Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Now on the Outside Looking in After Fourth-Straight Loss

Episode Date: September 12, 2023

Another day, another loss for the Mariners - a sentence that has been uttered far too often during the month of September. As a result, Seattle now finds itself on the outside of the American League playoff picture, trailing by half a game. Colby and Ty discuss what went wrong in the Monday night defeat at the hands of the Angels, what the expectations are for Bryan Woo after having his start pushed back, and if the team can strike gold again with another call-up like it did with Cade Marlowe, Mike Ford, and José Caballero.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 | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!IbottaDownload the free Ibotta app and use code MLB for $5 off when you register. eBay MotorsFor parts that fit, head to eBay Motors and look for the green check. Stay in the game with eBay Guaranteed Fit. eBay Motors dot com. Let’s ride. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply.BunchesDownload the Bunches App today and when you do, our friends at Bunches have featured the LOCKED ON MLB Bunch in the “Discover” tab. Find the Locked On MLB bunch HERE. NutrafolTake the first step to visibly thicker, healthier hair. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners ten dollars off your first month’s subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com/men and enter the promo code LOCKEDONMLB. GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Right now, when you bet on a Super Bowl Winner, you can GET BONUS BETS EVERY TIME THEY WIN IN THE REGULAR SEASON! FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.SleeperDownload the Sleeper app and use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get up to a $100 match on your first deposit. Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper’s Terms of Use for details. Currently operational in over 30 states. Check out Sleeper today!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) 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.

That was not at all what the Mariners needed last night. Let's talk about it here on the Locked on Mariner's 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. Ahoy, sailors.

It is Tuesday, September 12th, 20, 23. This is Tiding Gisles and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Brought to you by Game Time. Download the GameTime app, create an account and use promo code Lockdown MLB for $20 off your first purchase. purchase. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Thank you so much for making us to your first listen, subscribe, like, and turn on alerts if you're watching on YouTube,

or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear. And if you're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, let us know in the comments below. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description of this episode. Mariners are now on a four-game losing skid. and skid. They are now a half game out of

the third wild card in the American League and each loss is getting more and more frustrating than the last. This time around 8 to 5 the final score last night. Mariners lose to the Angels. They had a chance to walk it off with the bases loaded and nobody

out. And I think we all know what happened from that point forward. So we won't rehash that. But we're going to talk about that. We'll talk about expectations for Brian Wu tonight and we'll discuss if the Mariners can possibly strike gold. on another call-up. But let's start with this game here.

The Mariners jumped out to an early 3-0 lead. In the first inning, it seemed like they had Reed Detmer's number once again. But from that point forward, they did not score. They did not score again until the 10th inning with Julio's amazing game-tying two-run, home run, which officially gives him a 30-and-30 season, which congratulations to him. But Colby, with the way that this team is playing, it's kind of hard to care about that right now.

Four losses in a row. They've lost eight of their last 11, I believe. They are now officially on the outside looking in. You get what you deserve, right? This has kind of been a long time coming here. Honestly, this probably should have happened sooner, if not for the rest of the American League, kind of also having a mid-off right now.

So I know you got some thoughts. What's on your mind? Yeah, I'd love to be in a mid-off right now. Unfortunately, the Mariners are a bad baseball team. Like, there's no, there's no way around it. This isn't a poor stretch. This is a bad baseball team playing bad baseball right now. Are they capable of being a good baseball team?

Sure. They're running out of time to be it, though. And every single day that they lose, they're driving the nail further down into the coffin. So they have two more games left in this series. You don't love your chances tonight with Brian Wu on the mound. you have no idea what you're going to get from him. You know, and then you have to face the Dodgers on a weekend set. Like, that's not great.

That's a little terrifying, especially with the way you're playing. So, yeah, it's you're running out of time right now. Like forget like, oh, we just have to wait, be patient. The last 10 games of the season will save us. If you play like this, the last 10 games of the season aren't going to matter at all. So, you know, this is the time to panic. This is the time to, like, we as. fans can panic whenever we want, right? But if you're the Mariners, if you're the players,

you're the guys in that clubhouse, it's time to, you know, panic a little bit. It's time because your opportunity is slipping away. Forget the division. Like, you're not winning the division. Screw that. Like, you're trying, right now your focus is to try and get that sixth seed because you're not playing well enough to even fantasize about winning the division at this point. Go run the table for the rest of this week. And then we can talk about the division. Okay. Right now, your goal is to be to either Texas or Toronto for that last wild card spot because that's the only thing that, you know, seems reasonable considering how well you're playing,

you're not. So, um, this ball club is, you know, again, bullpen was terrible again last night. Uh, the starting pitching was fine.

It looked fine at the end of it because Gilbert was really good in the six and the seventh, but he was not good. It means one through five and that was a lineup without show Hey, Otani in it. Um, and he, you know, a lot of base runners, a lot of high stress pitches.

And thankfully, he was able to go seven, you know, kind of cruise through the six and the seventh. So he was able to get you out, get you through all of that and then give you a, you know, a pretty decent outing. But the bullpen imploded yet again, despite, you know, Brash looked great. And then Munoz struggled, but got out of it. Topa looked great for the first couple hitters. And then he hung a one two pitch, another two strike pitch in the middle of the plate for damage. And that's pretty, at that point, you're pretty much, you've lost. I know Julio hit the home run to tie it up and extend the game,

but you're just playing from behind constantly at that stage. You needed three guys to get through the top of the 11th inning. The bullpen was bad, and it has been for the last two weeks. This is an issue. It is the issue, but we also shouldn't overlook the fact that the lineup went through innings two through like seven or eight by putting like three guys on base total. they were really good in the first, and then they just got away from it.

And with every run, the angel scored, after that, you could just feel the at-bats getting worse and worse and worse. This is a team that is clutching the bat as hard as they possibly can. They're swinging as hard as they can. They're not playing good ball. They are terrified on defense. They don't want the ball hit to them. Gino with just one of the worst errors you'll ever see.

And again, not counted as an error because it didn't touch his glove. BS, that's an error. Okay. Gino has to make that play. He kind of shied away from the ball. He didn't want the ball at the end of the day. Gino didn't want the ball hit to him. And it was and he made the mistake and the Mariners lose as a result of it.

And when you look at all that happened yesterday, if you get more than, you know, if you create any kind of traffic whatsoever against Detmer's after the first, you probably win that game. If you get a freaking quality at bat with the bases loaded and nobody out, and you don't just have three awful at bats in a row, you probably win that game. If Justin Topa makes a good one-two pitch to, what is it, Gritchuk or whoever, you probably win that game.

Yeah, you probably win that game. If E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. Hino-S Juarez does what he's done all year and fields a routine ground ball hit right at him and makes a good throw. You have a very good chance of winning that game. You were giving, you were given opportunities to win that game three innings in a row. And you choked at every single level with the exception of Julio. you choked this team choked like it's not oh they're not playing well they choked the pressure got the pressure got so big it got so immense they folded like a cheap suit they choked away a win and you cannot do that this bullpen has to be better and yes they're the problem right now but let's not let the offense off the hook let's not let logan gilbert going seven just to erase the fact

that he was not very good against a very bad lineup last night we cannot just accept these things as like, oh, well, that happens. Oh, well, like, they'll turn it around at some point. Based on what? What has this team done to earn blind faith from you that they can turn it around? Because the last two weeks, they have played like trash. They are a garbage baseball team right now. Stop skirting the language.

You'd be like, oh, they're a struggling team. Oh, we know they're better than this. Do we? Do we? Because this is two weeks in a row in a playoff race. race, a penit race, a chance where you had, you had an opportunity to win the division, and you squandered it at every single step along the way. This is a team that easily, easily could have gone six and four on that road trip.

They easily could have won four of their last five, but the bullpen choked it away. The offense didn't put up good enough at bats outside of one or two innings a night. They're totally relying on the home run ball right now to score runs. They're not scoring runs without hitting a home run. that is a problem. They are choking. This is a team that, again, we talked about this at the beginning of the first,

you know, the first half, they get punched in the face, they fold, they cower, they don't punch back. Guess what? They did in July.

They did in August. They're not doing it in September. And every single day, they're finding new and creative ways to blow games that they should win. And it's going to end with them hitting the golf course on October 2nd as,

you know, Texas and Toronto get ready to square off in the wildcard round. like this is a disaster. It is a collapse of epic proportion. The Mariners have 19, 18 games or whatever to figure it out. It needs to start tonight. You have to win tonight's game.

You're running out of time. Yeah, you're running out of time. You're absolutely running out of time. And yeah, it's only you're only a half game back, right? With 18 to go, like on paper, that's, you know, that's nothing, right? But with the way that this. team is playing, you cannot let the snowball further and further and further. Right now

they are. And that's the problem right. And it's sloppy baseball. It's not just the bullpen. It's not just the offense in general, like the at-bats in general. It's just sloppy baseball across the board. They created two outs on the base pass last night. You know,

the Gino error that wasn't actually an error, but should have been an error that you mentioned, that's a problem. Jared Kelnick getting swing happy with a chance to win that game. Is a problem. Dillamore just hitting a little dribbler back to the pitcher with the base of load. On a

2-0 count is a problem. Letting Aaron Loop, Aaron freaking loop get out of that situation is a problem. So they need to fix it. Not saying that the season's over, right?

But you cannot lose the series with the Dodgers coming to town. Because if you lose the series, you might go one in on the homestand. You might. The Dodgers are that good, and you are playing that poorly.

You might run into a buzzsaw with the Dodgers. So, yeah, you got to get your stuff together here. But that starts the night, like you said, and you don't feel great about that because you don't know what you're going to get out of Brian Wu. We're going to talk more about Brian Wu in just a moment.

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tonight on the Mariners hometown broadcast with SiriusXM via the SXM app. That's what we're talking about now. Brian Wu taking the bump for the Mariners in this one. His last start was in Cincinnati. It, of course, did not go well. We saw significant dips in his velocity. And then they moved him off of his scheduled start in the Tampa series to tonight. So clearly they think something's going on there, right?

Moving him off of that start in Tampa pretty much confirms that. The fact that they were like Luke Weaver in a bullpen day gives us a better chance against Tampa than Brian Wu that sends out red flags. So what do we think, Colby? What are the expectations tonight for Brian Wu? I don't think they have a good chance. I don't think they have a good chance tonight, to be honest with you, because I have no idea what to think of Brian Wu.

And, and, you know, the fact that, again, they felt that I needed to skip him and based on his last start, there's, you know, not a lot of reason for optimism in my mind, you know, about about this start tonight. And, you know, the bullpen, they had to use a lot of guys yesterday. But most of their big guys were rested for the last three. And you do have a day off on Thursday. So the bullpen's actually in pretty good shape still, or it should be. And I like the good news with that is, I guess if Wu struggles early, you can just make that switch right away and be like, look, we got to do what we got to do to win this game.

But the bullpen hasn't been good either. So who do you trust to get outs right now? You know, again, not to keep going back to it, but they didn't add any arms at the deadline. Those, you know, chickens have come home to roost like your pain for your inactivity right now. And I don't think that you should, I don't think you can trust Wu to do anything. If Wu gives you five tonight, you take it as a bonus. If he keeps you in the game for any, for the length of his start, you take that as kind of a bonus because I don't think it's fair to expect anything from him. He could go six scoreless. He's done that, you know, since the IL

break, but he's also gotten, you know, knocked around the yard by not very good teams. So it's just one of those things where I don't have expectations for Brian Wu. And that is a problem. And that's why losing last night's game hurts a lot because this is the game, you're most likely to lose in this series because they're countering with, with Sandoval. And Sanneval's not had a great year, but he's a quality major league starter who, you know, can get through this lineup multiple times. So you're set up really poorly for tonight's game because you didn't win last night. You know, it's just, it's crazy. If you get that single last night or you just get the sacrifice flyer,

Dillamore just takes the walk that he was probably going to get in the ninth inning. You didn't use Topa last night. You didn't use Spire. You didn't use Thornton. You didn't use Campbell. and you're totally fine. And if Wu can only go three, we can only go four,

you're like, yeah, whatever. We have an off day on Thursday, bullpins well rested. Let's just piece our way through this. You can't do that now because you couldn't get anything done. You know, so I don't have expectations for him. I hope he does well.

I really do. Yeah, yeah. But I don't have high hopes for it. By the way, we have a roster move. Okay. What is the roster move? Luis Terenz is back. Okay.

Yeah. Brian O'Keefe has been placed on the paternity list. Yeah, that was expected, yeah. Yeah, so he has not been sent down. Also something the mariners might want to consider here, just coming across the wire. The Padres put Rich Hill on waivers. So you can't use them in the postseason, but if you claim them, you can get three starts out of them. Yeah.

Seattle needs to do that. They need to hope he gets there, which probably not. But you never know. So we'll see. Yeah, if they have an opportunity, they should definitely put a claim on him. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so we, we expected that O'Keefe was going to go on the paternity list. This is the second September in a row.

The Mariners have had a backup catcher go on the paternity list. Wasn't the Casale? Yeah, because Sally went on the paternity list last year. Yeah. And that's why Brian O'Keefe was with the team. Yeah. Yeah. So welcome back, Luis Terence.

Chloe, I know you're a big Louis Turenz guy. Got yourself a Luis Torens foul ball from the, the clinched game. So I do. I know, I know you're very happy about this news. Relative to, you know. I mean, I'd rather the team just win and like Torens retire. But like, you know, Luis, like, I don't think this should be a short term thing either. I think Louise should be the guy going forward.

Yeah. There's a good chance he's in the lineup tonight as well. There's a lefty on the map. I don't know if he'll catch and Cal maybe THs or Cal, you know, just gets a full day off or whatever. But Turen's probably going to be in the lineup tonight. And he does help you more than O'Keefe does. There's really no debate to be had about that. So, yeah, I mean, cool.

Happy to see Luis back. You know, I'm a big Luis Torens guy. But, yeah, it's just, it's kind of hard to get excited about anything right now. Well, and this comes on the heels of the news last night. that Tom Murphy has been shut down from baseball activities now that the swelling has gone down in that thumb to reveal a fracture. Yeah, so it's likely that Tom Murphy's season is over,

which is a huge, huge blow to this team, both on a leadership level and offensive production level, catching depth level, multiple levels, really. Murphy had a great season, and losing him is huge loss, huge loss for this team. And that really sucks for him too as he goes in free agency

after having a really good year. He was able to finish this thing off healthy. That might have helped him out a little bit out there on the market. So we'll see how that plays out. I'm going to assume that marriage are going to have at least a good amount of interest in bringing him back. So we'll see if that all comes together.

But that's a bridge will cross, later. All right. So with how widely inconsistent this offense has been, I wanted to ask you about some potential

call-ups they could make here to maybe try and strike gold like they did with Cade Marlow. We'll talk about that in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of the Lockdown

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Again, create an account, redeem promo code Locked on MLB for $20 off. Download game time today, last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. And you're listening to the lockdown Mariners podcast. Thank you again for making us your first listen. Again, you can catch game two of this three game series with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim tonight on the Marriss Homestown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. So the Mariners struck gold with Cade Marlowe. He has now been sent down as of yesterday to make room for Jerich Kellnick, but they were able to get a lot out of Marlowe before he started striking out a ton and you know the league started to figure him out but what they got out of marlowe was a

massive win for this team at a very crucial point in the season too so my question to you colby is can they do it again and there's a couple of guys that i have a mind here zach the loach ryan bliss maybe and then maybe jake shiner though he hurt his finger and he hasn't been in the lineup since so i don't know but do you think the mariners should pull the trigger on any of these guys and bring them up to the big league level in hopes of maybe getting something out of them like they did with Marlowe? I don't know if the Mariners have another guy like that

down in AAA. You know, they've gotten good production from Cade Marlowe when he was up. They got good production from Mike Ford. You know, despite his ups and downs and Jose Cabiero pretty much single-handedly kept the Mariners from having like the worst second base production in the history of baseball, you know, in May and June.

And so is in a catch lightning in a bottle for a third time? Maybe stranger things have happened. I'm certainly not mad if they call up Deloche or Bliss. Something to keep in mind with Bliss is that he doesn't have to be added to the 40 man roster until next winter, not this winter, next winter. And so adding him to the 40 man, if you're not sure he can help you, is kind of a, it's a medium risk. I mean, you're not gambling a lot.

you're gambling like writer Ryan or or Dom Leon like you're not you're not gambling a lot here so um I if they do it fine like I could I guess I could get it but like I don't know if that's the play and then the other question that has to be answered is are either of these guys deloche or bliss are they better than Dylan Moore Sam Hagridi uh Jose Cabiero because that's probably the guy that you're making that swap with so are any of them better I'm not saying no I'm not saying yes, I don't know. I just don't think there's like an obvious like, yes, this guy has to be up right now. Because really at the end of the day, what you're hoping for is just that you catch lightning in a bottle.

And like one of these guys just, it takes the league two weeks to figure him out. And he puts up a 13, 140 WRC plus in the meantime. And you kind of, you know, write out a hot streak. So that's what you're hoping for. Is it likely with either of these guys? I don't know. Both have, you know, swing and miss issues. But so did Cade Marlowe and he was able to mess it for a couple weeks.

So I wouldn't say no, like just right off the bat. Like I'm open to the idea that they could do it. But I don't think it's going to have the effect you want. So it's just one of those things where like if they make a move like that, fine. I get it. I totally understand it. I wouldn't criticize them if they did. But I don't know if either of those guys help you more than Sam Haggertie does right now,

who's probably the guy you'd send down. and Hacks has been pretty decent with the bat since he's been recalled. So I don't know if that's the play or not. Yeah, I just feel like this offense needs a spark in some way. And obviously this wouldn't be a sustainable solution in theory. But if you can just get like a good week of production out of any of those guys, you know, that would that would be a massive, massive boost. But there's no way to guarantee that.

And if you don't think in practice that they are, are definitively going to give you a better shot than Sam Harry or Dillemore or Jose Cabrero are, then it's probably not worth even doing, especially in the case of Bliss because of what you mentioned there with a 40-man roster. So yeah, the offense is probably just going to stay the way that it is. Luis Saren's coming up for Brian O'Keefe is probably the extent of it at this point.

So, you know, hopefully this offense, you know, gets to turn around here because these are the guys that you're going to go to war with. And, yeah, it's pretty, pretty much all on them. All right, that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast for Colby Patnaud. I'm Tading Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-C-L-Z. And Colby at C-P-A-L-E-N-E-N-L-E-N-C-L-E-N-E-C-T-E-E-T-E-T-E-E-T-E-E-T-E-T-E-E-T-E-E-T-E-LORNORNORS. That's one-W-E-RROMRINES. You can also the SiriusXM via the SXM app.

Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.