Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Bid Farewell to Oakland With Series Split

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Mariners wrap up their final trip to the Oakland Coliseum ever with a couple of nice wins. Let's talk about it. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors, it is Thursday, September 5th, 2024. This is tighting as Ellis and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Marries podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day.

Starting point is 00:00:32 Marins beat the A's 6 to 4 and wind up splitting their five. final series ever at the Oakland Coliseum. We'll talk some Brian Wu, who went five innings in this one. Julio, who had a nice day at the plate. And of course, Cal Raleigh, who continues to etch his name in the record books. Before we get into all that, though, shout out to our title sponsor today, prize picks. Go to prize picks.com slash locked on MLB and use the promo code locked on MLB. That's all lowercase to win $50 instantly when you play $5.

Starting point is 00:01:03 And if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, check out our Patreon. The link is in the description, and you can sign up for a free seven-day trial. So not only did the Marrars win last night and today, both of those wins coincided with Astros losses. So Colby, do you have the masculine urge to say we're back 20 minutes after saying it's over?

Starting point is 00:01:26 No. Neither do I. They are back to four and a half games back of the Astros. So just putting that out there. Just acknowledge in it. Get within two of the Astros prior to whatever that date is, September 23rd. So you have 18 days, well, 17 days now that you're done today, to get to a point where if you sweep the series against the Astros,

Starting point is 00:01:52 you're in the playoff position. If you get to that point, fine. We'll have the conversation about Warpack, only to probably see them lose one of those games against the Astros and pretty much be eliminated, which is why it's very important. that you actually are within one game of the Astros when you go down there, which means you still have to make up three and a half games over the next 17 days. Not impossible.

Starting point is 00:02:17 But yeah, you know, it's almost like you should have won some games when Kansas City was losing seven in a row. And, you know, Boston was in the dumps. And Minnesota's won just five, like their last 17. It's almost like you should have strung together some wins there so we could have multiple paths to the playoffs. But as things stand right now, you are once again closer to the American League West lead than you are a wildcard lead. But as things stand right now, you are the first team out of the wild card.

Starting point is 00:02:49 So, you know, that's nothing, but cool. Sure, sure. Great deal of optimism there from one Mr. Colby Patnaud. Now, Colby, not only was it a big day for Julio and Cal at the plate, but also Luke Rayleigh. Victor Robles had a nice day as well. Every single guy in the Mariners lineup today had at least one hard hit ball. We'll get into the offense, though, in a little bit here. An offense that scored 22 combined runs over the last two days because, of course, right?

Starting point is 00:03:22 They also jumped to 18th in Team WRC Plus last night or after last night's offensive explosion. So I'm interested to see where maybe they wind up after today's game. Really good. Right. But obviously that's the answer. Right. Right. But I actually want to start with Brian Wu here, who went five innings in this one, gave up his first two runs ever to the A's.

Starting point is 00:03:47 He had gone like 24-ennings scoreless against the A's in his career. Not a great day for Wu. Really struggled with the command, which is not something we've seen from him much this year. Found himself in a lot of full counts. And I think the only. clean inning overall where he got through a one, two, three was the first inning and that was it.

Starting point is 00:04:10 But he wraps up the day, six strikeouts, two earn runs on eight hits, gave up a lot of hard hit balls. But overall, gave the team a chance to win and when they did. So how did you feel about Wu's day?

Starting point is 00:04:24 Yes, this is the first time in a while that we've seen him have to really grind through, you know, at bats. I mean, even in his last start where he wasn't all that great against the Angels. He gave up three home runs in that start. He was still cruising for the most part. He was in the rocking chair.

Starting point is 00:04:41 He was throwing the ball where he wants it and all that. So this is really the first time he's really had to grind through a lineup. And yeah, he was able to get ahead of a lot of guys. We saw a lot of two strike counts in this one. But he really struggled to put guys away in an efficient manner. So there was a lot of one, two counts that became three two counts, you know, pretty quickly. The fastball command just wasn't quite there.

Starting point is 00:05:02 He was throwing enough strikes. 88 pitches, 59 strikes. So you like that, that even on a day where he doesn't have his best feel, he's still pounding the strike zone for the most part. But yeah, just wasn't his best fastball today. Vila was fine. So it's nothing like that. But if you are looking for it positive in this one,

Starting point is 00:05:21 I might want to be talking about the off-speed stuff because for the first time in a while, Brian Wu's off-speed stuff was actually the star of this game, not his fastball. So it's something of positive. note to take away from this. He threw 17 sweepers. This was a very kitchen sink style of pitching from Wu.

Starting point is 00:05:42 I mean, 24 fastball still let the day, but he only threw his four seamer 27% of the time in this one. He threw his two seamers 15% of the time. So do the math. He threw more breaking balls and off speed stuff today than he did fast balls. So that's pretty interesting. And the sweeper, 17 of them, he got nine swings on that pitch, four whiffs, 44% whiff rate. also got three called strikes on that. And then the change-up, he also had three whiffs on eight swings on that pitch.

Starting point is 00:06:10 So you look overall, you know, 15% whiff rate on the four-seamer. That's really low for him. But 44% on the sweeper, 20% on the sinker, 38% on the change-up. Those are really good numbers for Wu and the off-speed stuff. So, well, if fastball wasn't as dominant as it usually is, thanks mostly to command today, the off-speed stuff, the slider and the change-up in particular, sweeper, whatever. And the change up in particular today were both really good. And he expanded the zone very well with those pitches.

Starting point is 00:06:37 So a very overall positive effort from Wu just looked a lot different than we're used to seeing. But he managed to find a way to get it done when he didn't have his best stuff working for him. Yeah, I didn't even realize that he threw that many breaking balls today and off speed pitches in general. Yeah, the fact that he threw as many sweepers as he did two seamers today is pretty crazy. Yeah, I mean, you look at the first time ever we've ever. We've seen that from him. It feels like it. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:07:06 Because I mean, you look at the percentage breakdowns, 27% four seam, 19% sweeper, 19% sinker, 18% changeup, 16% slider. Yeah. So it was it was kitchen sink. Like this is as kitchen sink as it gets for a guy who typically is over 50% with the four seamer. And then it's about 20 to 30% with the two seamer. Today he was not that at all. And I don't know if that was game plan specific, if that was just. something they wanted to try today or if it was just,

Starting point is 00:07:35 I don't have the best feel for my four seamer today. So I'm going to mix it up a little bit more. So it would be interesting to hear why we saw this. And again, it's very unusual. I can't imagine that we've ever seen a Wu start where he threw more off speed stuff than he did fastballs because typically he doesn't have to because Wu has one of the best fastballs in baseball. We know this.

Starting point is 00:08:00 But today he didn't really have it. It wasn't quite, he wasn't quite connecting with it the way he usually does. So he went to the off speed stuff and it worked really well. All right. Let's talk about the Mariners offense, Colby. Again, an offense that scored 22 combined runs over its last two games, somehow, some way, with, I believe, 27 combined hits, if I'm not mistaken. We'll go over that in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Mariners podcast is Brow.

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Starting point is 00:09:39 Mariners and the Cardinals tomorrow night on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word Mariners. And tomorrow, before the game, we have a very, very fun

Starting point is 00:09:55 episode plan for you guys. We're going to have not just one guest, join us tomorrow, but two guests join us tomorrow for what should be a really fun discussion with Colby and I. So look forward to that. All right. So let's talk about this, this Mary's offense, Colby. Again, they jumped up to 18th and team WRC plus, which is almost kind of unbelievable after her last night's offensive explosion, which itself was quite unbelievable. Luis Arias leading the charge. Common Luis Arias W folks.

Starting point is 00:10:32 I believe Arias entered the game last night with a WRC plus of 69. Nice. And he left the game. I'm going to try and bring this up real quick. With a WRC plus of 97. Like your fourth best hitter. 28% jump in one game for Luis Arrias last night.

Starting point is 00:10:54 Yep, that'll happen when you hit three doubles in a home run. Who else had multiple doubles in a home run in this series, in the same game? Luke Rayleigh. Yeah. Luke Rayleigh. New Craley, who added some much needed insurance in the top of the ninth of this game, because Brent Worker hit what would have been a game tying two run, home run at the bottom of the ninth off of Andres Munoz,

Starting point is 00:11:20 except for the fact that Luke Rayleigh, a half inning beforehand, He had a two run, home run, himself too deep center to make it six to two at the time for the M's. Yeah, I mean, the Mariners had multiple opportunities in this game to play add-on, and they weren't able to make that happen. They had some real bad luck with Julio at the plate. First and second, ball gets past the catcher, and it just caroms off the backstop right back to the catcher, and Leo Rivas was stuck in no man's land there. So that was unfortunate.

Starting point is 00:11:52 I didn't break backstop either. Right. Yeah. It just still like perfectly ricocheted right to him. I mean, when have you ever seen that happen in Oakland? Never. I mean,

Starting point is 00:12:01 because the backstop is so far away too. Like, right. Yeah. Like if it feels like if the catcher gets like even like a scrap of his glove on it, that slows it down enough that it's just going to sit back there. But this one caromed right to, McMahon,

Starting point is 00:12:14 I believe was catching today. And so what can you do? It sucks. But, you know, also before the home run, you know, Julio works a walk.

Starting point is 00:12:22 And it's a long at bat. he doesn't chase he doesn't expand the zone he doesn't try to do too much and he's on base for when Rayleigh hits the big home run so yeah it was it's been a very nice very nice glimpse into what offense is supposed to look like you know now you don't have to score 22 runs

Starting point is 00:12:43 every two get every two days but like could be fun if he did yeah get some extra base hits cut down on the strikeouts a little bit draw some walks you know steal the occasional bag and then you know you get somebody gets the big hit when you need it and boom it looks good it looks a lot better than what we have been seen so yeah it's been a fun two days desperately needed uh it also happens to coincide with the astros losing twice to the reds uh after sweeping four games thank you time france yes uh jerry

Starting point is 00:13:15 de potto knows what he's doing tie france just helped the mariners more in this series and he did the previous three months with seattle so and i mean look who the asteros are playing next the Diamondbacks, Juno Suarez, Paul Seawald. Jerry's out here playing 99 D Chess. And longtime Mariner fan, Corbyn Carroll. Absolutely going to crush it in the series. So, yeah,

Starting point is 00:13:37 you know what I was thinking about? Future Mariner, Christian Walker. Has he even playing right now? I don't think so. Yeah, no. Because they traded for Josh Bell, right? Yeah. Yeah, he crushed it for like a week.

Starting point is 00:13:47 I don't know how he's been doing since then. You know what I was thinking about today? Watching the Luke Rayleigh show. Tell me. Remember in April when, like, like they just weren't using him like at all. Yeah. And we were sitting there like,

Starting point is 00:14:00 you have to use this guy. You have to give him a shot. And basically he didn't start to play really every day, the way he should be playing until May. Well, I was curious. It was about April 20th, the Rocky series.

Starting point is 00:14:14 Yeah. Right. Well, I was just looking, I was curious. I looked it up since May 1st, right? Nice round,

Starting point is 00:14:20 clean starting point. He is hitting 236, 322, 465 that is a 128 WRC plus. Yeah, the strikeout rate 30.6%. Cool. That's what it was last year. Luke Rayleigh is going to strike out.

Starting point is 00:14:36 Just under a 7% walk rate, 17 homers, eight stolen bases and 324 plate appearances. You guys can do the math over a full season of worth of plate appearances. 30 home runs, 16 stolen bases, solid average defense, pretty much wherever you want to play them. and when you start to look at like the game log, the position log, 59 games in left, 30 and right, 29 at first, 9 in center, three at DH. And after today's game, he is hitting a cool 238, 313, 451 as a 121 WRC plus. He is quickly approaching your best hitter territory,

Starting point is 00:15:16 which is a problem in and of itself, but also with a lot of negativity going around, we should point out that Luke Rayleigh has been a, you know, rare front office W in terms of acquiring a bat and having them actually work out for you. It's so funny. We talked about this on the Patreon yesterday. Like the move that most worked out, the offseason move that most worked out for the Mariners this year was essentially swapping out Jared Kellnick for Luke Rayleigh. The trade that everyone hated the most, which I hated the most, still hate the process of. The process of two separate trades.

Starting point is 00:15:55 So, but the in the math, right, in the calculus, you removed Jared Kalenick from your lineup and he was replaced by Luke Grayley. That's what ultimately, that's how the puzzle played out, right? Yep. Far and away, their best improvement, their best move. Yeah. Yeah. Which I don't think really anybody saw coming. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:15 And I mean, Kelnick's still essentially been the guy he's always been, you know, who'll get hot for a couple weeks. and then he'll crater for the next three or four weeks. He's figured it out. And then he's figured it out. There's the star we know he. He's quite literally the embodiment of we're back. It's over. We're back.

Starting point is 00:16:33 It's over. Right. And really arguably, and Rayleigh arguably, and Rayleigh, arguably, and this says more about the Marreras, frankly, than it does about Rayleigh. But Rayleigh has been arguably the mayor's most consistent hitter this year. I think Cal Raleigh is your best hitter this year. I think by WRC plus standards, Rayleigh's up by about 10% now.

Starting point is 00:16:56 Like he's been good. And obviously he's a streaky hitter. And that's, part of the Mariners lineup issue is that they have a bunch of streaky hitters and they need some just consistency in the middle of their lineup. But Rayleigh at the end of the day is going to finish. I mean, we'll see how he finishes the last few weeks here.

Starting point is 00:17:11 But he's going to be above league average bat. He's going to be about an average defender in four or five different spots. And you have him for four more years after this year. So Luke Rayleigh, you know, I don't know if he's going to be the starting first baseman next year, if he's just going to be, you know, in a rotation with a Rosarena and Robles. But they might, they might trade him. They might consider trading him. I hope they don't because they need to add as many good bats as they can have.

Starting point is 00:17:36 And while Luke Rayleigh is a flawed bat, you don't want him to face a lot of lefties. You don't want him to be, you know, the number three hitter because he's going to strike out a ton. You need bats like Luke Rayleigh, who are just going to predict. deuce in their own way, you just need a little bit more consistency built around him. So hopefully Luke is in the plans going forward. Because again, you're not even paying him anything until after next season when he'll be RAB eligible. So Rayleigh is a, all the be it at 29 years old.

Starting point is 00:18:05 He is a cheap, fairly reliable option because now he's done it two years in a row where he has been a legit, at the very least a legit, you know, strong side platoon hitter two years in a row. Like it's time to just accept that that's who this guy is. so the thing i've always been scared of happening while recording the show is uh happening right now and i'm fighting through hiccups so pardon me if if you hear anything uh that's a lot more luke raleigh than i was expecting to talk about but yeah rayley huge today uh he's been huge all year uh i also wanted to talk about cow raleigh uh who today yeah uh hit another uh home run in the first inning in this series uh this time that surpasses johnny bench and ties him with Rudy York for catchers through their first four years with home runs. So he is now

Starting point is 00:18:55 second, tied second with Rudy York on that list and trails Mike Piazza by four home runs with a couple weeks to go here in the season. So non-zero chance that he catches Piazza and potentially becomes the leader amongst all catchers in their first four years with most home runs

Starting point is 00:19:16 during that time. That'd be pretty special. And he also stole a bag today. He had another RBI as well, three on the day in total. So a really nice day for Cal Raleigh. A big day for Julio Rodriguez, who we're going to be talking about next year in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown-Ares podcast is brought to you by I Bata. Are you taking that dream vacation this summer but dreading the cost? With I-Baud it, you get cash back on all of your purchases so you can spend more time making this summer and less time dreaming about them. Ibata is a free app that lets you earn cash back every time you shop.

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Starting point is 00:20:30 by using the promo code Locked-on MLB. That's IB-O-T-T-A in the Google Play or App Store and the promo code, L-O-C-D-O-N-M-L-B. And once again, you're listening to the Locked-on-Marris podcast. You can catch all the action between the Marrins and the Cardinals tomorrow night on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app all you have to do to find that

Starting point is 00:20:55 search the word Mariners so let's talk about Julio Rod Riggas Colby Big day for Julio who continues to pull the ball with authority with some actual level of consistency here over the last week or so he destroyed the home run that he hit

Starting point is 00:21:15 today to lead off the third inning I believe it was one of the longest home runs he has hit in his entire career. 111 miles per hour off of the bat, 27 degree launch angle, 448 feet. And then he also had an infield single that he hit hard, and third baseman, Max Schumann, wasn't able to make the play on. So, hey, I mean, this is what we've been out. asking from Julio. I don't want to get too ahead of myself here, but he's, he's starting to look

Starting point is 00:21:55 like the guy that we've been wanting to see. What do you see in out of Julio right now? Yeah, I mean, obviously he's getting to his pole side a lot more on this road trip. And it started in the Tampa series a little bit, but on this road trip, he's really getting pole side, which is great. I mean, it's been the issue all year. We know it's been the issue all year. and it's finally started we're finally starting to see some resolution to it. We saw him start to do this right before he got hurt as well. So this could just be him finally getting his timing back

Starting point is 00:22:27 and just getting back to what he was doing before he hit the IEL. But yeah, obviously it's great to see. Worth noting the infield single is technically an error unless they've changed that in the last few minutes. Oh, does it? But it's been an error all day. so unless they changed it recently. But he did also have a very nice walk, again,

Starting point is 00:22:49 to set up the Luke Grayley 2-run bomb. Yeah, he just, he looks better. He looks healthy, you know, out in the field. So, yeah, it looks like Julio is starting to become the guy that we all assumed he was going to be this year, you know, better late than never. And you hope that he can continue, regardless of how it impacts the Mariners' playoff odds, minuscule as they are. You just want to see Julio finish on a high note and,

Starting point is 00:23:15 continue to get to the pole side, you know, and there's a shot here. It's not a great one. He's going to have to, you know, continue to find his power stroke here. But there's still a shot that he goes 20-20 this year with really good above-average defense out in center field. And that's his bad year, right? We're like, oh, that's disappointing for Julio to go 2020, even though he missed, you know, three weeks and he got off to a terrible start.

Starting point is 00:23:38 And he's still, you know, like a gold glove caliber center fielder. Like, that's the floor. That's a really good player. So you hope that Julio can finish strong. But yeah, he's getting to his pull side more. There's just no question about it. Striking out a little bit less. He's taking his walks.

Starting point is 00:23:52 He's not expanding the zone, which has been huge. I think he's running about a 20% walk rate over the last week or so. You know, and last night in the 16 run game, he flew out four times to right field. Like not what you want to see. It's not like you never want Julio to hit the ball to right field, but four times in one game, you know, based on what we've seen. far like that's noteworthy and it's a little concerning and then today he gets back to the pole side the home run the hard hit ball uh that should be an infield single but whatever that's that's an error but you know the ball that j j j blade just whiffed on isn't an error because he didn't touch it

Starting point is 00:24:29 i mean again like what is an error because like usually you know you see it all the time if a ball has hit hard in the infield and the guy can't make a play you know usually the scores chock that up to well it was you know a hundred and five off of the bat or whatever so like how are you supposed to make a play on that i mean this was what 109 off of the bat um we pull it up yeah one yeah 108 point nine so essentially 109 off of the bat from holio they call it an error like it's like you know it's like the whole what's a catch conversation in the NFL like what is an error an MLB right now apparently that was and the the one on the one with bladay on the fly ball from raleigh not so who who knows who the hell knows

Starting point is 00:25:15 anymore. Yeah. MLB scorekeeping, not that difficult of a job, but they still mess it up somehow. So, yeah, Julio getting to the pole side with authority, more and more often.

Starting point is 00:25:29 It's something that, you know, you want to see happen. It's something Julio needs to see happen. And again, it's not that Julio can't ever hit the ball to center field or right center field or right field. He can do that and he can find success doing that.

Starting point is 00:25:41 That's fine. But when you get pitched inside, you have to drive that ball. You have to hit that ball down the line because, you know, as Julio can hit a ball out of any ballpark in any direction, still a majority of his power is going to be to his pole side. And then that's, you need Julio to be a power hitter. He can't, Julio can't be what he needs to be if he's hitting 260 with 15 home runs a year.

Starting point is 00:26:06 Like that's not who you're paying Julio to be. Julio has to be hitting 30 home runs. He has to be, you know, still at 260, 280, whatever, even when he's sitting 30 home runs, be a little bit above average in on base, and you're going to have a high slug if you hit 30 bombs, and that's what you need Julio to do. You need me to run around in the outfield.

Starting point is 00:26:23 You need to run the bases aggressively. Like, yeah, it's, we know who Julio can be. We know who the Mariners need him to be. He just hasn't been that for most of this year, but over the last week or so, week to 10 days, we started to see little baby steps, you know, line drive singles into left over the shortstop's head, stuff like that.

Starting point is 00:26:40 Now we're starting to see the damage. We're seeing doubles. were seeing home runs. And he's done all that without, while actually trimming his strikeout rate and seeing his walk rate explode. So just really good work being put in by Julio. And how much of it is Edgar?

Starting point is 00:26:55 How much of it is Julio, you know, taking the advice, how much of it is just, hey, Julio had already started to figure it out. And unfortunately, he had to miss three weeks with his ankle injury. And that kind of, you know, stopped everything as he tried to get his timing back at the plate.

Starting point is 00:27:07 And now it's just a continuation of that. So, you know, Julio puts in the work. and now he's starting to see the results. And it's not a coincidence that the mayors have had their best back-to-back, you know, or the mayor's offense has been pretty good recently, at least scoring four or five runs a night, seemingly. It's not a coincidence that they're doing that when Julio is playing well.

Starting point is 00:27:28 That's going to do it for our show. But before we get out of here, a reminder that Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. And now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV in the free Fire TV channels app. Locked-on Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Locked-on, plus our national shows covering every league. Find Locked-on Sports Today now available on the free Fire TV channels app. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marers for Colby Patnode.

Starting point is 00:27:55 I'm Tadangazales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Marers. You can follow me at Tadangazales and Colby at CPAT 11, that's CPAT-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Now head on over to Lockdown Seahawks to get all the latest on the Hawks before the season kicks off this Sunday, Corby Smith of the gang, and tell him Ty and Colby's saying you. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Bid Farewell to Oakland With Series Split

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