Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Postcast: Luis Castillo Pitches Well, But Bullpen Blows Lead in Loss to Yankees

Starting point is 00:00:04 This is the Mariners Postcast. Your instant game reaction for the Seattle Mariners. Part of the Locked-on podcast network, your team every day. Well, the Mariners drop the final game of a three-game series versus the New York Yankees. And we're going to talk about it here on the Mariners Postcast, live on the Locked-on Mariners YouTube channel and part of the Locked-on Sports Network,

Starting point is 00:00:32 your team every single day. My name's Anderson Hurst. I'm joined by my friend Chris Crawford. We're going to break down a tough one for the Mariners to give up here after a great start from Luis Castillo. And they shut him up for two games and two-thirds of a game. But Aaron Judge is pretty inevitable, isn't he, Chris Crawford? He's just like the ultimate super villain right now.

Starting point is 00:00:57 Like, just, and you know, I love watching him hit when he's not facing the Seattle Mariners. But boy, oh, boy, is he just a special baseball player? and yet with some better decision-making today, even Aaron Judge could have been avoided. But unfortunately, it's another series loss, and it's a one-and-five home stand, and those are not ideal, my friend. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:01:19 Normally we go pretty chronologically, but let's go right into the decision to go with Spire in the seventh inning right after Luis Castillo has six really good endings of baseball. We talk about how much this, pitching staff or starting staff specifically has struggled recently, then you get two just absolute perfect outings from the two guys that are healthy right now. And that's Brian Liu and Luis Castillo.

Starting point is 00:01:50 And I think you can almost put these two starts from these last two days in a blender and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. The only thing being the sixth inning from Luis Castillo, you know, he gets hit around a little bit, but he still gets through five. really good innings and then still six with one earn run. You'll take that every single day against against this lineup. No question about it. And his swing and miss stuff was so good for the majority of the start.

Starting point is 00:02:16 17 swing and misses generated. You know, he falls into trouble in the sixth inning when, you know, the line is facing him for the third time. That happens to a lot of folks. You take away, though, that start that Castillo had against the Blue Jays. And Castillo's been pretty phenomenal. That is now 18 innings where he is allowed, I believe, two total run. that will do. That will do. And this was against a really good lineup. He was very good against Aaron Judge.

Starting point is 00:02:41 He knows he does give up a hit against him. But, you know, I think Luis Castillo deserved a lot better than he got today. That's been true for a lot of Luis Castillo starts over the last three years. A lot of just Seattle Mariner starts over the last three years. And look, Luis Castillo's importance and Brian Wu's importance just took another jump up because of the news that Bryce Miller's going to be placed on the injured list. And we'll let Ty and Kobe handle that one a little bit. But there's no doubt that for the day-to-day operation here, we have to talk about the fact that Luis Castillo has to shove. Luis Castillo has to pitch to his best of his abilities. And we need more starts like that from Brian Wu.

Starting point is 00:03:19 We've gotten a whole heck of a lot of them. But boy, oh, boy, he was good today and deserved so much better than the results he was given. Yeah, and I think similar to Brian Wu yesterday, it was really his, I think his best outing of the year, especially considering the context, you needed him to go six after the extra innings game yesterday with how much your bullpen is being worked right now. And we kind of saw that a little bit later. But the biggest thing for me was he was getting swing and miss. And that is something we haven't necessarily seen this year. He's been kind of pitching to contact a little bit, making the pitches he needs to in the right moments.

Starting point is 00:03:56 But he was pretty dominant today, at least for the first five innings. Yeah, absolutely. It's just the sixth inning, you know, they started making some hard contact. And, you know, at the very least, he kept the ball in the ballpark. He kept the ball in the bar park in part because they have one super guy playing in the outfield. Yes. But even when he was getting hit, he was able to come up with huge swing and misses, getting Aaron Judge to swing through that fastball with so much movement on that fastball was really nice to see. And, you know, you take a look at what Luis Castillo's done prior to today, 21.7 whiff percentage and 17.5K percentage. The results have been fine for Luis Castillo, but they need more. They need more starts like this. There's no question about it because

Starting point is 00:04:39 he is now, if he's not your number one, he's your number two. And Luis Castillo was not their number one or their number two to open the year, even though he was the second guy to pitch. You know, I think it was pretty clear that Luis Castillo was not actually considered the second best starter, which is compliment to the other guys more than insult to the others. But they need more swing and miss stuff like this from Luis Castillo, and they certainly got it today. Yeah, so let's get into the decision after he gets through six innings, gets one and run.

Starting point is 00:05:06 You'll take that every single day against this lineup. Seventh inning comes up, and Dan Wilson with J.C. Eskera coming up, who is a left-handed batter, not a very good hitter, decided to go to Gabe Spire. And then Aaron Boone, pinch hits for his story. Gera puts Paul Goldschmidt in there and Paul Goldschmidt ties the game with the home run. Take us through, you know, if this was a flaw decision, if it's just a hindsight 2020 thing, is that what you would have done in that situation?

Starting point is 00:05:38 No. And there have been, you know, I read the comments. I've seen some people say that maybe we've been too kind to the Seattle Mariners. Well, here you go. This was a awful decision by Dan Wilson. Atrocious decision by Dan Wilson. It makes no sense to make this decision. It's the most obvious pinch hit situation to ever happen to have future probably

Starting point is 00:05:59 Hall of Fame or Paul Goldschmidt, if not very, very close to Hall of Fame, Paul Goldschmidt available and hitting really well or the backup catcher that just barely made the roster. Which one do you think they're going to go to, Daniel? Well, they went to the other one and he took advantage of it. And look, Gabe Spire has been dominant against left-handed pitching. He's been so-so against righties. Like his seven, I believe we looked it up, 734 OPS against. That's usually a good number.

Starting point is 00:06:27 But in today's day and age, that's not a great number. For relievers, no, especially for relievers. He left a pitch down the middle of the plate. What doesn't make sense about it is, why don't you leave Castillo in? Even if you don't want Castillo to pitch, why not leave him in knowing that they will pinch hit Austin Wells in that situation, knowing that they can only use what, there's only two catchers on the roster. So why not do that?

Starting point is 00:06:53 Have them announce Austin Wells. Oh, and then you have Gabe Spire to face three left handers. It was a really poor decision in process, and obviously the decision and result didn't work out well. Gabe Spire has been a very solid relief pitcher for the Seattle Mariners this year. But asking him to get out of Paul Goldschmidt in that situation is bad process and the result. Bad words that I'm not allowed to say on this show. Yeah, and I think a lot of people will point to Aaron Judge at bad. it's the reason the Mariners lost this game.

Starting point is 00:07:20 I don't think so. He's inevitable. He's going to get through. I just think, yeah, we did coordinate the Sounders gear. Thanks, Brian. We got a big game tonight against L.AFC, so check it out. But it was totally the goldsmith at bat, which lost the game for the Mariners today. Like, even if Aaron Judge hits that home run, it's a tie game.

Starting point is 00:07:42 And then if for whatever reason, the Marine layer holds in, Julio's 105 off the bat in the, what, fourth inning, fifth inning? I don't know how that stayed in the park personally. But there are so slim margins, and you just can't make a mistake like that. And there are questions. I like your idea of leaving Castillo in there because they probably will still pinch hit, but it will be Austin Wells instead. Maybe they pinch hit Goldschmidt even if they left Castillo in there.

Starting point is 00:08:14 Is there any sort of possibility that that happens? That's the only thing that I can think of. Yeah, absolutely. But I like my chances, even with Luis Castillo, I believe it was 92 pitches or something like that and giving up some hard contact. I still like my chances of him getting that out much better than I like my chances of Gabe Spire. And that's not an insult to Gabe Spire. It is a compliment to Luis Castillo and how well he pitched for the majority of this game. But I still think you would have seen a pinch hit there. I think you would, but I still think you would have seen, excuse me, Austin Wells hit for them there because creating that platoon or excuse me, yeah, the platoon situation. You want the left-handed much better hitter in Austin Welles sitting in that situation. It's a poorly managed game today by Dan Wilson, and unfortunately it bit them really, really badly. Yeah, and I just want to say, like, we've, as Mariners fans, the last four or five years, I think, has kind of meshed into one era, I guess you could say. But with Scott's service, I think there were a lot of times where he did kind of outthink the room a little bit when going to relief pitchers.

Starting point is 00:09:18 fly too much to go with the platoon advantage anticipating someone would make a pinch hit situation instead of just going to your best reliever. Right. And Dan Wilson did the exact opposite today where he just went to his best guy before Munoz, obviously, and that has been Gabe Spire lately, especially if Matt Brash isn't available, which we assume that he isn't. That's a great point. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:09:43 The fact that Matt Brash isn't going to be working in back-to-back games, I think, for a little while here and not having him available for this game played a big difference because I don't think there's any doubt with a two one lead after getting those six innings and with that part of the lineup coming up, you're at least considering Matt Brash for that. And I like Matt Brash's chances against lefties against righties. If they're somehow standing right in the middle of the plate, I still think he's going to be right with that slider. But yeah, the fact that Matt Brash is only going to be work, it is funny though, because there was a big thing made about how, oh, Matt Brash isn't going to be working in high leverage situations for a while.

Starting point is 00:10:20 We're going to ease him in. That lasted for about seven minutes. Maybe a little bit less because that was these last few times high leverage to say that he's been used. Oh my goodness gracious. Yes, he has. So hopefully they feel more confident in using him in back-to-back game soon. I understand you've got to take precautions with him.

Starting point is 00:10:39 You know, he's a guy who is a high leverage reliever who is coming off a major arm surgery who also has a lot of work in that delivery. This is not slow and steady. There is a lot of violence in that delivery is what I was trying to say there. So, yeah, hopefully they can start using Matt Brash and situations like that more often because this bullpen needs it. And like we talked about in the very first show,

Starting point is 00:11:05 they need to go get another reliever. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that is to kind of take away from all of this. They need one more guy that they can go to. And I think Gabe Spire is best as a lefty specialist and not as just a late-inning guy. Agreed. So that's going to be something to monitor moving forward. And what I was trying to say in comparing Scott Service to Dan Wilson there is they have two totally different ways of managing baseball games.

Starting point is 00:11:32 And there's frustrating ways to both of those styles. But I think this one was so obvious that it was going to be a pinch-hit situation. Right. that, okay, you can anticipate a little bit, take that step forward and all of this information he has and he knows. It's just, I think it's a little too, I don't want to say, using your gut instead of using the stats, because we all know how those two things can kind of go hand in hand sometimes. Right.

Starting point is 00:11:58 But I think you can definitely anticipate, and I would rather have faced Austin Wells, no matter who's pitching, than Paul Goldschman, who's had a really good year so far. Totally agree. Yeah, there's just, I think he overthunk it. I think some of this also has to do with the way the Mariners micro-managed their manager as well. I'm not saying that Dan Wilson isn't making those decisions or that Scott Service wasn't making those decisions. But if you don't think they're stuff ingrained in their head before these type of things, you do not understand how baseball works in 2025, my friend.

Starting point is 00:12:31 And lost in all that is a pretty special performance on both sides of the ball from one Julio Rodriguez. I think he's actually quietly how to really get series overall, especially if you get a good. It's that home run. Oh, my God. First of all, how did that not leave the park? I looked at the stack cats on that, 105 off the bat and a 36-degree launch angle. How does that not leave?

Starting point is 00:12:54 Oh, it's really obvious. God hates this organization. Like, it's just, there's no other way to put it. Even Aaron Goldsmith pulled it Dave Sims and was calling the home run as it was mid-air. I really don't know. Like, and a lot of times I'll be critical of announcers for doing that, but I think everyone thought that ball was good. on. But even with that ball not leaving, a really good game from Julio, a terrific at bat with

Starting point is 00:13:18 the bases loaded to line that ball into right field to drive in those two runs. And what a amazing catch he made in the first inning to rob that home run. Julio Rodriguez is a special baseball player. For the last three and a half weeks, he has played at a top dozen player level. Like just when you combine the offense with the defense with the base running, I don't think if there's any doubt that he is in that range. I would love to see it more consistently. I'd love to see the offense more consistently, but I have loved what I have seen from him. And I think he's comfortable hitting in that three spot as well. I think that's something that's really worth keeping an eye on. You take a look at his splits. He's still, even with the struggles he

Starting point is 00:13:57 had this year earlier, much better as a lead-off hitter than anywhere else. But the results have been really bad from that lead-off spot this year. But if you take a look, hitting first, hitting third, good results, hitting second, really mediocre results. I don't know what to really make of that other than to say, keep doing what's working and keep him in that three spot because it seems to be going pretty well. Yeah, he seems like a pretty feel player. So maybe it's just having two guys ahead of him or the kind of third guy in the lineup

Starting point is 00:14:27 sort of thing, looking at pitches coming from the batters box. I have no idea. I have no idea what goes into that. I haven't played for long enough time to really understand why that. would make a difference, but it does for a lot of these hitters and you've seen. And I've actually, now I've looked at a lot of lineups recently. There's a lot of teams that are kind of going back to the, uh, the third hitter in the order is your best hitter.

Starting point is 00:14:49 Um, it's kind of been an adjustment because I think for a few years there, it was first or second. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, you know, you get more guys who are getting on base and you want those guys who can be able to knock those guys in. It's, you know, the stats, the numbers still say that you should probably have your number two hitter be your best hitter because he's getting the most played appearances with a chance to drive people in. But, you know, hitting third, whatever does the trick to make Julio Rodriguez the very best version of Julio Rodriguez, the Mariners need to do it.

Starting point is 00:15:19 Yeah, and it sucks that we're not talking about him right now. We're talking about the bullpen decisions, and we're talking about Aaron Judge inevitably. And instead of talking about Castillo's really good start and Julio being special, it's kind of sucks that we're doing that. Of course. Mariners' offense wasn't good today. Your take overall on the offensive side of the ball besides Julio. Really bad day.

Starting point is 00:15:38 Really bad day against a pretty mediocre pitcher. Look, Adam Warren was pretty good in his last start, but I got to score more than just the two runs against. And they had their opportunities. They had their chances to drive and runs, and they just weren't good enough today. You know, missing J.P. Crawford today, obviously was not the best. He should be fine. I think we'll see J.P. Crawford back in the next couple of days. But it's still, you know, Miles Mastrobonian.

Starting point is 00:16:06 that leadoff spot did not look good today. And he shouldn't look good today because it's Miles Master Boney lead off. Like that's just not an ideal situation whatsoever. Bottom of the lineup didn't do great. Randy had another kind of tough day. Yeah, he did. Big dumper did have the double. But, you know, outside of that wasn't exactly a spectacular day.

Starting point is 00:16:26 It's just not good enough. The last two games, the concerning thing for me, Anders, is not only have they not scored very many runs, struck out 28 times over these last two games. And, you know, as a person who has Mariner PTSD at the highest level, that's concerning. And it's reminded me that this roster, while the offensive numbers this year have been pretty darn fantastic, it's still a flawed offensive roster. And you still have to go get at least another bat. David asking why was JP out?

Starting point is 00:16:58 They haven't, I believe, announced what it was. But JP's dealing with some stuff. He's got a little bit of knocked up everything. and they wanted to have him have a day off, knowing that Thursday is a day off for them as well, get him two days off in a row and just try to get as healthy as possible. Yeah, I think we'll find out what the exact prognosis is on him,

Starting point is 00:17:19 but it sounds like from the way they talked about it, that it's more of a maintenance day situation. They announce shoulder tightness as Brian brings up there. So, like, you know, but he's dealt with a whole bunch of Knicks and knacks here, and I think they just want to make sure that he is at his absolute best. Yeah, and you mentioned the 28Ks. I think we're seeing these last few days.

Starting point is 00:17:39 Again, context is important. You're going against one of the better teams in the AL and the New York Yankees. But it's a little bit of a reverse back to the 2024 Seattle Mariners lately with really good pitching from both Brian Wu and Luis Castillo, something that is welcomed for sure. Good relief pitching, close games, one-run games in both of them, which was something the last three years we've been. so used to. But then the hitting, like you're striking out more. We're not seeing as many balls in play with this offense, especially from the bottom of the order, which was so good for the first month or so of the season. So yeah, something to keep an eye on in a one and five home stand before a 10 game road trip. It's pretty important here. And we mentioned before we came into this

Starting point is 00:18:26 New York Yankees series that it kind of sets the tone a little bit for what that Toronto Blue Jays series was i'm not i'm not ringing alarm bells or anything like that right now like this team was due for a little bit of regression um a close loss like this and a close win yesterday those two can go either way um you're getting Logan gilbert and george kirby back hopefully here pretty soon yeah so your pitching can kind of come back up to par but i want to see a little bit of the bounce back from the offense here when we head to san diego over the weekend uh but chris crawford let's talk about supply house. Hmm.

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Starting point is 00:20:10 Plus, if you use promo code SH5, you'll get 5% off your first order. That's supplyhouse.com. All right, Chris. Let's talk just for a few minutes here about we do Unsung Hero with every single postcast here. for those of you who are new to the stream, Unsung Hero is going to be a daily kind of segment that we do after every single Mariners game, maybe an underrated performance or even just something that you haven't talked about yet. It's going to be tough to find an unsung hero from this game as the people that shine,

Starting point is 00:20:42 they've shown, but maybe something you haven't talked about. We might have a little bit of a twist in the story here for Unsung Hero. Maybe an Unsung villain? Yeah, I think I'm going to go with an Unsung villain here. And there's a few options here. what you got today from first base was just atrocious. Roddy Telez, O for two with the two strikeouts. And then Dylan Moore hitting into that massive double play on the first pitch that he sees,

Starting point is 00:21:06 it's just not good enough. It's just not good enough the production that they've gotten from first base. And look, hopefully we get Luke Reilly back sometime pretty soon. I don't know if there's a timeline there. I really would like to see him get the majority of the playing time at first base. I love my big, beefy boy. I love Roddy Telez. but man, those were two atrocious at bats there,

Starting point is 00:21:28 and Rowdy Thales just didn't get the job done. And Dillon Moore, against her right-hander, just can't trust it. I just can't trust it. I'm looking at 286, 343, 538 slash, and I think, no. That's just not what Dylan Moore is. And I know everybody loves him. And I don't dislike Dylan Moore. He has a purpose on a roster.

Starting point is 00:21:50 But, boy, they've got to start getting more production from that six spot in the lineup. Yeah, it seems like with Rowdy specifically that without like a weak stretch where he was pretty dang hot, he's been pretty bad. And I understand that he's going to go through those ups and down. He's a swing and miss guy and he's a power guy, which I don't mind having you need another lefty bat, just somewhere in the lineup. I think he's best as a pinch hit option late in the game. If you need some pop, I don't think he's, I don't think he should be a starting first baseman every day against a right-handed pitcher. Holy good. And same kind of thing with Dylan Moore, honestly. Like it's been talked about a ton, but he's best as a full-on utility player.

Starting point is 00:22:32 He should not be playing every day. And he wasn't today, to be completely fair. Yeah. He wasn't in the starting lineup today. But I always just feel like, you know those guys that come up with runners in scoring position and you just have a terrible feeling. It was Thai France for a while for me. Because he would always hit into the double play.

Starting point is 00:22:50 And that's just that role has been turned up. over to Dylan Moore at seems. Yeah. No, it's totally fair. And again, it's not a major insult to Dylan Moore. It's just that he is being put in a position that isn't him at his best. The best version of Dylan Moore is hitting near the top of the lineup against lefties and then being a weapon off the bench against lefties. Like he should not see much playing time against right handers. And then also the success level at Team Mobile Park is just atrocious. Real quick, too, Miles Master Boni was awful today. And hitting at the top of the lineup there, maybe they just didn't want to move some stuff around. Why not have Leo Rivas, who is an on-based machine? Yeah. I don't really-

Starting point is 00:23:32 You had another knock today, by the way. Yeah, absolutely. And he took, had, he did strike out twice, which was weird to see because Louis, he just doesn't strike out very often. But that's another decision I question. Like, I'd much rather have Leo Rivas making those at bats at the top of the lineup, making a pitch of work, hitting behind Jorge, hitting behind Julio, hitting behind Big Dump, This was just not my favorite Dan Wilson day. And I get the vibes are good. But boy, I hope that he's learning from these mistakes. Yeah, Mariners lose three to two to close out a two or one and five homestand before a 10 game road trip.

Starting point is 00:24:09 This is go time. I think with the loss of this series, this is kind of go time. I'm not saying you absolutely need to win the series and say that's a really good baseball team. Sure. You need at least one. You can't get swept. I'm telling you that right now. You can't get swept.

Starting point is 00:24:24 You got to somehow turn the vibes around a little bit because, you know, a couple things here and there can definitely change. But I think this team needs a little bit of a turnaround, especially on the offensive side of the ball. I don't think there's any question. I also think there's no question that this team needs Thursday, stay off. Yeah. It needs a chance to kind of just take a day.

Starting point is 00:24:43 I would personally, you know, if I was those guys, I'd want to get into San Diego tomorrow, maybe go and get some fish tacos and enjoy a day. but I understand if you want to spend time with your family or something like that. Come on, guys. No, they just need a, they need a break. They need a break, these last six, you know, the nice thing is here, they played so well coming into this homestand that this didn't kill him.

Starting point is 00:25:08 This didn't kill them at all. They're still in first place. You're still on pace at about a 90-win pace. Now, they were on about a 99-win pace not that long ago. And this is what happens when you have a one-and-five homestand. but it's not the end of the world, but they really need that day off. And hopefully they can come out and play while against a pretty solid Padres team. But I will say, Padres have had some tough times with the Angels.

Starting point is 00:25:31 So they're definitely a beatable team, but I am looking forward to those three games. By the way, we're one and two so far. We're at a 54-Wing pay, Sanders. I was going to say, we were sitting at 54 viewers here in the live chat for a long time. And I was just looking at that number in my top left hand on my screen. and it was giving me nightmares. So all right, that'll do it for the Mariners postcast here. Be sure to look out for Ty and Colby with the Lockdown Mariners podcast.

Starting point is 00:25:57 They'll kind of have a little 30,000 foot view for you guys making sure to get you covered with the JP injury, the Bryce Miller heading to the aisle, kind of bigger picture stuff moving forward here. Look out for that later today. But thanks guys for tuning in. Mariners lose this one. Go to San Diego over the weekend. We have the day off tomorrow. We'll see you guys on Friday.

Starting point is 00:26:16 Thanks again. Good stuff, sir. Thank you.

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Postcast: Luis Castillo Pitches Well, But Bullpen Blows Lead in Loss to Yankees

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