Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Mariners are SWEPT vs. Baltimore Orioles...YIKES

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

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) Locked On Mariners 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. Yes, Uncle Dave, we do suck once again. We got your comment in there. Before you even saw our faces. Welcome to the Mariners Postcast. Myself, Anderson Hurst, to my left, Christopher Crawford.

We'll try and explain this one. Can we just use yesterday's video? Yeah. And just change Brian Wu with Emerson Hancock with a little different vibe. But yeah, it kind of feels like the same game, to be honest. Cal dump, Cal Dumpur, big Dumpur was decent, you know, hitting that two run, home run, seemed like, oh, he's going to save our butts once again. But then Brian Wu in the bottom half the sixth, unfortunately chose a wrong time to have a couple very bad pitches.

Really bad pitches. Yeah, walking Jackson Holiday and then just hanging one to Abby Rushman who all of a sudden, I think he's starting to see the Cal Raleigh hype and he's like, hmm, I'm still here. I still exist. Yeah. I'm also a switched hitting catcher who's really, really good. But no, man, it's it's just the same old story, unfortunately. The Mariners are swept by the Baltimore Orioles who, coming into this game, I think,

had the second worst record in the American League. Yeah. I know they've been playing better lately, but it's just like, what are we doing, guys? The vibes are not good. You have basic, I think, one and a half good offensive players right now. And I say one, Cal Raleigh, and then a half of JP because he's doing, he's getting on base. He's playing well, doing what he needs to do. But everyone else, man, just there's nothing going on.

Chris Crawford, what's your original thoughts? Yeah, this is a bummer. It's a bummer because two of my favorite players to watch on this team. are Brian Wu and Julio Rodriguez, and Julio had a really bad game. And Brian Wu had just really one bad inning, but a really bad inning. And when you see two of your favorites, you know, we all have our favorites on these teams. Like I love Big Dumpur. Don't get me wrong. I have many a rookie card and hopefully can retire on them a few years.

It's, uh, I'm still rooting for all of these guys. But when you see personal favorites stink the way personal favorites stink today, and maybe stinks a little too tough for Wu, but he was not. good enough. And he got away with some stuff too. But the overall result is, hey, another horrible homestand. They are four and 12 over their last 16 home games. That's pathetic. That's not like bad. That's a one-fifth sample size, two of your home games where you play at usually worst team in baseball levels. That's really bad. Four and twelve, you do that over a full season. You go 40 and 120. Oh, that's not the goal.

That is not the goal, folks. And when you play like they have at home, even, you know, we go back to the Blue J series, and I know this is Ty and Colby territory. Yeah. At least that one, the Mariners looked like the better team in that series, even with losing all three games. They didn't look like the better team against the Yankees, but, you know, a couple of really close games. You get the win.

Since then, this team has looked. And all that good thoughts I had about the twin series and winning of both those games. Yeah. Dunzo. And today was maybe the worst of them outside of maybe that 9-1 loss to Washington. I mean, the last two weeks, you could count three, four games where we think, oh, this is rock bottom. Oh, wait, no, this is rock bottom. Oh, wait, no, this is rock bottom.

So, yeah, I mean, they kind of righted the ship a little bit over the weekend against the twins, I guess. Or sorry, earlier in the week against the twins. but it was just, it's looking more like a flash in a pan at that point. It's that series and the San Diego series in the past, what, three weeks where the Mariners have just have done anything and looked like winning baseball teams. Sure.

I don't know, man. Like, there's so many ways we could go with this. You mentioned Julio. He looks broken at the plate right now, unfortunately. But he's not the only one. I think Jorge Polanco does as well. Yeah. Dylan Moore's just, why are you playing?

Cole Young looks outmatched. You could go up and down the line of Randy or Rosarena looks broken. Horrible game from a Rosarola. It's literally Call on JP and then just a massive drop off for the offense right now. Yeah. And I'll give Julio a little bit of a break. Like he was picking up hits at least. Again, we talked about it a bunch yesterday and go check out that show, please, and thank you.

That he's just not driving the baseball. Today was just bad. Today was just Julio Rodriguez being way out in front. of a couple of sliders, taking a slider down the middle in a very high leverage situation, which is weird for him. Like at the very least, Ulio usually goes down swinging, clearly fooled. You have to at least foul that baseball off. But all of the offense today outside of Crawford and Big Dumber was terrible. I need to talk about something positive. So let's talk about big dumpers real quick. Because yes, it's in a loss. But what a special season this guy is having.

and there's a reason why we titled this YouTube picture, don't waste this. And it was perfect for not just what Big Dumber did today with that massive two run homer to break the one one tie. But what he's doing overall, this is a historic offensive season for a catcher especially. But like, for anyone, for anyone, he's slugging 638, folks.

That's a 638 slugging percentage with 101 games to go. And he's playing every. single day. So this is not any type of small sample. It stinks that they might waste this. And this is how I felt about so weird. Last year it felt like don't waste this historic one rotation. Now it's don't waste this upper echelon doesn't even begin describe its season from Cal Raleigh. But at the very least, I can take some semblance in seeing Cal Rale do what he did today and knowing not only am I going to get to watch this guy tomorrow. Not only am I going to get to watch this guy through the All-Star, like, blah, blah, blah.

I get six more years of this at least. I get at least six more years of watching this type of baseball player. So there's our one positive that we can take from this game, that Cal Raleigh is him, folks. This is no longer a small sample thing. And sure, I'm not asking him to have a 377 OVP and 638 sledging percentage all year. If he is three-fourths of that player, he's not just the best catcher in baseball. He's one of the top 10 players in the entire league, and that's pretty neat to have. Yeah, what I don't want this to turn into, unfortunately, is just, I don't know.

I was literally just born the year that King Griffey Jr. won MVP in 1997. And it turned into, all right, well, our team sucks, but at least we can root for this historic one person. And it's like, I want it to matter. I want it to matter. I want these moments that Cal is having to carry this team to the playoffs, to go on a historic run. Just don't want to turn it into, okay,

well, at least we have Cal Rale, even though we're just out of it at this point. And it's looking like that might be the case. I don't know. We're a daily show. I'm just reacting to what I've seen now and lately specifically. Yeah.

But this team doesn't look like a playoff baseball team right now. No, right now it's not even playing anywhere close to it. Like what you've seen from the offense, what you've seen from the bullpen sands a couple of guys. suggest to me that and even the rotation you know the rotation's been good and we'll get into brian woo's start in a second it hasn't been the historic levels of 2024 not even close to it uh real quick congratulations to brian wu because i'll forget about it uh that's another start where he goes six innings that's every single start he's made where he's gone six innings but this wasn't

good enough today and the starting rotation has had blips i think that's the best way to put it blips where it just hasn't been that elite rotation. Long story short, right now the Seattle Mariners aren't playing anywhere close to playoff baseball. Let's stand to Woon start. He for, it looked like he was cruising through five endings. I think he looked like as peak Brian Wu as it gets where his command was there. He was getting the swing and missed up.

Couple weird walks here and there. Sure. You know, gets the, the little bit weird third inning, but, you know, gets out of it. and then looks good again in the fourth and fifth, but then that sixth inning, man. Walking Jackson Holiday on the couple pitches where you don't see Brian Wu miss recently

and then just leaving that hanging, hanging, just hit me please breaking ball to Adley Rutchman. And it was a little weird for me as a Mariner fan saying that because it's like, oh, wait, you can hit mistake pitches? I didn't know that. I honestly didn't know that. Because even with big dumper lately, it's been like he's hitting ones at his eyes or like they're, they're trying to pitch around him and he's still hitting it out.

But then everyone else, man, it's just, it did nothing work. So yeah, bad, bad sixth inning from Brian Wu. Yeah. And unfortunately, we talked about this yesterday where if you have a bad inning for this team right now, the offense just isn't good enough to make up for it. And it was a really bad inning. And what I thought happened there and, you know, I'd have to ask Bride Wu myself. I'd be scared to ask Brian Wu anything because of how angry this guy gets after start.

He's macho man now all of a sudden. He definitely, I think that hair added something. Like, growing in here. I love like the just, I'm going to come after you mentality. I honestly think that's what's led to a little bit of Bryce Miller's. Yeah. Ifiness. I mean, obviously, it's a chicken egg situation.

Your confidence comes when your stuff is good. So, like, if you have both of them, you have more confidence sort of thing. Sure. Yeah. No, I get totally what you're saying. saying. I think what happened there with Brian Wu was after he issued that walk to holiday, he probably, and again, no way to prove this, got a little too nervous about issuing another walk. And so you see those pitches middle, middle to both Ruchman and to Henderson. Both of

those were terribly located pitches, you know, credit to two of the better young players in baseball taking advantage of it. I haven't played well this year, but there's still a track record It suggests they're very good. 100%. Like, you know, you throw batting practice fastballs to guys who have been an MVP consideration. And I believe Rutchman was second and rookie of the year, the year Julio won. Yep. Yeah, you got the one other first place vote.

I still think that's bull crap, by the way. It's just something about unanimous, man. And he should have been unanimous. But yeah, outside of that inning, Brian Wu was fine. Brian Wu pitched exceptionally well, changed hitters eye levels. Command was mostly good. the wild pitch. I guess Big Dumber could have got in front of that.

I guess that's a pretty tough play. Yeah, it hit like a foot ahead of the. Yeah. You know, and probably a little bit of a mix up there because the pitch certainly wasn't supposed to go there. It never is. But I thought Brian Woodpitch pretty darn well since that one inning. But unfortunately, this offense, if you have that one bad inning, you're going to have a bad time.

Yeah. I totally agree. Before, I think we're going to do this until it starts to change. I think we need to talk about Julio because he's what makes this offense go. And hopefully us kind of like just relaying the urgency that, hey, dude, you need to turn it around. Hopefully that makes it happen. So I'm still rooting for the guy. I think he's awesome.

But before we get to that, Chris, I want to talk to you about Fanduel. Okay. The NBA playoffs are in full swing. More than that, they are just starting tonight with the NBA finals. and every night delivers highlight-worthy performances, major momentum shifts, and can't miss moments. Whether it's game-winning shot or 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 parlates.

Fans have more ways than other to play smart and to win big. Bethy over on Tyrese Halliburton tonight on the points and assists. I might go over. I hate saying something positive about the Thunder, but like, I could see Alex Caruso being kind of built for something like this, maybe over on his three pointers, something along those lines. I can see a decent game from him. And then I would just go ahead and waste my life savings and bet the over on the Indiana Pacers winning by 106. It's a winning by 106. I think that's fair. I tried to be a little bit reasonable.

Yeah. All right. If you're new to Fandual, it's the perfect time to sign up. head to fandual.com and place your first $5 bet. If it wins, you'll get $200 and bonus bets. Make every moment more with Fandul, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right, let's get into it. For those who do, or who tune into us daily, we talked a little Julio last night. He still got two hits last night. Still hasn't looked right, I think, for at least a couple weeks now. I mean, he still ends up getting a lot because of his speed. And he's, you know, knocking it the other way every once in a while. He's not walking anymore. He is starting to chase more, starting to strike out more again. But we're not seeing the slug

at all either. So we're coming back to what he was kind of for a lot of last year. I don't want to just ask like what fixes him. Because I think it's a lot of it's mental at this point for him. I just want to ask, like, at what point do you start having major alarm bells that this guy is going to be capped offensively and not turn into the guy that we saw the first two years? Because that's the main thing for me. I want to see that he was the guy from the first two years of his career and not the guy that he was last year.

Yeah, and I still think that people may be underrate his offensive season last year. It wasn't nearly as bad as some people put it. It wasn't good enough. It wasn't the jump up that we wanted from 2023 to 2024. But I think some people talk about him like he's an automatic out. And I think that's kind of insane. I also think there's just a lot of people who just don't like Julio Rodriguez and kind of relish in this type of thing, which also is insane.

Having said that, today was the first day that I truly felt concerned about Julio Rodriguez because I've taken a look at the numbers. The hit tool's been fine. The hit tool's been more than fine. Since like May 23. first. He's had so many multi-hit games. The average exa velocity is fine, too. The issue is that that he is just not driving the baseball at all. And today was an example of him just not putting the baseball and play at all. And the worst at bat that I've seen from Julio Rodriguez all year was

today. That eighth inning, that's a slider right down the middle of the plate. And sure, he's not looking fastball there. And I understand why he's not looking fastball there. Not many dudes are challenging Julio, middle, middle with a fastball. And in a two count, one. two count one of the two, certainly with two strikes because two plus one equals three. There you go. That's the first, this is the first game that I've said, ooh, this is Julio at his worst. Like yesterday even, he does get a couple of hits. He puts the ball in play. Now, he strikes out in a very high leverage situation, too very high leverage situation. Oh, no, he popped out in the other one. But, you know, not good enough. Not the results that we want to see. Today was the first day

that I saw Julio Rodriguez look lost at the play. Just flat out lost. And it's going to happen. It's going to happen for every major league player. But it's amplified when he's not driving the baseball for the last week. And you have a game like today. There's no way you can ignore that. Like the eye test told you that Julio Rodriguez was bad at baseball today.

Now, of course, we're not talking about his defense. We're not talking about his base running because you've got to get on base to run. But we're just talking about what he did offensively today. and it portioned yesterday and it portions earlier in the homestand as well, just hasn't been good enough. I hope that he can go on a nice little run starting on Friday. Well, we all know the tools are there. I just hope that because we praised this offensive coaching staff for so much of the year

and how much they were helping the guys put the ball and play more, just go the other way, look up the middle. And I think it goes to show you how quickly things can change if you overcompensate in some ways. Mike Benton, thanks for tuning in. You're the institution. He's the man. He was at the game today, so maybe we have to call him and get some on-site, insight from Mike Benton. But to me, like, I don't know, it's every, because he's so polarizing, and I get it, everyone should be leaning into their superstar instead of leaning away from it. But at some point, there has to be like, okay, let's go.

We shouldn't have to wait until August for you to start hitting. And like, you see, like, and it shouldn't be also, it should be also noted that Cal Raleigh, even yesterday, had a couple of bad at some big situations today as well. Hit it ball hard to center field. Yeah, that ball should have been clobbered today. Yeah, it should have been. It should have been hit over the fence today. And like, like you said, and not to change the subject, but like Randy Orozerina was lost at the plate today.

Right. Absolutely. and we have seen way too much of that since the middle of June from him, the Dylan Moore at Bats. And this can kind of go into Unsung Hero, I think. My unsung villain is Dylan Moore. Those two at Bats today were absolutely pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

And I'm not a Dylan Moore hater. I just think there are some people who might overvalue the scrappy young utility guy that Dylan Moore is. Billy Bloomquist now. With power. Willie Blumquist with power and with really good trapezoids. Like that's the difference here, man. Like, I get it.

And I would, if I was Dylan Moore, I'd wear a tank top every single day and show those things off, man. Instead, I'm paid by Simply Seattle not to wear tank tops. It's specifically in my contract with KJR and my OI. Do not wear tank tops. It's just not good enough. And you see why he can't. be irregular. You see why Dylan Moore cannot be an everyday player. And you can point me to WRC Plus all you

want. And you can point me to all the savant pages. And yeah, because he just murders left-handed pitching. He should be in the lineup at the top of the lineup, maybe every day against left-handers, because he's that good against them. But holy crap on a cracker is he lost against right-handers. And holy crap on a cracker times two is he lost against. him in this stupid ballpark. He is as poorly made for this ballpark as any player that I can think of in Seattle Mariner history. I would love to see what Dylan Moore could go do in Cincinnati. I would love to go see what he could do at a park that is made for his skill set. But more than anything else, I just want to see competent at bats. And both at bats today,

I think it was six pitches. Yeah. Six pitches. He swung at every one. And he swung and missed at every single one of them. It's just not good enough. As bad as Julio was, of course, and we expect more from Julio Rodriguez, because of course we do. But man, this entire offense outside of Crawford and outside of Raleigh today was absolute dog excrement. And I think it's been for a while, honestly. It's good to see JP. That's if you're going to go unsung hero. It's JP Crawford. The dude, another two-head day. I think this is his sixth straight game of being on Base. at least twice. That's awesome.

That's a really good street to have. That's what you want in your lead-off hitter. Sure. And I like how you kind of the conversation with Dylan Moore and Julio, even though there can be disappointment in both of them at this point in time. Sure. The difference in the fans' perspective is that Julio has these astronomical expectations. Exactly.

And that's not a bad thing. No. Some of that is him putting that on himself. Some of that is his play early in his. career and some of that's the mariners for a shoving him down our throat with a bunch of marketing and b not putting other stars around him to expect him to be the guy and that's a failure on the mariners that's a failure on julio himself for not necessarily getting to that point where you can carry a baseball team but it's it's it's not just this one instance it's this is a second

year of being a close to average baseball offensive baseball player. And it just sucks that he's being the one that's expected to just absolutely carry this team wherever he goes. And he's not capable of doing that right now. I'm just going to say he's not capable of carrying this team offensively. Nelson, I didn't see your comment comparing him to Franklin Gutierrez the last two years. Sorry, I just flat out didn't see it. There's like 140 people in here. It's an asinine comparison. but I kind of get it, you know, like that, and he does get treated with kid gloves sometimes. It's either kid gloves or there are some in this fan base who are just way too harsh on this dude. Like there's a reason Ty and Colby had to come out with the video about whether or not Julio Rodriguez is overpaid.

It's not even freaking close. He's not overpaid, no. Not even close to overpaid. The guy we're talking about right now, according to Fangraphs, is the 23rd most valuable player in baseball. okay and we're not talking about some dude who has like a negative war we're not talking about freaking uh michael born we're not talking about some center fielder who just can't hit for power whatsoever we just want more we want superstar production on a more consistent basis from Julio Rodriguez but let's not talk about Julio Rodriguez like he's like the number one issue with

the Mariners the number one issue for the Mariners is that if Julio and if Big dumper. Don't get it dumb. Dumb? Don't get it done. Yeah. If they don't get it dumb, like dumb, go stupid, E-40. If they don't get it done, this team is just flat out not good enough. Because, yeah, J.P. Crawford, great. A couple of singles. A couple of singles. The game before, a couple of walks. And he doesn't have the speed to make any difference whatsoever once he's on base. And it's better to be on base than to not be. But he can't be your offensive savior. In fact, he can't even be your second best offensive player because if he's just on base, there's nothing he can do once he's on base to make up for what else is going on with this offense.

It's just not good enough. Yeah, I completely agree. You can look at all aspects of it from the team building to the, I think the coaching you can massively ask questions of the fact that you can't, like, okay, great. They had a much better April overall. If you take out Cal Raleigh from this offense, where would they be right now? It's so bad. By definition, Cal Raleigh is the most valuable player.

Yes. Because the New York Yankees are absolutely winning the ALE East without Aaron Judge. Sorry, like historic season and he's deserving of if you vote today, the MVP. But if you just went with the three-letter definition of most valuable player, the most valuable player in the American League, it's not even close. It is Cal Big Dumper Raleigh Durham. That is the most valuable player. By the way, I've always joked that I would love to have seen that he was Cal Raleigh

when he hits from the left side and Cal Durham when he hits from the right side. That would be funny. That would be really funny. But unfortunately, somebody had to make a great nickname that's making him hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, you know, Big Dumber will work. Big Dumber. Which the rest of the offense would work. Yeah, geez.

Big Dumpur lives on. But the rest of the Mariners, yikes. Thanks for you guys for listening to the Post. game. Post-cast show. It's such a good comment. We're all with you, Caesar. We're all with you.

All right, Mariners. Like, hopefully they turn the vibes around. What do we got? Tomorrow against the angels in L.A. Yeah. Hey, maybe going on the road is what fixes these guys. They've been way better on the road than at home. There's no question about that.

And we have seen seasons where the Mariners are a better team on the road than at home, like where they just have a little bit more. going for them. That's nothing against the crowd. There's nothing really against the park even. It just seems like the Mariners every once in a while have a year where they take advantage of things on the road. But you've got to be good at home. You have to be good at home if you're going You have your games in one park. You've got to be good at it. And I'm 95% sure that they have a losing record on the road right or at home right now. I would not be surprised whatsoever. Yeah. All right, guys, really appreciate you tuning in. Listen to us tomorrow. Once again,

Christopher Crawford and myself, Anderson Hurst, go live right after every single Mariners game finishes. You can catch Ty and Colby with a new Lockdown Mariners episode tomorrow. Be sure to look out for that. They have tons of good stuff coming this week. And then Chris and I will be live right after the game. If we continue to go through these downward spirals, man, I don't know what else I can keep doing, but all I can hope for is appreciate that you guys are tuning in with us. Anything else before we go out, Chris? Well, just one thing. A link in the description. to the Feeding America. Oh, yes. Thank you. That Ty and Colby are doing right now.

Please donate. It is a great cause, and we really appreciate Ty and Colby for doing such fine work with it. Yep, absolutely. Be sure to check that out. You know, they do such a good job promoting really, really good causes. So really would appreciate you guys hanging out. And as I mentioned yesterday, even if you can't donate, just make sure you're subscribed to our channel because every single new subscription adds 10 cents to the fund, which is.

which is awesome. Please and thank you. Really appreciate you guys tuning in. I will talk to you tomorrow. Hopefully we're having a different conversation because it feels like we've been the same for the past couple days. So go M's.

See you guys later.