Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Dominate Irvin Again, Can't Find Bats in Games 2 and 3 vs. A's

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

The Mariners jumped all over A's lefty Cole Irvin on Friday night, but their bats went cold on Saturday and Sunday. Ty and Colby break down what happened, discuss if roster changes are necessary and and explain why the Mariners cannot head into the 2023 season with Ty France as one of their three best hitters.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] up to date with all things Mariners at Inside the Mariners - a FanNation website covering the Seattle Mariners on the Sports Illustrated network.Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11 | @InsideMarinersFor more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! 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.

The Mariners lost a series of the A's and really the only way you can lose a series to the A's. Let's talk about it here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. What's up, everyone? Welcome to the Locked on Mariner's podcast is Monday, August 22nd, 2022. And thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day.

We are free and available on all platforms with new episodes dropping every Monday through Friday. I'm your host, as always by my host, Colby Pat Node. We cover the Mariners over at inside the mariners.com for Fan Nation over on the Sports Illustrated Network. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. Follow inside the mariners at inside mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez, D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-Pat-11. That's C-P-A-T-1-1. Be sure also check out our Patreon over at patreon.com forward slash control the zone.

We post two additional podcasts on there every single week. again, that is patreon.com forward slash control the zone. And if this is your first time joining us here on the lockdown Mariners podcast, welcome to the show. If you like what you hear, give us a follower, subscribe wherever you're listening to this. And if you're watching us on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notification bell and give this video a thumbs up. We greatly appreciate it. On the show today, we're going to tell you our thoughts on what went down in Oakland, unfortunately. If roster changes need to be made and if so, what?

And with Tai Francis' ongoing struggles, Colby will tell you what. he cannot be viewed as one of the team's three best hitters heading into the 2023 season. But first, Colby, let's just get this out of the way. What the hell happened down in Oakland? Well, some things we expected, like Cole Irvin being incapable of pitching against the Mariners. So it's nice to know, you know, in a world that's changing as frequently as it is. We can always count on something like Cole Irvin being terrible against the Mariners. unfortunately that was pretty much the highlight um yeah you know Saturday night it was just it was

just sloppy Adam Fraser looked like he couldn't be bothered to bend down and pick up a ground ball like he literally stayed perfectly upright and hit off his shin like what's that about and then Jake Lamb you know fly ball he should have caught it the sun was pretty bad I guess is is what they're going with um but again um it's it's kind of a shame because Gilbert was actually pitching okay up to that point. It was one of his better outings. And then obviously, you know, Gilbert takes the line drive off the backside and he had to leave the game early as a result, you know, about an inning later.

So just kind of chaos. And then Castillo can't field up like a routine ground ball. That dude might be the most unathletic guy in Major League Baseball. There is no athleticism to Diego Castillo. And then, you know, Sunday just Luis Castillo just didn't have it. you know, there's really, there's no excuse for it. Stuff was fine. It was just, you know, 30 grade command, you know, 35 grade control.

It was just fell behind a ton of counts, left everything in the middle of the plate. If he, you know, was going to throw a strike, it was going to be in the middle of the plate, just didn't have it. And that stuff happens. It's bad timing when it's against a bad team. Oddly enough, the Mariners saw it a really good chance to win that game. And they just could not get that big hit that they needed. So, yeah, you know, it comes down to it.

the offense was atrocious on Saturday and Sunday. Pitching was, it was fine enough on Saturday. Again, the defense is the bigger culprit there on Saturday's game. But Sunday, you know, Cassio just wasn't very good. And yet, you know, we have opportunities when that game. They couldn't take advantage of a pretty mediocre Oakland A's bullpen. So, yeah, just a rough weekend all the way around. I guess, you know, good news is that Julio had a very nice week. So that's good to see. It seems like he's finally starting to get that,

that timing back. Unfortunately, he did not get much help up and down the lineup. So it's, you know, it's, you go from the high on Friday to just one of the worst losses you'll see on Saturday to a game on Sunday that were just,

felt kind of lifeless almost. It's a disappointing weekend. And it's a bad weekend. And we can admit that the Mariners played poorly and that it's a bad result without, you know, seasons over. They're not a playoff team. Playoff teams don't lose series like that, which, yeah, they do. The Padres, I think, lost a series to the nationals, you know, this weekend. So stuff happens.

But it didn't make it any easier to watch in the moment, even knowing the whole, like, yeah, it's baseball stuff happens. But, yeah, I would say the offense, you know, It had a four-game stretch there was, you know, pretty good. Got a lot of help in those four games, but whatever. Scored runs. But then Saturday, Sunday, you see the issues with the offense. They still exist. And they're going to for the rest of the year.

Yeah. And credit to an A's pitching stuff that has been a little bit better as of late, gotten some nice young arms, especially in the bullpen. The bullpen arms have been pretty solid for Oakland, surprisingly. And, you know, JP Serious has been really good since he got traded over from New York as well. So, you know, you're going to run into some issues. with that, you know, matchups are going to line up the way they do when baseball is baseball.

And that's just really what it is at the end of the day when it comes to the series. But, you know, it's disappointing still. You know, like you mentioned, outside of Julio, I mean, Eugenio Suarez had a pretty decent series. Obviously, had the big first game, had a game time knock on Saturday. But that was, you know, that was a,

but those were really the two guys to me that stood out. I mean, Cal Raleigh had a decent series. Really just a decent Sunday. Yeah. I mean, his at batts on Saturday were the worst on the team. Yeah, that's true. You know, Haggerty had a, you know, a nice Sunday as well. Sam Haggerty, the weapon, the weapon.

Yeah. Coming off the bench last night. It'll be interesting to see, like, why he was scratched. I don't know if we ever really got really good info on that. So I don't know if that's more of a, you know, just caution thing with an off day coming up. Or if it's the fact that he could run makes me think it's maybe like a shoulder or something like that. but yeah, Dimo actually,

I think Dima had a double right on Sunday. And he went two for four. Yeah, I was going to say, I think he had a couple of knocks. So yeah, yeah, they're starting to use,

they're starting to use, you know, the way he should be used, which is basically only against lefties. And it's, he had to hit a nice game. So yeah, it's,

there are some positives in the series. And I wouldn't worry at all about Louise Castillo. It's, it happens. So I'm not, I'm not concerned about that at all. The velocity was fine. The stuff was fine.

he just didn't really have a good feel for it. That stuff will happen. It's funny. He performs great against the Yankees. Has a solid night against the Angels as well. But then the athletics, the second worst team in all of baseball, it's just like, nah,

I'm just, you know, I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be a really, really good pitcher right now. I'm just, you know, I'm deciding to be, I'm deciding to progress a little bit against this bad team.

The, uh, well, I mean, like the, the A's, you know, I, we mentioned this on Friday. The A's are going to be their scrap. They're annoyingly scrappy. And, you know, they're a thorn in the side of teams like the Astros.

And so it's not like there's no talent. Yeah, they swap the Astros, right? Yeah. I think they, and then I think like a week later, they took two or three or something like that. So, yeah, the A's, again, they're, they're not good. But they're not an abject train wreck like the Los Angeles Angels, right? I'm sorry, the Donald Angels. They're, they're not that bad.

All right, they're, you know, despite a cheap ownership, they actually have, you know, good baseball people there. So yeah, it's still, again, it's a, it's a disappointing result. It's an unacceptable result. But there's no reason to, you know, jump off the bandwagon that the ship's not sinking. And at the end of it, Mariners still in playoff position by two and a half games, I believe, over the Orioles. They are in a three-way tie for all of the wild card spots right now. All three wild card teams have the same exact winning percentage right now. So that's Seattle technically like 0.005 below, which is why they're in third place. They're in third place in the wild curve because of a rounding issue.

They're essentially all 541 and a half. Seattle's like 541.4. By the way, what happens not to go down this rabbit hole? We're probably going to go down this rabbit hole right now. Yeah. Yeah. So like the the mariners have the tiebreaker over the jays, but they don't have a tiebreaker over the raise so what happens in that situation well if the jays have the tiebreaker over the rays then it gets a little tricky i if they don't then it's just okay rays have the tiebreaker over

the over the jays and the mariners so they're the one and then it's well the mariners have the tiebreaker over the jays so they're the two so the jays would be the three that's that's that would work um if there are you of each one of them like rock paper scissors type of thing i think it goes by interdivisional record, which I have no idea. The Jays and you would think that would, you know, favor the Mariners, but they don't have an amazing record against the Angels. Obviously, they have a bad record against the, against the Astros. And I mean, the A's, they have an okay record against and the Rangers they've dominated

for the most part. So maybe they have a shot in that, but I don't know. I don't know how the Jays and the Rays have fared in the ALE East. So, yeah, it's complicated. That's still a ways away from needing to be figured out, if at all, if at all. So, yeah, let's talk about more of the immediate future, though, for this team. Some folks after the series calling for some roster changes, are they necessary? Let's talk about it in just a moment.

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Head to bet online today or use your mobile device to learn more about the trends and action. Bet online is where the game starts. and you're listening to the locked on mariner's podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day, just like you do here every single day. We greatly appreciate your support. So Colby, as you mentioned,

you know, Jake Lamb didn't have a very good series. A lot of people in the Marys in general had a very not good series. And, you know, that has caused some fans to call for some roster changes. And, of course, the Mariners have Taylor Chamell down in AAA right now. They have Louis Sturence down to AAA right now. They have quite a few guys. down in AAA that they could call upon if they so wish.

Do you think it's time to make some changes, particularly on the offensive side of things? I think you can. I think, you know, in terms of like roster moves, they seem to be desperate to hold on to Carlos Santana for some reason. I don't veteran leadership or whatever. And I mean, I guess to his credit, I know somebody loves to send me the exit villos of Santana.

did have two of the five hardest exit velos in that game. They were just ground balls right at people, which is still a problem. Santana, you know, hard hit ground balls. That's better than soft hit ground balls, but they're still ground balls, right? There's not a lot of damage there. Santana, you just watch him. Watch him hit. He's toast.

He's toast. He shouldn't be getting as many of bats as he is. He shouldn't be hitting fourth when he does play, especially since he's only going to play against lefties. He should not be hitting ahead of, you know, Swares against lefties. That's ridiculous. So, yeah, you can DFAM.

I don't really care. Seems like the Mariners want to keep him. Lamb is a little bit different just because he does offer some versatility. And, you know, it's, it's weird. Lamb had a terrible game on Saturday. It's one fly ball that, you know, sunball that he didn't catch. And that's it. You're off the team.

And it's, that seems. selective so um casale hasn't been very good either but you're not you're not d a in casali uh so i just i don't know like who who would you bring up to replace these guys tremel's the easy one um but are you are we just going to say torros ready now after playing in triple a for a week are we just going to say louise turans is is back now after playing two or three games for for tacoma are we going to pick jonathan vr over jake lamb like i i you're i mean definitely not going to be Jared Kellnick or Kyle Lewis. So what like what options do you have to make these roster moves? I don't see any. The only one I see would be Santana or I guess Lamb. I don't

I don't think it's time yet with Lamb. I think he can be useful if you actually, you know, play him more than once a week, but we'll see. But either one of those guys for Trammell, fine. That makes sense. Other than that, I don't really see anything. You know, it could end up being Torens makes a lot of sense. It could end up being that Toro's ready to go. And I guess maybe it is, maybe it is VR, but I think those moves were a couple weeks away from even knowing if those makes sense yet. And by that point, it's September 1st. And you're just calling up one of those guys anyway. So it's, I mean, like I said, I think Torell should be up with the big club. I just, other than that, I think that's it.

And I don't know how much of a, how much of a massive upgrade that's going to be. So kind of in a tough spot This is why again you and I wanted them to go out And get another bat at the deadline I'm just saying Tray Mancini would look pretty good right about now wouldn't he So but you have so many first base and D.H types Colby You can't possibly upgrade over any of those guys I watched Jesse Winker play left field

For like three or four times this year This week alone There's your D.H. Trey Mancini is a better left fielder than Jesse Winker Don't tell me it's close. Don't tell me he's, no, it's no, no. Jesse Winker, they should hide his glove forever. No, never.

He's atrocious out there. Jesse Winker is your D.H. And if Mitch Hanager needs the D.H. for a day. Jesse Winker gets a day off, period. End of story. You cannot allow Jesse Winker to go back out there. He made another bad play last night, and he only played two innings in the field.

And it costs the Mariners a base. Like, what are we doing? No, Jesse Winker's D.H., period. end of story. And if you want to use a D.H. on somebody else, then you're saying Jesse Winker's not playing that day. Yeah. Let's maybe give him back that first base glove. Give it a shot.

Because now you're not getting any production for first base anyways. Yeah, we'll talk about that just a little bit. But yeah, I think Tremel's the move because at the very least, you're getting better outfield defense and you're getting value on the base pass with Tremel. He's running a lot better now. Yeah. So he at least upgrades one thing over Lamb and one thing over Santana. And honestly, probably the bat is better than either of those guys.

So, yeah, you know, it's interesting. Tremel came up and his sprint speed numbers on Stackass were like below average. And we know Tremel's a good runner. So that's a little weird to see. But, you know, he was coming off of a hamstring injury. You know, when he first got to the big leagues and he just had another one. But I think he's stolen like six bags since he's, since he's started his rehab assignment.

Like he's running right now in AAA. And that's a nice piece. We see how valuable guys like Dillmore and Sam Hagarty are off the bench late to run. Having another guy like that, another athlete could help. And so I just, I think to me, you know, your best shot right now if you're the Mariners is Tremel and left, Julio and Center, Hanager, and right with Winker deaching. And you run that out as many days a week. as you possibly can. I think that's their best bet. But again, aside from Tramell, I mean,

pick Santana or lamb. I really don't care which one you want to DFA. I would say Santana over lamb. I know a lot of people would say lamb over Santana. That's fine. I don't care. But aside from that, like, that's it. Like, that's the only move you can make right now. Maybe in September you can make the trends move and that makes a lot of sense or Toro or VR, but that's it because it's not Calnick. It's not Lewis. And it can't be, it can't be trends right now. he just got there. The only other change that I would make

or other changes that I would make just have to do with the current 13 position players that are on the roster right now and I'm talking about the batting order here. Ty Fran shouldn't be getting

the second most of bouts on this team right now. No. No. Plain simple. That to me should be Mitch Hanager should be Julio Hanager and then you figure out the rest you know afterwards.

Ty Frant shouldn't be hit in second right now. It's been awful. And whether that's, you know, because of the injuries, whatever. It doesn't matter because you're at the point now where you need results. And while I think that Ty France is a lot better than he has been as of late, you've got to go with the hot hand right now. It's a sprint right now. You're in the sprint. It's no longer a marathon.

It's a sprint. And guys who are turning down need to be treated as such. Guys who are turning up need to be treated as such. there's always some nuance in any of those decisions that get made. But, you know, just look at last night, right? Julio, was it Julio or was it Raleigh? In the ninth inning, double. I think that was Raleigh.

Raleigh, right. And then you have Julio up and then you have Typhrance. And Julio, you know, to his credit, you got to hit a ball, should have been a base hit. Most of the times it's base it. Wasn't a little bit of bad luck, fine, whatever. And then out comes Ty France, who's been probably your worst hitter, second worst hitter over the last week or so, guess who's sitting on deck, completely unable to impact the game, the guy who's arguably been your best hitter for the last two weeks.

That's the moment. So when people say, oh, well, what's the difference in two or three? It's only like five or six that bats a year. There it is. There's one of them. You see how it makes a difference? So, yeah, I'm with you. The batting order should be, you know, Julio and Mitch, or Mitch and Julio.

I don't really care which order you put them in. But those two guys need to be getting the most. opportunities possible to impact the game. And right now you're you're not allowing that to happen because you think Thai France is is going to be something he hasn't been for like a month. Yeah. It's just it's it's dumb. It's dumb. So you can't be afraid to make those changes. I don't think Scott's going to, which is annoying. But like I'm pretty sure France has been worth negative like half a win over the last month. which is significant.

Yeah. Yeah, because, I mean, he's just, he's not heading at all. He's striking out more now. It's like we're seeing some really uncharacteristic things out of Typhrance at the moment. And I think it would be good to just kind of, you know, put them down the lineup a couple spots. It doesn't have to be like super significant because I don't think they would ever even consider anything super significant where he's six or seven in the lineup.

But like, I think five should be on the table. I think five should be on the table as well. Yeah. Yeah, Julio, Mitch, Jesse, Gino, I guess. Yeah, yeah. And then France. I mean, I guess you could hit France 4. That's fine.

But yeah, in the month of August, Thai France is hitting 145, 203, 194. No. That's terrible. And it even extends beyond August since the All-Star break. He's sitting 198, 276, 308. And yes, I get that he's been heard and it's a wrist injury, blah, blah, blah, blah. I understand all that. It doesn't matter.

40 games to go. You're tied for a wild card spot right now. It's go time. I don't have time for sentimentality of hitting J.P. Crawford third because he went, you know, 15 for 25 last week is what I have to do. That's what I'm going to do. It's go time. So that brings us to your stance that heading into the 2023 season, you believe the Mariners should not consider Ty France one of their three best hitters.

They have to basically have three hitters that you would consider better than, like clearly better than Thai France. Yes. Yes. Of course, when you say something like that on Twitter, what people read is Thai France is terrible. You should DFA immediately. No. That's not at all what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is is that Thai France is probably your second best hitter, I would say, overall, not lately, but I think you can make an argument between Mitch and Julio and France. You're right. And yet here we are. He is the second or third best hitter on this team right now, or maybe the best. The offense is wildly inconsistent. It can't be trusted on a night-in, night-out basis. The lineup is actually, it's pretty deep, in terms of like average bats.

You just don't have enough impact. And when you have a Thai Francis, you have a guy who so far hasn't proven that he can hit for even average power, let alone first base power. You have a guy who is prone to slumps. You have a guy who is also prone to, you know, injuring himself, getting hit. And Ty France isn't going to stop getting hit by pitches. This is two years in a row, whereas season has been dramatically altered because he got hit in the wrist, right? And that's not a fluke, right?

You can say it's a fluke, but Thai France leads baseball and getting hit by pitches. This type of stuff is going to happen. And you cannot rely on this guy to be the guy who constantly. comes up with the big hit time and time and time again without having some serious, you know, safety nets installed. So here's kind of the beauty of this is that you can make an argument that heading into this offseason, Julio and Jesse Winker already are two of the top three. Now, Winker hasn't had a great year.

Been a little better lately at the plate. I don't want to assume that Jesse's magically going to get better next year. but this year has been such an outlier. It's hard to assume you won't be. So if you want to say Winkers is one of those two, then fine, whatever. So Thai France is your three. So does that mean you need to add a bat better than Thai France this winter? Great.

It's interesting. So who is a bat better than Thai France? Well, here, you finish your thought and then I'll ask you that. Okay. I was just going to say, you know, it's interesting. I had somebody point out to me last night because people were quick to point out to me how dumb I am for wanting the Mariners to get better. which is interesting hill to die on.

But that only two teams had hitters where the top three bats all had a higher WRC plus than Thai France. And those two teams are the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Houston Astros. What do the Dodgers and the Astros have in common? Are they World Series contenders, like serious World Series contenders? Is anybody going to be shocked if they win the World Series this year? No, I don't know. I kind of like the Mariners to be in that position, wouldn't you?

I don't understand what the, oh, how dare you insist that the Mariners get better and maybe even challenge for a World Series. Such a weird hill to die on, but whatever. Okay, fine, you want to point that out. Again, I would point out, well, good. Those are the two teams I want to be like. So in terms of like who's out there, this is where you have to get creative. You know, you have to get creative because there's not a lot of free agent options. you're not going to get Aaron Judge.

So, yeah, and WRC Plus, a little flawed. I mean, according to WRC Plus, Dylan Morris, I'm like everyday starting player. He's like 114 or whatever. And it's like, yeah, and he's hitting a buck 50. You see how WRC plus isn't perfect. But, you know, in terms of bats, I think, you know, something along the lines

if we're talking about a Trey Turner, a Zander Bogartz, maybe a Carlos Correa type. And those guys are hard to get. So then you might have. have to go out to the trade market. You might have to get creative here. You might have to, it's, it's Brandon Lau. It's, um, or maybe it's a free agent we're not talking about enough like Brandon Nimmo or maybe it's Michael Conforto. And if you're not going to add a guy who's definitely better than Thai France, you need to add at least one or two guys who are in Thai France's range of possible outcomes.

You do not want Thai France. You don't want to rely solely on Thai France. A, staying healthy all year, and B, delivering every single time he comes to the. the plate. That's kind of what your lineup is set up to be right now, because Julio right now, at least, is getting on base. Ty France is more or less an automatic out. And now what you have is you have Mitch Hanager and Jesse Winker and Mitch Hanager needing to get hits to score to score Julio. And that's tough. You need to lengthen the lineup, but you also need more impact in the lineup. And if Jesse's not going to be, or sorry, if Ty's not going to be a, you know, 25 home run guy, which again,

tough to know, wrist injuries, sap a lot of power. But so far, we have zero evidence to suggest that Ty France can hit 25 home runs. You need to find some thump

somewhere else in the lineup too. So France is a very good hitter. He's a very good player. He definitely can help you. And there's obviously a spot for him here in the future. You just need to do better around him. And by better around him, I mean,

you need better than him to hit around him. And that should help everybody. So, again, I don't understand the, the vitriol by suggesting that, hey, you know, it would be really cool. The Mariners went out and got a bat better than Thai France. I thought the objective was to get better. Well, because I think some people take that as like, oh, you want to replace Thai France?

And it's not at all what you're saying. Never said that. That's not at all you're saying. Yeah. I'm saying make Thai France. Like make Thai France your fourth best hitter. Yeah. if Ty Francis is your fourth best hitter

probably have a top 10 offense in baseball and it probably carries a lot more predictability than the current one you're running that's what adding one bat or two bats better than Ty Francis offseason does for you I don't know again I'm going to keep pushing for the mergers to get better if you guys want to stick with the same guys every year

and you know hope they just magically get better themselves I'm not going to tell you not to but I like my plan better so see you on Twitter On that note, that's going to do it for our show then. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. For Colby, Pat note, I'm Tadang Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow Inside the Mariners at Inside Mariners.

You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez, the C-A-N-ZL-Z, and Colby at C-P-E-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen of the day. Now make your second listen, the Lockdown MLB podcast. MLB expert Paul Francis Sullivan brings humor, passion, and unique perspective on every team and the biggest stories around the league

follow the number one daily league-wide podcast, locked on MLB on the Odyssey app, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcast just like us. And with that, have yourself a beautiful baseball day. We'll see you tomorrow. Peace.