Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Luis Castillo SHOVES as Seattle Mariners beat Chicago White Sox

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Anders and Chris break down the win in the first game of the series vs the Chicago White Sox. Luis Castillo looked like his old self as he let's the fastball eat. Julio Rodriguez gives the Mariners some insurance in the 8th with a grand slam en route to a 4th straight win.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 LOCKEDONCOLLEGE 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. The Mariners win against the Chicago White Sox. Don't know if it's saying that much, as they're one of the worst teams in baseball. We witnessed that today. Luis Castillo, I'm pretty sure it's still throwing fastballs as we speak.

And the Mariners win their fourth in a row. five out of the last six. They keep, they just get the job done. It's what you need to do in these road series. Anderson Hurst here with Christopher Crawford. We're your hosts of the Mariners Postcast here on the Lockdown Sports Network. We're live on the Locked on Mariners YouTube page. Here on the Postcast show, we'll go live and break down the Mariners game that you guys just

watched after every single final pitch. We'll be with you after every single game. And be sure to catch Ty and Colby right after our show, not right after, I should say. During the day, thank you, Nunya. What did you do to Ty and Colby? They're still here. They're still here. Don't worry.

They still have their Locked on Mariners show. That's just during the day. It's Christopher Crawford and myself, Anderson Hurst, hosting the Postcast show. We got kind of a dual thing going on. So be sure to tune into both of us. You'll get some fun out of everything. Today we'll go over Castillo throwing a bunch of fastballs, Ben Williamson. Maybe you might hear about him later.

And Helio Rodriguez gets a grand slam to open things up in the ninth inning, or eighth inning, excuse me. So, yeah, it was a bit, I don't want to say a big win for the Mariners, but job done. That's the first thing I'll say, Christopher. This game was boring as heck for seven head beginnings. I mean, I was teetering on the edge of Natville, baby. And if I knew I didn't have to, you know, for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that they pay us per game to do this, I would have taken a nap. I would have absolutely said, you know what, you can watch this one later. But my goodness gracious, it was just such a boring game.

And you know what? One of the reasons it was so boring was how good Luis Castillo was. Yeah. Especially after the third inning. It's interesting. And we can kind of just get into his start now. Like the first couple of innings, I was pretty concerned. There were actually the first three.

There were five balls hit over 100 miles per hour. And there were some balls that got to the warning track. There were some balls that were hit pretty hard. But after the third inning, Luis Castillo shoved. And 14 straight, I believe, he retired to end this starts. That is just prototypical Luis Castillo. And yeah, it happened against a White Sox team that if it wasn't for the Colorado Rockies, we would be calling easily the worst team in baseball.

And they're pretty bad. I'm very much looking forward to their series against each other on 4th of July. What a present for America. It was a excellent effort from Luis Castillo. And then we can talk, of course, about Julio in a second. But seeing that was enough for me to take this very boring game and make it at least kind of memorable. Yeah. I'm all with you on that.

Big story for me is obviously Luis Castillo. His last two starts have been really good. And it should be noted, this is a terrible lineup. This is an awful, awful, awful lineup. So he should be shoving against this team for sure. But he did exactly that. I didn't realize this was the park where he threw 47 straight fastballs in two years ago. They mentioned that on the broadcast today.

And he did something similar today. I want to say it was like 23 or 24 today, which is wild. But, I mean, it makes sense. Castillo is a fastball heavy pitcher. The White Sox struggle more. than any other team against the fastball. I think this is just a really good matchup for Luis Castillo. Glad that I have him on my fantasy team.

Oh, yeah. But no, I think it's a big kind of moment for him to kind of get his confidence back. This plus the Yankees game, I think gets him back into the swing of things. And it looks more like 23, 22 Luis Castillo. Yeah, the last two starts have been as Luis Castillo as we want Luis Castillo to be. Now, he's not the same pitcher he was in 2020. where he was a borderline top 10 starter in baseball. Okay, he's a top 25 starter in baseball still,

and he gets the job done more than ever, or not more than ever, but he gets the job done more often than not. And these last two starts against sure, quality of lineups very different, the Yankees and the White Sox, but the results are the same. The results are shutout baseball.

And it's just really encouraging to see Luis Castillo pitch like this, especially in a day where I don't think he had his best command. Like, I don't think he was at his best. And I think top of the fact that maybe they were going fastball heavy because of how much the White Sox struggle with it, I also think maybe he just didn't have command of his other secondary pitches today. And so they said, let's just go with the fastball. That's going to work.

And boy, did it ever work, especially those last four ratings. It would be one of those tail of two halves. It's a weird thing to say because both of them are shutouts, you know, the first three innings. against the next four innings. But like if you just watched, if you had the ability to just watch the batter hit the baseball and it had no idea what was happening after that, you would not guess Luis Castillo

through three shutout innings over those first. You would just say, oh boy, I sure hope the defense behind him was real good. But the last four, that was shutout baseball. That was deserved shutout baseball. Goodness gracious, the White Sox are just atrocious too. It's bad for baseball to have a lineup this bad. and for it not to be the worst lineup in baseball.

That's insane. That that's the case as well, that it's not the worst team. I feel like, I mean, they showed the stands of multiple times a lot of Mariners fans in those things. I want to say it was probably close to 50% Mariners fans at Rate Field, by the way.

What a name for a stadium. My God, everything about that place just seems cursed. All right. I can't do it. But, okay, so we got, we got the Luis Castillo start out of the way, a little bit iffy on the bullpen stuff.

I think Colin Snyder looked good. Troy Taylor, not so much. Had to bring in Andres Munoz and probably an instance where you don't want to have to bring him in. But he hasn't pitched in, what is it, three days now. Or two, two or three days. Anyways, he's had two days off is what I'm saying. So this isn't the worst case scenario. And I think you mentioned this right before we went live, there's a chance that we might not play tomorrow, given the forecast. So if you're going to have to use them, this is the game to do it.

Yeah, I think that's a great point. And, you know, it is technically a safe situation because the bases were loaded and the tying run came to the plate. And boy, oh, boy, does Dan Wilson love managing to a baseball card, baby? If it's a safe situation, Julio Rodriguez is going to enter that game. And you know what? Good for Andres. You mean, no, no.

Yeah, absolutely. It's going to be something that helps him in the long run because, you know, those arbitration figures and stuff, they look at the back of the baseball card, baby. And the more saves that he can get the absolute better, but a terrific pitch to get him there, sure would have been nice to not have to use them. A lot of comments, and we sure do appreciate.

Please leave your questions, all that good stuff. We really, really appreciate the support. Bringing up Troy Taylor going to AAA, I have no issue with it whatsoever. Now, I will say this. I still think Troy Taylor has a bright future in baseball. Like, he had excellent stuff in 2024. I don't think he ever has fully recovered from that lat string,

not so much in fastball, blah stuff in command. I don't think that him having no spring training, I think he needs more work in AAA. I think that's pretty easily the move you make when Trent Thornton comes off of the injured list as you're sending down Troy Taylor. You might even consider it now,

but it's kind of tough because I don't know if there's a ton of better options out there. But great point on Colin Snyder. I thought he pitched really well tonight in a not so high leverage situation, but the slider was working, taking advantage of the White Sox lineup. Have we mentioned that the White Sox lineup is bad yet?

I think we should. I don't think we have. Let's mention it one more time. The White Sox lineup is bad. But Colin Snyder did a nice job. Roy Taylor, walking those first two guys, was just so hard to watch. We saw that with Brousardo in the appearance before.

Yes. You have that big a lead. You just got to throw strikes and trust your defense. Worth pointing out there were a couple of, of balls that I think Julio probably would tell you that he should have caught. Especially that first one that he misplayed, seems like such a strong word for a diving catch. But I don't think he got a great read on the ball that ends up scoring the run either. That's not to say that Troy Taylor pitched well.

Self-inflicted damage ends up hurting him. But yeah, the Seattle Mariners definitely will be not using Troy Taylor in high leverage anytime soon. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised that that's the case. Good to see Josh Rojas again, even though he's masked up by a lot of that, because he was playing second base. Hey, there's got a Josh Rojas revenge game. Did not go as playing. No, it did not. It's tough to have a revenge game when you play for the White Sox.

I don't be honest. Let's get to the Julio Grand Slam. Because I think this game was still in the balance. The Mariners lineup struggled today until that eighth inning. So they've been good at knocking out starters all day or all year, I should say. But for whatever reason, they had trouble with, and I don't even remember his name, what was it, Davis. Davis Martin.

Davis Martin. Yeah, there it is. If I don't know his name, that tells you that he's. Yeah. He's had two good starts in a row. And the Mariners have done well against ace-like pitchers. Yeah. But they struggled today.

He just had a lot of ground ball outs and they couldn't get the ball in the air. I think they were too aggressive today. I think that they were a little bit too aggressive in going after first pitches, maybe not taking enough. You know, there were some two out counts where maybe they should have let a ball go by. Credit to Davis Martin, though. He's pitched well this year. He has an ERA of like 3.4 or something along those lines.

The White Sox have two good starting pitchers. The rest of it is absolute hot garbage. But they do have a couple of guys that will see Shane Smith on Wednesday. I'm excited to see that. rule five draft pick, but they were too aggressive tonight. They were too aggressive at the plate, but then in the eighth inning, I was super glad to see Julio aggressive because after the self-inflicted damage that was caused by Camboozer to just annihilate that pitch. And look, it barely gets over the left field fence with the way the wind was blowing today. That ball was Mollywopped,

absolutely shellacked. And there were a few balls tonight that the Mariners had die at the warning track that I think now the White Sox had a few. The White Sox did have a few too as well. But Julio Rodriguez just absolutely ambushes that pitch and turns a game that there was no way the White Sox were scoring five. As bad as Troy Taylor was pitching tonight, there was no chance in Hades that they were going to score five runs tonight. And that takes you, you know, as good as Castillo was, a four-run swing makes you to me

the player of the game. When you hit a baseball over the fan. and score four runs and quintuple, your total run footage, you are the player of the game. And it's just so great to see how good Julio has been in the month of May. Like, I think he's hitting 293 with like a 452 slugging percentage. That's what we want. That's what we want to see and can't help but point to how poorly Julio Rodriguez

was playing at this point last year. The difference is night and day. Do you think we're almost two months through the season right now. We're almost a third through the season. Do you think it's safe to say this is his best first third of a season that Julio has had in his career? Sadly, I don't remember what his rookie numbers were at this point. I remember his first month was bad. First month was bad because he was getting jobbed by umpires that obviously hated

Julio's beautiful blue eyes or something like that because he just could not get a strike called against him. It's certainly the best of the last three, though. And his defense is just getting better and better and better. And I don't know how because you think it's reached a peak. And then even with a misplay again tonight, the range that he shows on those balls in the outfield on top of the offense, on top of the base running, Julio Rodriguez is a really special baseball player. Yeah, I'm looking through his rookie year numbers right now, 544 OPS through April, March. But then in May he did get up to an 866 OPS, and that's where he's starting to go berserk a little bit. And that's one thing that I will mention.

I think it's almost just assumed that Julio's going to get hot in the middle of the summer. I don't want to necessarily pin those hopes on him, him carrying the offense like he has for months of time. But the fact that he's starting to gain some consistency a little bit where he's becoming a positive offensive player for large stretches of the season without going through those big. you know, gaps where you're not doing anything striking out a ton. I think it's a big development for him in the long term, especially, maybe not as much for this year. Because like I said, people are just kind of assuming that he's going to just have that explosion of a month. I don't know if that's going to happen. I would like to think that he does. But it's definitely something where I'm more encouraged than discouraged if this is kind of what he turns into as a player.

I was a little worried. I will say before that Grand Slam, he was chopping balls. I think in the what you would call it, the Padre series as well, a lot of ground balls. Yeah. Nothing super, you know, launch angle, quote unquote, high in the air. But he hit the mistake pitch that he needed to to kind of make me feel a lot better about that there in the eighth inning and it came at a big point. Yeah, no doubt. And by the way, speaking of a big point, it's easy to forget because of the Grand Slam. Jorge Polanco driving in the run in that third inning was absolutely huge too because, you know, it didn't seem all that big at the time.

to get a one-nothing lead. Well, that was all of the offense we had for a very long time. And Jorge Polanco, it's worth pointing out, just destroys pitching in Chicago. He has been, Aaron Goldsmith said, Hall of Fame numbers that he's put up in that part. And he's not far off.

He's been excellent. And getting that one-nothing lead, it turned out being awfully, awfully big. Yeah. And even, yeah, like you said, without the Julio Grand Slam, it's, I think Polanco's coming down to Earth a little bit.

He hasn't been as, amazing as he was in the first month of the season. This, in May, he's, I think, closer to the 600, 700 OPS mark. I have to double check those numbers. But if he can just kind of round himself out a little bit, you're never going to be the 1.2 OPS guy that you were in April. But you're not going to be the 500, 600 OPS guy that he has been in the last couple weeks.

Round yourself out to the mid-700s, get around to that 800 number. I think you're in great shape, especially as a right-handed only, sorry, left-handed only against right-handed pitchers, because once again, he was pinch-hit for against the left-handed pitcher, which is something that I think is worth monitoring. Once again, it doesn't seem like he can't bat against the left-hand-a-pitch. Yep, and nice job by Mitch Garber to line that single-level. So that was big to put more pressure on,

get those bases loaded, and then Julio does all the damage. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. Let's get into a couple things. Comment your unsung hero of the game, not a ton of options today, but I have an idea of what mine is going to be. So let those eat, as they say. I have an idea of what mine is.

You can go with the Randy or Rosarena diving catch. It can be a play of the game as well. So be sure to send those in. But first, Christopher Crawford, I want to talk to you a little bit about wonderful pistachios. Looking for a snack that's both delicious and nutritious, crack into a good source of protein with wonderful. Pistachios. Wonderful Pistachios is one of the highest protein nuts. Each one out serving has

six grams of protein, giving you over 10% of your daily value, plus they're packed with fiber and better for you on saturated fats to help you feeling fuller, longer. I was snacking on some pistachios today. I was just watching the game, getting bored out of my mind for seven innings, and so thankful that I had some pistachios next to me. Get snacking and get cracking with a snack that packs a protein punch. Visit wonderful. Pistachios.com to learn more. Let's also talk about some Fandul because the NBA playoffs are in full swing. I'm wearing my Sonics jersey from 2004, Ray Allen, shout out.

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Make every moment more with Fandual, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right, let's get into our unsung hero of the game. Chris Crawford, you can go ahead first. I have a pretty unique one coming after that. Maybe we have the same one, but I kind of doubt it. And we haven't had the same one yet, although I kind of feel like sometimes you're just picking someone different. because you don't like to agree with me.

And that's fine. That's fine. My unsung hero tonight is Rowdy Telles. And the reason Rowdy Telles is my unsung hero is because of what he did defensively today. He made some excellent plays at first base, not just on a couple of diving plays. Maybe it was just a one diving play, but he had another play where he showed off his beautiful, beefy boy range. It was his job of picking some of those balls in the infield tonight as well.

And the one thing that Rowdy to Les does exceptionally well, he picks the best of baseball off the ground so well on those throws. He saved a couple of errors tonight. So I'm going with Rowdy Tellez. It's a little easier. It would have been a little easier call in a one-nothing game because he's saving those. And 5-1, it's a little bit different. But Rowdy-Telez did a really nice job defensively tonight. So he's my underrated, unsung hero for tonight. Yeah, mine's going to be a little bit interesting. It's not a player. It's not a coach. there's uh i've never myself felt the pitch calm in my hand uh so i don't know if it's a button or something but whatever thing button whatever it is that sends the fastball signal that is my unsung

hero of the game because that has to be overworked at this point when you're playing against the chicago white socks yeah uh louise castillo was throwing four seamers two seamers just straight at them every single time they couldn't catch up to it i love how much movement was on it but yeah the pitchcom giving us the fastball signal is my unsung hero of the game. Guys, be sure to catch, if you missed any part of our postcast here, you can catch the beginning of it on our YouTube channel right here. You just can fast forward back to the beginning or whichever point that you missed. But you can also catch it on audio platforms as well.

Wherever you get your podcast, maybe you're driving around. You can't watch us. You've got to watch the road. You can still pop us on the podcast machine, however you listen. It's a great way to kind of get your. Mariners Post Game show from myself, Anderson Hurst and Christopher Crawford. You can catch our work. I hope, I don't host.

Well, I contribute on Sports Radio KJR in Seattle. Chris Crawford is the host of Myel Y. He also appears on Sports Radio KJR every Monday with the Maliwap Monday crew. So I really appreciate you guys tuning in with us today. Maybe we won't see you tomorrow. We'll see what ends up happening with a possible rain delay or rain postponement of the game. But at this point in time, we'll plan with being with you guys right after the game tomorrow. I would give you the starter tomorrow, but we don't know it.

So I guess we'll figure that out a little bit later. But Mariners win again, fourth in a row, five to the last six, get the job done. Let's go win the series tomorrow against the White Sox. Have a good one, everyone. Grace. Boom. Yes, sir.