him for a game as a way to keep his bat in the lineup and keep them fresh. But definitely good news that the X-rays came back negative. But let's go back to the Dan Wilson thing. Sorry. Yeah, because like with Scott's, service, it seems like, you know, from what the front he put on with the media, it was almost like, all right, it's us against the world. Like, I'm defending my guys. But then behind the scenes,

I'm going to kick their butt a little bit and make sure, hey, get your guys act together. Let's go. And that's why we, after like a slow start, you would see them rally in the middle of the season and always make at least close by the end of the season. With Dan Wilson, it's kind of like, hey, like, easy going, let's go. Everyone's great. Julio's great. Oh, my God. These guys are great. I'm just curious because like the stuff that we saw tonight and that we've seen a little bit in this first third of the season comes to me like, okay, it's a team that's not focused enough. It's a team that's, and that comes from the manager. So I'm curious what your thoughts are on that if you kind of get that same vibe. I can't deny the vibe, but I will caution that

To say that I am not in that locker room is the understatement of understatements. Like, I don't know what's going on there. Yeah. Very, very few people actually have a good idea. We're just reacting to what we see here. But we just react to what we see, right? And there have been too many games like this for me to just completely dismiss an argument like that, that there is an issue with focus, that there may be maybe an issue with leadership, maybe an issue with not having a Justin Turner. or a Carlos Santana, excuse me, in this locker room.

You know, as far as big dumper, I would have no doubt that that guy is a great leader. And Julio gets this team fired up all the time. You know, we like, it doesn't matter if they're down by 13 or up by 13 or anything in between. When he gets on base, he's trying to pump those dudes up and say, let's go. But there just kind of seems to be, especially today, a, is lethargisism a word? Yeah. Because they just kind of feels or borderline apathetic.

Well, and especially when you guys, like, when we would go through stretches of, oh, this team's playing bad baseball. Is the bottom about to fall out? No, they wouldn't go on these five game losing streaks very often. No. And lose two out of three to the nationals and then get swept by the or, like, you wouldn't see that. No. And, you know, I think some of this could have to do with the fact that as good as Luis

Castillo has been, as good as Brian Wu has been. not having that ace among aces to just kind of stabilize things. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're right. I don't think I can completely dismiss that, right? Okay. Like, I don't think I can completely say there's no Randy Johnson on this stuff. And it's easy to, you know, the pitching is not the biggest problem.

There's no feelings on the step. There's no guy that you're just like, okay, this is going to be nails. We're all good. They're good pitchers. They're really good pitchers. But at the same time, when stuff like this breaks down, I really think they miss Logan Gilbert a lot right now. Yeah.

I think you miss a Logan Gilbert. And he missed Prime George Kirby, I think, too. 100%. And, you know, this is a massive start, I think, for Kirby on Sunday. Massive start. Got to avoid the sweep and got to, you know, five innings of two-run baseball on his last time out. He wasn't bad.

It was certainly the best of his starts, damning with faint praise to be sure. But sometimes I feel like they're missing that guy. Sometimes I feel like they're missing that guy that's just going to give you that that Tarek scubal performance, that performance from a Spencer Strider when he's healthy. That type of game. Jacob de Grom today, that type of performance. Exactly.

And that's not an intro to the starters. It's just when you have five number two sometimes. Yeah. Maybe it feels like you really would love to have a number one. Yeah. And there are times in the season where, like, I completely agree with you, by the way. Like, 100%, like, there's, there are, these are the times in the season where you need that.

I think when you're going and you're just like, boom, you can roll your five guys that you all feel good about. That's when it is good to have like a more balanced one through five than like a, oh, a top, top guy and then it kind of tails off after that, right? If you're going to choose between those two ways of building and pitching staff. No question. So, you know, you take the good with the bad, but you're right. I think this is the moment where you wish you had that guy. And I thought we were going to get that performance from Luis Castillo tonight. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen.

He doesn't have his slider. Like, I hope he can bounce back. It didn't seem like anything was really wrong with him or anything. Sometimes your stuff isn't there. Stuff types of slider isn't there. And, you know, maybe do for some regression a little bit with how good that slider was. What did we say? It was like a 90% swing and miss rate.

90% whiff rate against twins. Yeah. You know what? Sometimes when you have 90%, you drop down to about five or 10. Now, the swinging of the stuff was okay. He ended up swinging to miss, I think, 14 of his bitches. That's not a bad number, really. No.

It just wasn't good enough. And when you are giving up homers end, you have a defense behind you playing absolute crappy, minus one guy who just might be my unsung hero again. Just do it. You won't. You won't. I probably will. Well, we'll get to that right after we talk about some fandul.

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Make every moment more with Banduel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right, guys, time to get a little bit more positive. I know we've been kind of ripping them for a while, but it means what you got to do in a five-game losing streak. But I saw in particular two unsung hero-worthy performances. And I'm just going to, before we get to that, unsung villain, Dylan, Dillon Moore, I can't watch you anymore. I just can't. I'm sorry.

I can't do it. I can not do it. You're not a good defender. I don't care what your gold glove says. You're not a good defender anywhere. And your bat is just, might as well as not bring a bat up to the plate at this point. like, God, he's so bad right now. It's so bad.

I wish I could. Yeah, so I see some people saying it right now, and I'm going to go ahead and just kind of get the lead out of the way because I know you're going to kind of go in a different direction. I think Cole Young. Number one. Yeah, okay, great. Then I still leave you your guy that you can go back to every single time.

Yeah. But he gets his first major league extra base hit. He also gets another hit, I believe. He's two for four. Two for four, yeah. Yep. So, like, especially if it comes right after we talk about him last night and like, uh-oh, is it time to start worrying about him?

No, man, he shows you like, hey, I'm still here. I still have a good hit tool. I can play a good defense. And it's good for him, honestly, like, especially when the rest of the team's vibes are down right now. That double was a thing of beauty. He stroked it. I thought I was going to get out for a second. And apparently to our friend Luke Arkansas, it said it would have been a home run in like,

I think 24 of 30, 30 parks. So, I mean, if he starts to drive the baseball, that's going to be a huge, huge thing for him. Yeah, the Anaheim's right field is kind of a weird one because it's a really short fence, but it is like a driver drive. You really have to hit the ball pretty darn far. Routy Tiles would have had a grand slam, by the way, yesterday. and 24 of 30 as well. I was going to go Cole Young.

I was talking about Ben Williamson. But you know what? I'll talk about Ben Williamson again. Do it again. The defense tonight was spectacular. And it stood out more because of how crappy everyone else was defensively today. Yeah. But oh my gosh, that diving play he made,

and I believe it was the third inning. Third inning. Yeah. So good and huge because Castillo was really struggling in that point. It was to be able to get that out. Made a terrific play. on the bunt as well. The bunt hit.

Charged that baseball perfectly, showed off the arm strength. His defense has been really good. And he executed a perfect hit and run. Real quick, one thing I wanted to talk about, Trent Thornton going two and a third. Yeah. After coming off the injured list,

that's kind of malpracticey. That's a lot of work for a guy just coming off the injured list. It's 34 pitches, so it's not crazy. Right. But, like, using him as, let's not forget, Trent Thornton was pitching the eighth inning for this team for a long, long stretch of time. I think that's kind of crazy to have him go two and a third.

Like, and by the way, Jackson Coar was rough today, rough. And both could be in that unsung villain category as well. Because it was still a close game. It was still a very close game when he came into pitch. And he couldn't find him. Another issue I had with Wilson, too, was that it was clear he didn't have it and nobody was warming up. He just flat out had the sixth inning. I got about that.

Yeah, I just, I'm not feeling it necessarily with the manager. And this is not me just being, you kick him when they're down. I think we've been pretty clear. And I know I've been clear on another channel that I used to do that. Dan Wilson was not my favorite hire in the entire world. No. it's just there are still signs that suggest to me that Dan Wilson needed more experience before taking a job like this. Yeah, I'm with you on that one. And other people are saying

for unsung villain, Leoti, I don't even think he's unsungung. You guys know it for a fact. He was a sung villain. You saw the difference of, by the way, I mean, thankfully, it looks like it won't be for very long, hopefully that we won't be without Julio in, in, interfield, but you guys see the difference. It instantly makes when he's not out there. He makes so many plays look so easy. And it's not just that like, go ahead. No, I was just going to say.

And Julio was two for two today. Pissed on a baseball. Sorry, shout out Pioneer Elementary School. I always say that whenever I say a word I'm not supposed to. Stung a baseball up the middle. I think it was like 107, 110, actually, I think it what it was. He was starting to feel it again. Offensively. I felt great about what you did offensively these last couple of games.

And yesterday too, yeah. Yeah, yesterday was perfectly fine. Now it looks like you're going to miss him for at least a couple of days. And, you know, we'll have to see, because they're going to have to do another MRI too. I guarantee you that they will say, we need the inflammation to go down. We'll do the initial one. Hashtag not a doctor, not even kind of a doctor. But you usually see this, right?

You do the initial MRI. and then when the inflammation goes down, you do it again. So they're not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination for a potential long term. It's good news to start that they don't find a fracture now. It wouldn't be terribly surprised. And boy, knocking on all the wood. It happens a lot that they sometimes find something else after the second MRI. Yeah.

And if I remember correctly, this is kind of what happened in 20, last year actually um when he he started off really slow like a lot slower than this year he had just started to get going like a week and then that's when he did his ankle um it's like oh why why maybe that maybe without that injury we get the 2023 slash 22 Julio uh for for the summer for the full summer because he was out for like a month yeah uh and then that five strikeout game against the Mets and the City Connects. I forgot about that. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. God. And it was, they brought him back early for Sunday night baseball. Yeah, Sunday night baseball. They were wearing the City Connects. They win 12-1. Everything else is great, but Julio came back and goes, because you refuse to do a rehab assignment,

which shows you too. Again. That, like, rehab assignments are important, folks. And I think that there are two pitchers on the Seattle Mariners who needed one. And let's hope we get Luke Rayleigh back. on a rehab assignment too. I love that. This is for Ty and Colby stuff, but like,

I'm really concerned about the first base production. I'm just concerned as heck and the fact that Routy-Tales' defense leaves a lot to be desired. A lot. Solano sucks again. Not that he's ever good,

but he, like, sucks, sucks again. He started to have positive regression, and now it's... No, no, it's not. So I'm with you there. Thanks, thanks, guys, so much for hanging out with us. Sorry about the weird background and not so clear camera. I am at my beach house trying to get some good vibes

elsewhere in my life because, boy, the Mariners are not bringing it to us right now. That's Christopher Crawford. I'm Anderson Hurst. Really appreciate you guys hanging out with us today. I will be going solo dolo tomorrow because Chris Crawford loves his, what is it, ballet recitals. Yep, I am going to watch two nieces.

One niece, excuse me. One niece will be watching with me in 90 degree heat in a building with no air conditioning. and I just know, Anders, you're going to get like a 14-1 Seattle Mariner win, and I'm going to be just miserable. Well, if you leave me like you did the last game that you left me, the Houston game where I had to scream at my computer for 30 minutes straight, then I'm officially not allowing you to leave.

Andres Munoz, no matter what the score is tomorrow has to pitch. Andres Munoz, no matter what the score is, no matter what happens, has to pitch tomorrow. not give this guy that much time off between these outings and expect him to have good command. He has to pitch tomorrow. It could be negative 63 to sideways eight and you still have to pitch Andrez Manios tomorrow. Hell, throw him out as an opener. I don't even care. Yeah, there you go. Make sure you get him in. You guys are awesome. Thanks so much for hanging out with us. Really appreciate you guys coming with us every night. These last five games have been tough. But

hopefully the vibes turn around we got george gervi going tomorrow it's something to watch there uh we'll see if andre's munoz pitches we'll see if julio's in the lineup doubtful uh and hopefully cowralli can keep his mbp stuff up because he's just been so fun to watch let's make it matter please let's make it matter he deserves so much better he deserves uh all right talk to you guys tomorrow uh and chris will be back on monday so uh we'll talk to you guys then