Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Framber Valdez DOMINATES Seattle Mariners in game 3 loss

Episode Date: May 24, 2025

Anderson Hirst and Christopher Crawford break down the loss in the 3rd game of the series vs the Astros. Bryan Woo finds a way to get through 6 innings for the 10th time this season, but Framber Valdez out-duels him as he dominates the Mariners lineup top to bottom. 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. Welcome into the Seattle Mariners Postcast. Your Seattle Mariners drop game three of four to the Houston Astros in Houston in a quite stinker of a game, I would say. The first couple innings is where all the damage is done from both teams. Brian Wu gets through six, even though he allows some pretty hard contact.

Wasn't as dominant as we've seen him been this year, but Framber Valdez, man, he was dominant today. He sliced and diced through this Mariners lineup like it was 2024 all over again. And that's kind of what this game feels like to me, a definite 2024 Mariners game where, you know, you get the pitching that you need to, you get some good plays defensively besides the first inning. And, and, but your offense can't get enough done. And this is what happens when you rely on the long ball as much as your Mariners do. My name's Anderson Hurst. To my left is Christopher Crawford.

Really appreciate you guys tuning in to the Mariners postcast as the Mariners dropped the third game of four. We're going to break down everything from Brian Wu's outing, from Van Brabaudes's outing from those first couple endings, and any sort of thing that we can think of to justify or explain, I should say, this. loss in Houston. Chris Crawford, initial thoughts. Boy, good thing you won yesterday. Really good thing you won yesterday because, look, we'll talk about it. The Mariners clearly have the pitching advantage in the series finale on Sunday, and they currently are on a six and three

road trip, which you will sign up for every single time. But they didn't look good today. And it's kind of an interesting juxtaposition to me because they didn't look good today, but I also have to tip my cap to the Houston Astros as well. And I don't like doing that. I don't like doing that whatsoever because I don't like that baseball team. I'm a Seattle Mariner fan. Of course, I don't like that baseball team. If you're not from Houston, you really shouldn't like the Houston Astros. It's kind of common sense. But I do have to give a ton of credit to Framber Valdez. I have to give credit to Brian Abraeu. I have to give credit to Josh Hater. You know, I root against those guys vehemently because they play for the Houston Astros. And I'd probably root against Josh Hader

against any other team. But it's just one of those days. It was one of those days. And thank goodness, we're not talking about a three-game losing streak because you won yesterday. There's the positive that you could take. There were two atrocious mistakes made in the first inning. There was another atrocious mistake made even while scoring a run in the second inning, in my personal opinion. But it was just one of those days. You know what it reminds me of Anders? Did you watch Parks and Rec? I did, yes. Okay, do you remember that scene where April is in the parking lot and she says, why aren't we moving?

And Ben Wyatt goes, because other cars, sometimes the other team just beats you. Yeah. Sometimes that happens. And that's going to, we're a daily show and we can be as frustrated as we want to be about the lack of offensive success and our PTSD from how much this offense struggled for the majority of 2024. But I think today might be a day where it's 55% Houston Astros pitching really good. good, 45% mariner offense suck.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. I think, and there was a lot of looking strikes. I think we talked about this right before we went live. Pat McGuoy here, ump was crap again. How was Dylan Moore first pitch strike and strike out of Williamson, constantly changing possible outcomes of games. There are a lot of borderline pitches today,

and that's kind of what Framer Valdez does. He lives in that lower half of the zone just on the edge every single time. He's hard to get, man. He's not going to give you pitches to hit very, very often. So I feel like Seattle's approach to this game was, all right, if it's on the border, you feel like you can't really do anything with it. See if the hump calls a ball. Sometimes he did. Sometimes he doesn't.

You did get five walks today. So it wasn't a total nothing burger from the offense. You had people on base. You got Framber out in the sixth. He's a guy that's known for going seven sometimes. Yeah. So, like, there are some positives here and there. But, you know, it just wasn't enough.

He's one of the better pitchers in the American League in the last couple of years, and he showed why tonight. Yeah, he did. And look, the Mariners tonight swung at 35 pitches out of 101 from Framber Valdez today. So clearly the approach was try to make this guy work, try to make this guy go deep. Unfortunately, they got, did, when they did get some hitable pitches outside of a Randy or Rose Arena triple, they just really didn't take advantage of it tonight.

And too many failed situations. with runners on base, too many lackluster at bats, but I do have to give a ton of credit for Valdez. That curveball in particular is absolutely nasty. And, you know, again, we can be frustrated by the Seattle Mariners and we should be. But tonight's one of those nights, I think, where I just say, Framber Valdez, you beat the Seattle Mariners, Brian for you, who by the way, I was shocked, was used in this game after he threw an inning in a third. I was thinking, oh, well, at least they avoided that guy.

like, nope, he was out there and pitched pretty darn well, even with not maybe his best command. And then Josh Hater, the Astros pitched well. Yeah, they did. So hopefully this is not a long-term thing moving forward with the offense, really not getting anything going. I believe the triple by Randy was the only extra base hit today for the Mariners. Yeah. So that's not a good sign. You're usually someone who relies on the slugging, the home runs in particular.

Yep. So it's unfortunate that you didn't get any of that, which is the biggest story in the game. You mentioned the mistakes. We'll get to Wu's performance later because there's some commentary about that as well I want to get to. But let's get to those first two innings because that's where all the damage was done. That's where all the runs were scored in this game. And it was kind of, you know, that's all she wrote at that point. And it kind of felt like that, by the way, that Frammer Valdez was pitching.

So bottom one, you got one. One on and two outs. Astros are up to bat. Christian Walker swinging bunt and Brian Wu throws it away. Al-Tube scores from first. And then the second next batter, Victor Keratinny, reaches on an error. I put a question mark there. I'm going to ask to see if that was an error because it was it 104 miles an hour.

And then Christian Walker scores on that single as well, makes it 2-0, Houston, and the top of the first inning. First of all, it's the Brian Wu mistake. He just can't throw that. No, eat that baseball. And I never get too upset about a guy trying to make a play. But that's one of those rare instances where don't try to make the play. Don't try to make that play. Eat that ball and live to fight another day.

That cost them two runs. The reason it cost them two runs is because that horrible throw ends up putting that runner on second base. And yes, that ball was hit hard. There's no question about that. I believe Anders, you told me before we started 104 mile per hour. Yeah, that's a difficult play to make. You at least got to knock it down. You at least got to get your body in front of it.

And we'll talk a little bit more about Leo Reeves. He had an atrocious baseball game today. It was really bad. And he's been a bit of a hero for the Mariners. The fact that they've gotten such an incredible on-base percentage with normally solid defense has been a real boon for their success, especially after the Ryan Bliss injury, but oof-m-goof, and I hate using oof-m-goof, two days, or two out of three days.

That can't happen. That's just silly mistakes. And, you know, you think about it when it's happening. It's pretty early. It's pretty early. That's just those two runs, and you're hoping that your offense can get you some more. It ends up costing you the game. Moving to the top of the second.

So Randy hits that triple, and he clobbered that baseball, and it was great to see him running as fast as he is. It's clear that that hamstring isn't bothering him. Nope, which is good. Very much anymore. Yeah, he looks great. So Mitch Garver's next up, and they work a 3-0 count, and they end up getting the run because Garver ends up grounding out. Why the hell is Mitch Garver getting a 3-0 green light against a pitcher who has really, really good stuff, but is known for poor command? Why are you swinging 3-0 there? They also let Lioti Tavares swing 3-0 the other day. If I have any complaints about this offensive staff,

3-0 count should be limited to Julio, Big Dumper, and Randy. And they should only be used at hooky-cutter pitches down the middle of the plate. They are not good enough offensive players to be swinging 3-0. That completely changed the impact of that inning and ends up being what they changed for the game. Because you only get that one run after a lead-on. off triple. That's not acceptable. That is a really, and look, Mitch Garver ended up having a really nice game. He ended up, I think, reaching three times today. I don't know. He reached twice and then

you drove in the run. Yeah. That's a solid offensive game, except for the fact that you swung in 3-0 and grounded out. That, that's not a, people talk about productive outs all the time. Bull crap. That is not a productive out. There's nothing productive about that. You should be able to get that run home, darn easily. I really that decision and I don't know if that's Garver swinging on his own or the Mariners saying, hey, let the dog eat and go ahead and swing at that

thing. But either way, it's a massive mistake. Yeah, and like I can understand a little bit because we've also been critical of him holding the bat on his shoulder in certain situations too. So like, I know, I can understand the conundrum, but it's a balance, man.

Mitch Garver has not slugged very much at all. He's a can dunk hitter at this point in his career. Correct. And his value offensively right now is taking walks. So when you're up 3-0, he should not be given the green light whatsoever. Now, he needs to do a better job when two strikes of battling a little bit. I completely agree with that. But like, you have to know who you are as a hitter right now.

And I totally agree with you, the green light should only be given to those three hitters completely. Maybe JP, if he sees like an absolute like. perfect thing that he knows he can drive because he's been driving. I want to talk about J.B. Moore, by the way. Sorry to step on you, but I want to talk about Jay C. He's really struggled from the leadoff spot now. Yeah. And in the month of May, his OPS coming into today was 695 and it definitely went down today. I don't think that you can make a change at the lead off spot right now because of the fact that they just don't have a lead off guy and they are not going to use Julio in that spot, even though he was so good at it in his

spurts for his rookie year and for spurs of it in 2023 and 2024, they're not going to do that. It's a problem. It is a problem that the top of this lineup with Polanco, who doesn't play at all today, isn't used as a pinch hitter. Somebody brought up the fact that they didn't even pinch hit Rowdy to Les for Garver in that situation. I didn't even think about that. That would have been a decision I would have considered even losing the designated hitter

spot. But JP Crawford's really struggled at the top of the lineup for. for his stats hitting ninth compared to stats hitting first, there's a major difference between the two. And, you know, Ty and Colby will handle most of this stuff. I still think you need to go get another bat to hit near the top of this lineup because J.P. Crawford just looks more comfortable to me hitting in that ninth spot. Yeah, and like the nine hole is actually in a lot of ways more important than the six, seven,

eight hitters because you're kind of setting up a table for the top of the order. If you have just an absolute nothing burger of a nine hitter, then it's just you're going to leave your top of the order in poor situations as well. So I actually love JP in the Ninel. And he obviously likes it too because that's where he's been more successful recently. So I agree with you. I think they need to get, I still am an advocate for Julio leading off. I know they won't do it. But I still think that's where he's honestly his best hitter.

You and I are both on the same. page on that one. Like it's there's something about the electricity and having a guy who is Ronald Acuna adjacent at the top of the lineup. Like there's just something about having that ability to get that extra base hit. Sure, you you lose a little bit of the take pitches, make guys work a little bit, but offensive success. That's the most important thing. Getting guys to second base. So you have your chance to have guys like that drive and runs. Honestly, the guy I would consider in the leadoff spot right now might be a Rosarina. Just the fact that he gets on base and he has that similar. You can't just throw pitches down the middle of the plate to this guy.

You have to be careful with him and he's done such a good job. Yeah, I think that there's an issue there. I love having J.P. Crawford in that ninth hole and I think his defense has been markedly improved in 2025. Still some issues. But there's something about that lead off spot right now that has not been great. Yeah. I totally agree with you. Let's move on to Brian Wu. You know, he gets through six for the 10th time this year. He has not had an outing where he doesn't get through six. And that's been very important for this team as they have lost a lot of starting pitching. Their bullpen's been stretched in a little bit recently as well. Him getting through six again, only two runs. I believe only one of them was earned as well. I don't know. None. Wow.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because I guess the first one was an error as well. So they could have been out of the ending at that point. Yeah, so six, six innings pitch, no earn runs. Granted, one of the errors was him. So it's like he kind of contributed to his own downfall in that way. But he had some hard contact today. Yeah. He was leaving some pitches over the middle of the play.

Houston was getting to them. They didn't really do like slugging damage. They just were slapping singles left and right and left and right. And there was a lot of traffic for Brian Wu, but he ends up making the pitches he needs to to only give up those two runs. A lot of double plays relied on his defense. I think besides that first inning,

the defense looked really good. A couple good plays from Ben Williamson, a couple good turn double plays. I'll give Leo Rivas a little credit there. He made a nice play and I think the sixth inning to get him out of that with a double play. So what was your overall perception on Brian Wu? And I want to ask a little bit about who was catching him after that.

Sure. And I think it kind of. goes hand in hand because I think my biggest issue with Wu is he throws two different pitches in his sweeper and his slider. His sweeper today was terrible. It caught way too much of the plate and he was very fortunate that there were just singles. That being said, he did a very nice job of battling, especially after that first inning. And you can see the one thing I think that's been interesting about Brian Wu was the first couple of years, he was very stoic on the mound. He ain't stoic anymore. He is fired up. And, you know, actually, I think it's a good thing to see

as long as you harness it. And he did a fine job after the first inning. A lot of singles, I hope Randy Orozerina's knee is okay for the amount of times he had to bend over on a ground ball that went through the third base and shortstop side to make sure that it didn't get past him. But, you know, it's a fine start. It wasn't an ace effort by any means. But I want to talk about the sweeper and the slider particularly. And it kind of leads in. into the Mitch Garver thing. So you know what? I'm going to let you do the host thing and ask me the question.

Yeah, well, I'm just curious because I probably, you know, being a host of a postcast here, I probably should have done a little research. I don't know how many games Mitch Garver is caught for Brian Wu, but I know it's not all of them. I know they're not doing a Mitch Garver's catching for this pitcher like he did last year. He was George Kirby's catcher basically for the tail end of last year. He is basically the catcher against left-handed pitchers, which so whoever that lines up against. So I haven't looked at the numbers exactly. But you have a feeling like Brian

Wu looks like a different pitcher when he has Mitch Garber catching for him than Cal Raleigh. And I think that there's a lot to go with that. You could say that for a lot of the pitchers as well. Because I think Luis Castillo had his most troublesome outing as well with Mitch Garver as his catcher and he looked much better when Cal was in there. I just want to know if there's anything to that. Am I grasping at straws here? I don't think you're grasping at straws. I don't know if it's like full on panic like boy they really need Mitch Garland to not be catching games or anything like that but specifically I saw a lot of calls for the sweeper and it wasn't effective and I want to give you the numbers between the difference between his slider and his sweeper.

As sliders, hitters are hitting 056 with a 30.2 whiff rate, a weighted on base average of 0.084. Okay, that's really good. It's really damn good. Against his sweeper, they're hitting 318, 352, 455. Now, he's getting a 32% width rate, which is really good. And his strikeout rate is 39.1. That's great, too. But they're making a lot of hard contact off that pitch, a lot of hard contact.

And I just think Garver. Now, here's the other thing. I don't know 100% sure that Garver is calling for those pitches, but it would be the dugout is making those calls. It don't think Wu is calling his own game because you would see him. Yeah, but I do think that there just was too many sweepers today, too many pitches that end up down the middle of the plate against a lineup that doesn't have a ton of swing and miss and against a lineup that kind of is meant for the dink and dunk right now,

especially with no Yordaulna Alvarez, even playing with that short field. I don't think it's just Mitch Garber can't catch Brian Wu anymore, but I hope there's an adjustment here where you say, hey, we're calling too many sweepers because those are going over the middle of the plate and it's leading to a little bit too much traffic for him. Yeah, I think I think there's something to that. And I agree. What I was expressing in my concern wasn't as much. Oh, Garver's a terrible catcher. I think I'm just trying to put more emphasis on how good Cal Rale is when he is in there and how good he is at calling a game, how much better he makes his pitching staff because I think like everyone thinks about the pitching staff is oh they're

one of the best in the american league if not the best and everyone talks about cal roll in his ability to be good defensively him calling the game has an effect on the on the on the game in the pitcher as well so I just want to highlight that a little bit and wanted to know what your thoughts were on like how big of a difference that makes but before we get into our unsung hero you guys should comment who yours is I have an idea who Chris is going to say we could we could do an unsung villain today too because there's not really a lot of options. Actually, you know what? Let's do one unsung hero, one unsung villain. But before we do that, Chris Crawford, I want to talk to you a little bit about Fanduel. Please. The NBA playoffs are in full swing and every night

delivers highlight worthy performances, major momentum shifts, and can't miss moments. Whether it's a game-winning shot for a breakout player, there's never been a better time to get in on the action. Fan duel makes it easy to stay in the game before tip off and live with player props, performance trends, and same game parlays. Fans have more ways than ever to play smart and win big. I'll go with tomorrow, Luis Castillo. Give me the over on strikeouts. I think Luis Castillo is going to have a really nice day at the mound.

Yep, absolutely. And I would guess that, you know, I mentioned it yesterday, that Anthony Edwards scores somewhere between 75 and 85 points tonight and the thunder are so embarrassed. that they just decide to fold as an organization. Yeah, I'm going to keep wishful thinking for that. So if you want to keep betting on that, you can go ahead. If you're new to Fandul, it's the perfect time to sign up. You can head to Fanduil.com and place your first $5 bet.

If it wins, you'll get $200 in bonus vets. Make every moment more with Fandual, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right, let's get to our unsung hero. A couple options here. do you want to do unsung hero or unsung villain Chris Crawford? I'm doing I'm doing unsung villain today. I'm going to leave the usual very sung villain, I think for you maybe to be your unsung hero today.

I'm going to go with unsung villain. Leo Rivas was atrocious today. Like, awful. And look, it's been fun. And I know I say, and look too much, by the way. Don't play a drinking game with that because you will not be able to drive home for a long time. it was ugly.

O for four with the strikeout, and it was kind of, and I don't mean to pick on the guy, kind of perfect that his last bat was the last bat of the game, that strikeout against Josh Hader. You need to upgrade at second base. It's been fun.

He's made some nice defensive plays, but the mistake he made, which ends up costing you the game, just at least knocking that baseball down. If you just keep it in the infield, this game's still going probably, because I don't think the Astro if we're going to score a heck of a lot of runs either.

He's my unsung villain, and I don't like saying it because he's been a very fun story, but tonight he really, really hurt the Seattle Manors. Yeah, not his best game for sure. And I think someone, like, I know Ty and Colby have been really pushing for him to get more playing time, especially with the absence of, you know, probably ahead of Miles Master Boney and the absence of my bliss, obviously. So, but, yeah, I agree with you. I think.

Cole Young. Let's go. It says the Crawford underscore MLB. Hmm, wonder where that's coming from. Anyways, yeah, I'm going to go with the pretty obvious one. I think this guy had actually a really good game in an unexpected spot. It's Donovan Salon. Man. Like, he got on three times a walk. Donovan Salona walk in this economy? In this economy. And then he gets two singles as well with a couple of really good at bats. Like, for a whole lineup that struggled against Fray and Ravelas, he looked relatively comfortable. And not just, I think he faced, was a Josh Hader and then maybe who is a reliever guy today.

God, I forget his name, the other lefty that they put in. But he did his job. Like, he got on base three times. You know, he actually made a couple good picks at first base as well on a couple Williamson throws. Like, I understand the desire for a lot of people to want him. to be gone and like realize that he's just not good right now. He's been playing better recently.

I'm not saying that he's doing enough to warrant staying on the roster at this point. No. But he's at least like pulling his weight and like battling up there. He's having good at bats. He's starting to barrel the baseball a little bit more. Maybe it was just a really, really slow start for the season for him and he's not completely cooked. I don't know. I'm still leaning towards cooked or cooked adjacent.

But today was good. Yeah. Today was good. The Mariners problem today was not Donovan Solano. That's for dang sure. Agree with you there. Let's get out of here. But first, before we do that, let's preview the pitching matchup tomorrow.

I had to look this one up and you actually did it for me. It's Luis Castillo versus Colton Gordon. Let's go split the series. I think you've already at this point, I don't want to say it's a must win. Because you've already clenched a winning road trip. Yeah. You're six and three now. But a win tomorrow would make this a really good road trip, a really good road trip.

You know what the big thing about a win tomorrow is, is that you take away, and I know momentum is way overused in sports. The Astros can't come out of this thing thinking, oh, good. We've made up a bunch of ground on the Seattle Mariners. No, if you win that game tomorrow, they make up no ground. It's a literal push. a push in this case for the Seattle Mariners in Houston after winning five of six games is a good result. It is a very good result. So, and Colton Gordon, you know, he's pitched okay in his two starts. Somebody the Seattle Mariners should be able to get to tomorrow. Yep. And especially with Luis

Castillo on the mound, I think he's had a really good last start, granted against the White Sox, but I think he's been pitching better recently. Oh, yeah. As well. So I think you feel confident the Mariners do have the pitching matchup, Edge going into tomorrow's game. 1110 first pitch, Pacific time. And then we'll be with you guys. Actually, quick programming note. Tomorrow, it will just be me. Christopher Crawford has a wedding to go to.

So have fun at that one, my friend. Don't be the ladies. Have fun at that one. So you guys will be stuck with just me, unfortunately, tomorrow. But I'll try and make you guys' day. So hopefully I'm talking about a Mariners win. Hopefully we're talking about a series split against the Astros and a 7-3 road trip. But appreciate you guys tuning in.

Once again, love doing these post-game shows. We'll see you guys tomorrow. And go, Mariners. Let's go win this one against Houston.