Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST - Seattle Mariners BATS AWAKEN vs Washington Nationals

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Christopher Crawford and Anderson Hirst break down the very impressive 8 inning start from Logan Evans, Julio Rodriguez homering again and the magnitude of Cal Raleigh's play right now.  Is there any doubt that he's the best Catcher in the game of baseball? Does he actually have a shot at MVP? Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Trade CoffeeRight now, Trade is exclusively offering our customer 50% off your one-month trial at drinktrade.com/LOCKEDONMLB. 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. Ah. All right. Relax. Exhale. Everything's okay in Marinerland.

After a tough weekend series, your Seattle Mariners come out and get the perfect get-right game against the Washington Nationals. Logan Evans goes eight strong. wrong innings. Could he have gone nine? Maybe. Cal Raleigh is him. Julio Rodriguez has another three-hit night. My gosh, there's a lot of positives from tonight. Anderson Hurst here. To my left is Christopher Crawford. Welcome back again. Thank you. Yes. It's good to have you back. I like not having to talk to myself for the whole time. But we're your host of the Lockdown Mariners Postcast. We go live on the Lockdown Mariners YouTube page right after every single Mariners baseball game, right after the final pitch.

And boy, this is a fun one. What do you think, Chris Crawford? Should we make sure you don't leave again? Because when you did, we had a tough loss. And when you come back, it's like a therapeutic win. Yeah, yeah. I'm the key to this operation. Not just the operation here, but clearly the key to winning baseball games.

No, this was a fun one. And it was fun from the jump, man. Like Logan Evans gets the quick inning. And then you have that first inning. And it's like, oh, this might be a really good one. Now, that game started very similar to the game against Houston on Sunday, but a much different result. But you've got to give a ton of credit to the offense today, a ton of credit to the pitching today, and a ton of credit to the defense today. This was probably since we started doing this, the most complete game the Seattle Mariners have played.

And sure, it helps that the Washington Nationals aren't great. Sure, it helps that the situation for the starting pitcher tonight was as perfect as it could possibly be. but the result is the result, and you can't ask for a better result than tonight. Yeah, and let's get right into Logan Evans start. I think a lot of people, when you look at the line, you think, my God, you must have just absolutely dominated that whole lineup. It might not necessarily be the case, but I think you mentioned it off the top there. It was kind of the perfect matchup for him.

Someone who just kind of let his cut or eat really was hitting that backdoor sweeper for strike won a lot against a normally pretty aggressive lineup. And they kind of showed that and how quickly they adjusted in the count. But he was able to land that backdoor pitch. So give him credit for what he was able to do. But Christopher Crawford, let's dial down the hype train just a little bit. So tell us about Logan Evans start. Was he a little lucky? Or was he just hitting his pitches everywhere he wanted to go tonight? So I do not want to poop on the parade because that's a, why would you ever do that? Number one, that's a really weird thing to do. And I think you would get arrested. But I will say this. This was a perfect situation for Logan Evans,

as I mentioned from the get, because as long as you throw strikes against the Washington Nationals, you're going to have a really good time. So that's the first thing we have to say. Kudos to Logan Evans for pounding the strikes on today. Getting ahead. Now, was there some luck in this start. Yes, quite a bit. If you take a look at the savant numbers and you know, you can use them dangerously, I believe he ended up generating a total of five swings and misses in his 80, which is not great. And, you know, the one time where he caught middle middle, James Wood hit that ball. They said that went 448 feet. That seems a mile and a half too short. That ball was absolutely clobbered and good for James Wood. Hope we see him in the home run

Derby because he is just an electric baseball player. Talk about another guy I'd like to see in the home run derby in a second. But Logan Evans pitched fine. Do I think what, if you were just watching, would you guess eight innings of one run baseball with three hit? I don't think so. Like that didn't pass the eye test for me. Should I care or should you care?

No, I don't think so. No, because the Seattle Mariners just have really struggled to get starts like this. these seven innings of two-run baseball, eight innings of one-run baseball, they just haven't had those. And kudos to Logan Evans for being able to do it and handling some pretty good hitters, like outside of the home run from James Wood, there wasn't a lot of hard contact, so I want to give him credit there. I just don't want anyone to take away from this game that, hey, Logan Evans is a guy who should be pitching near the top of the rotation. And you guys are all smart enough to know that that's not true. But, you know, sometimes you need to be talking.

down a little bit, you know, from that. Sometimes we have to talk you off the ledge. Sometimes we have to talk you off the, whatever the opposite of the lead. There you go, the hype trade. Yeah, take the hype train sometimes, but every once in a while, you know, it's better to just Uber over to somewhere else. No, I thought Logan Evans was solid tonight. I give him a ton of credit for throwing a lot of strikes. I still don't think I want Logan Evans in my mariner rotation right now. Okay. I'm going to take you to that. Probably earned him another start, and that's fine. That's fine. I don't mind going with the six-man rotation right now. I don't mind giving these guys. And Ty and Colby, of course, we'll go over more of that. Make sure you tune in for them tomorrow.

To answer your question, though, yes, Logan Evans had luck, but that doesn't mean that Logan Evans was bad or anything close to it tonight, and he deserves a ton of credit for holding them to just the one run. If for nothing else, we can't have him in the rotation for a long creative time because we're going to say Logan Gilbert when we mean Logan Evans multiple times. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just getting. to make it easier for us moving forward. No, man, he pitched great. And I think you mentioned kind of the deeper analytical numbers, Savant and so on and so forth. Those do a better job, I think, of predicting, like, hey, he may not be this type of pitcher all the time. But like the results

numbers, the classic, you know, hits, innings pitch, ERA, all those fun stuff is more of what you have done up until this point. So, like, we just react to the, game we just watched and he pitched like a near like i don't say perfect games that obviously gets blown out of proportion but sure a very good game for the situation that he was in today against that lineup sure uh you know almost all left-handed hairs were they all lefties in the starting uh lineup for for washing i think they were yes uh so that's not an easy thing as well and uh you know they were aggressive he he knew that he attacked where he needed to and made the right pitches in the right spots. Yeah, no doubt about it. And, you know, sometimes you can use a all-lefty

lineup to your benefit because you get people out in front of there. And we did see some hitters out in front for sure because there was so much weak contact. There were a ton of pop-ups. I'd like to see more swing and miss. Like that's the one thing a pitcher can control for the most part is whether or not they can get the batter to swing and miss at pitches. Initiating weak contact is great. I still have long, short-term concerns with Logan, and long-term concerns if you're talking about whether or not Logan Evans could be anything more than a back-end starter. But tonight was awesome. And I think Logan Evans can sleep very, very well tonight.

It's going to have to take a shower now after getting the old Gatorade dose for sure. You should take a shower anyway, guys. If there's one thing to take over there, always shower after a baseball. Yeah, no. And he was more than a turtle neck. It was pretty warm out there, too. So maybe it's just his thing. I don't know, like some guys are like that.

Let's move over to the offense. This is the bigger story for me because it's great, but Logan Evans was able to go eight innings, and it's the first time we've seen that this year as from a Mariners pitcher. But seeing Julio with another three-hit night, including a home run and a hard hit out, by the way. Yes. So we could have had four-hit night, honestly.

Cal Raleigh with two other home runs. That takes his total to 19. Only Shohai Otani has more in the league. And according to the great Sarah Lange, That is now a broken record for the most by a primary position catcher in his team's first 53 games of a season. So, Cal Raleigh, setting some very, very, very cool records at this point in this season. Not only that, it's worth pointing out there. There's some people who have given a big dumper a little bit of stuff because of the fact that he's been a DH a bunch, you know, for his homers.

now he has homered more than any catcher as a catcher too for the Seattle. So congratulations to him. No, he's just both of those guys, Julio and Cal today were absolutely special. And I was so glad for Julio that that hit dropped now. Yes. It was weak contact, but he deserved it because he absolutely shalacked that baseball down the line. Jose Tania just absolutely played it perfectly. And Julio Rodriguez is now on pace for a 30 homer season and like 25 stolen bases

while playing as good of center field as anybody, maybe outside of Pete Crow Armstrong. We call him the best outfielder. I don't have a problem calling him the best outfielder. I would love to see a fight between the two and outfield at the All-Star break. Like, let's just have them great. That would be so much fun. It would never happen because as soon as one pair at their hamstring, baseball would be shut down.

Just seeing the star performances from those through tonight. And also talking about the offense, what a great night to see from J.P. Crawford, who we talked about on Saturday had been really scuffling an awesome night tonight. Great job by J.P. Crawford at the top of that lineup. I still would be looking for a way to move him back to that nine spot. But tonight was excellent. His approach was awesome, scoring a couple of runs. It was a really solid offensive game.

Mitchell Parker is not great by any stretch of the imagination, but he's not that bad. And they made him look quite the fool over especially that first inning. This was a really good offense. offensive effort. Certainly, I think, the best offensive effort that you and I have seen since we started doing this thing. Yeah, multi-hit nights from Julio, from Cal, from Dylan Moore, got three hits tonight and two hits from Ben Williamson as well. You can throw in JP. He had one hit, but he had two walks. So, like, these are guys that are getting on base multiple times per night. I think overall, offensively, I don't really see a dud up Mitch Garver, excuse me. That was the only

he was 0 for 5 with a strikeout but i think everyone else pretty pretty dang good of over 4 for laity taveris okay uh but everyone else at least got on base one time that's a pretty good night and like you said i think uh mitchell parker like he actually was like one of the better pitchers in the league for the first like three starts of his season and then he's really cooled off yeah so and but honestly to me this is one of those starts where um previous meritor's teams would struggle against this kind of pitcher a lefty especially a lefty, because we just, for whatever reason, just can't hit left-handed pitching up until this year. Sure.

But, and then, like, a guy that, you know, can show some signs of life and he just all of a sudden has a great start against the Mariners. They made him look bad today. Lots of good at bats. They got them out in what the, was it the third or fourth inning? I can't, I can't remember exactly when. But now it's going to, that not only helps you today. It helps you in the next couple games as well, because you've got through a decent, portion of the Washington bullpen as well.

Yes, you did. And look, Jackson Rutledge has pitched really well this year up until tonight. He clearly did not have it whatsoever. But you also got Zabrugoskiski, which is how I would always say the name because it's the way that it looks. What in the world? That is worse than Rep. Pachinsky. And then Andrew Chafin, the ghost of what he is. Although he's having a decent year for Washington as well. No, you got deep into their bullpen that you could. Couldn't ask for a better first game of this series, I don't think. Yeah, big win for your Seattle Mariners. Once again, Anderson Hurst, you're Christopher Crawford.

We'll go through a couple of your comments. I'm seeing actually a couple really good ones here from Jackery. You don't need swing and miss stuff to be a good pitcher. It helps. But if you have the command Evans had tonight, you can tear through a lineup regardless. I want to get your thoughts on this. But I think that can be the case to a certain point against the really, really good lineups.

You're still going to have to get some swinging mess. No doubt about it. And if you just initiate crazy weak contact, and by the way, Jackery is one of my favorites. He's been following me for a very long time. Shout out. I can only apologize, Jackery, for all the stuff that you've had to see over my many years of doing this. But he's totally right, though, that if you have great command, you can tear through a lineup, especially a lineup like this, where I think there were two guys who had an on-base percentage

tonight over 300. Like, they're just a very hacky team. Now, they're a talented team. C.J. Abrams has a chance to be a star. James Wood might just be a star right now. If he's not a star, it's pretty darn close. Dylan Cruz was starting to pick things up, unfortunately out with the injury right now.

But there's some talented players, and there's some really good guys in the minors for them as well. But this is now, now is the time to go get a type of lineup. Now it's the time to get that type of lineup because you can, if you throw quality strikes, he can't just hang it because look what happened when you hang it against James Wood. That ball would absolutely Molly Woff.

patent pending. You got to have the ability to locate. You can't just, we've talked a bunch of times already on this channel, the difference between control and command. But tonight, Logan Evans had really good command of his stuff and the balls that were hit hard. Either went for singles. One went over the fence, of course. And then right to defensive players as well. Like that ball in the eighth inning was shellacked, but credit to Leoti Tavaris for making a really nice running play. Yeah, and only one walk as well. So when you do kind of leave those hands, That means you're only having solo shots instead of like two, three-run homers. And that's what really helps you out in the long run.

One mistake is not going to absolutely kill you, especially when you're up by that many runs. Eric, you wanted to see your name on the screen. There's your name on the screen. I got it twice. Perfect. You're getting double for your money. From Brian here, Solano's definitely figure some things out. Low bar, but we'll take what we can get.

A couple good Solano shouts here. Are you seeing something turning around with Donovan Solano? Well, let's look at it a couple of ways. Yes, I am seeing better from Solano. Can you imagine if it got worse? Like, do you even imagine what would happen if he got more? Well, yeah, and only the difference would be he'd be Colton Long and he can't play second base. He's stuck in first base for you.

So he has no defensive value. He would be still hitting in the, his on base percentage at one point was like 160 and not that long ago. So it is, though, it is nice to see that. that Logan, our Donovan Solano, excuse me, is starting to, he had some decent at bats where the result just wasn't great, you know, and he flew out to the warning track a few times. I'm still looking to move on from Donovan Salano, you know, and that's more to be just he doesn't really fit,

I think, what this roster is doing right now. And because of the fact that Rowdy Tellez has been a much, much, much more successful hitter. Now, darning with faint praise a little bit there, but for sure, you can't argue that Roddy to Lest. Routi Thales has not only been a better hitter for the Seattle Mariners. He's been a really solid defensive option at first base. The range still stinks, and of course it does. He's a defensive tackle playing.

First base. But he, and there are some frustrating balls that I see get down the line that I would say, Luke Raleigh makes that play and yada, yada, yada. But he has done such a good job digging the ball at a first base that you have to have him. But if you're going to pair Routi Tiles with someone, the offense has to be better than what Donovan Solano is giving. and that is the understatement of understatements. Yeah, well, let us know who your guys' shout for Unsung Hero is.

There's a lot of different ones you could go with tonight. And we'll kind of get to those right after we talk about what I like to call Supply House. Oh, get the supplies you need from the site made for the skilled trades. Supply House, whether you're in plumbing, HVAC, or electrical work, supply house is the reliable way to order products. online. They're easy to use website. It's packed with helpful resources and the latest project info to help you get the job done right.

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That's Supplyhouse.com. All right. Unsung Hero today. Hopefully this is one. Yeah, a lot of good ones. I might have to solicit some comments for them. Brian O'Connell, Dimo, or Tavares for Unsung Hero, only because we're singing for everyone else tonight. It's very true. I think we're going to have to try and get a little creative here, especially because we only used one relief picture, and it was Eduardo Bizarro. So the relief picture thing is out the window.

Yes. You could go Solano as well. But Chris, I'm going to have you go first. Who is your unsung hero? I'm going with Ben Williamson. I thought Ben Williamson had a really good game today. Two for four with a couple of runs, gets the RBI. Now, the RBI wasn't hard hit, and very few of Ben Williamson's hits are hard hits,

if we're being completely honest. Although, I was just looking at his hard hit rate. That's the one thing he's really not struggling with offensively, but he had some superb at bats tonight. Andrew Schaffin looked like he wanted to murder Ben Williams. Because of that little ground ball. Yeah, that little ground ball. But you know what? That's what happens when you put the ball in play.

Yep. That's what happens is something good can happen. Now, lots of bad things can happen too. There's no question about that. And I wish Ben Williamson had even a semblance of power right now because it would be a lot easier to just justify him being your starting third basement. But the job he did defensively again tonight, the job that he's done defensively all year,

to be fair. But on top of that, having three really good at bats tonight and getting hits in two of them, I go with Ben Williamson as my unsung hero. And honestly, over this first third of the season, Ben Williamson might be my unsung hero for the entire year. Wow. What are we talking about? And again, Ty and Colby, you can talk about this a whole bunch as well.

What are we talking about for defense at third base without Ben Williamson? Because Dylan Moore's not a third baseman. No. And Jorge Polanco is very much not a third baseman. He's kind of saved the Mariners took us a little bit here. And I don't think we give him nearly enough credit. but we're a daily show and just tonight Ben Williamson did an awesome job. Yeah, I will say there's definitely still some questions whether he's a long-term answer

at third base, mainly because he plays at a pretty offensive like position. Oriented position. Not bringing much offense because the results have not been there. I'm with you. I think he brings good at bat, so that's important at the bottom of the lineup. And in an infield that you don't really have any elite defenders on, like he has been that. So I think that that definitely is kind of evening out my thought process on him. But from Dylan, Chris is my unsung hero. Sorry, Andrews. Well, Chris is sung enough. I mean, I'm leaning on him as

the analyst of this show. So I don't think he qualifies. That's not what the paychecks say. Guys, the deal I signed is just insane. Yeah. Insane. I'm going to go with it. Real quick here. Someone named Tidine, Tiding, Tidding. Tidin. Tidin. Tidin. Tidin gozillus says, if Ben Williamson gets a hit, there's like a 90% chance that it's going to 140 feet between the first to second basement. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a hundred percent true. That's a really good point. They should have a daily podcast. I think that the people for that ones like that should do that. I think that's a really good idea. That sounds familiar. I think I recognize that name.

And the other 10% is just him like slicing it down. the line where it like barely stays fair you know just the total controllable thing no man i i love you tie thanks for tuning in appreciate you guys remember you can get locked on mariners tomorrow uh they'll come out with the new episode kind of breaking down this game and looking ahead kind of longer term uh and anything else you guys might want to know so uh appreciate him tuning in uh i'm gonna go with jp crawford i think uh you mentioned it earlier him being a good lead off hitter is a huge development for this team. And I think he really is starting to get to that point.

I don't know about millions tie, but we're getting close to there. If you guys can keep commenting, get us all that YouTube, you know, algorithm stuff going on. If we start using Moneyhouse more, we'll definitely get there. We'll definitely get there. So you're welcome. That is true. Maybe I need to start doing that. Taking advantage of our relationships that we have here at Lock.

Yeah. But, yeah, J.P. Crawford, top of the lineup. I think, you know, I still have questions whether he's the lead-off hitter. I'm still going to beat the, beat the drum of Julio being your lead-off hitter for a long time until they get a real solution there. But I also, like at the same time, I understand that Julio's results at the top of the lineup. At least this year. This year, yes, this year specifically were not as good as they were in previous years. So I don't know.

it's a balance between getting what's best for your best player or putting your players in the best position for your whole team. So I think those are two different things. Hopefully eventually those kind of things meet up with each other. And I think if that's the case, then Julio's your lead off hitter. But we'll see what ends up happening. I think he's comfortable where he's playing now being kind of the second or third guy. So I'm not going to mess with that. He's hot.

And I think we're starting to get to the point where we might see the couple of weeks. about Julio just absolute going a tear that we've seen the last couple years. Yeah, I want to ask just one quick thing real quick. So Cal Rally is now on pace to hit 57 home runs this year. Ooh. Okay. And I don't want to talk about the MVP thing. I want to talk specifically about do you want to see Cal Raleigh in the home run derby?

Give me a quick, quick answer on that. Yeah. I do too. I do too. Now, I think it's fun. I think, It will obviously be his choice. If Big Dumper passes on it because he's not comfortable doing it or whatever, fine.

So be it. I hope they at least give him that invitation. You know what I mean? Because I think he could put on a show. I think he could put on an absolute show. The torpedo bat, any bad, I think that he can hit a little ball, baseball a long way. Also, the fact that he's got so much stronger from the right side, the fact that he has a chance to be a guy who could hit a bunch of from both sides of the place.

That's what I was going to say. Do you do it from both sides? Yeah, well, we saw Adley Ruchman do it. And, you know, he almost came back from a massive deficit in Seattle doing that swinging from both sides of the plate. I really hope he at least gets the invite. At this point, it seems like a no doubter that he's going to get the invite. He's only behind some Shohei Otani guy. I've never heard of him. Yeah, he sounds like a nice guy, but apparently he's hit 20 home runs. But I get it. There's a lot. a lot of myth to me about how hitters struggle afterwards because you have to make an adjustment and tiresome and stuff like that. But there's also this myth about Cal Raleigh losing defensive value

because of framing going away. And there's also this myth that Cal Raleigh's defense is going to go away because of how many games he's played. Now, I guess we'll find out about that latter one later, right? Yeah. I really hope Cal Rale at least gets the invitation because it would be so much fun to see Big Dumpur getting that kind of celebrity. Yeah, I think I'm with you. Baseball is like so much of it is just having cool moments. I think that's a big part of baseball and not just like preparing for the playoffs. I get that that's a huge part of it.

Mike is a great point here. It would be hard to see rally in the derby, but I think the All-Star break is the only time we'll get a day off. That's totally fair too, man. You're not wrong. If you want to go hang out in North Carolina and shoot some pigeons or something like that. Maybe that's who he is. Go for it.

Yeah. And maybe that's who he is. Because I'm sure he's going to at least, I mean, there's no doubt he's going to at least get an all-star game invite. Oh, 100%. So, I mean, he's already going to be there. Yeah. So, I mean, so there's some thoughts about that. I don't know.

To me, Cal seems like the guy that kind of play it down, not be the kind of main focus and everything. He doesn't like that. Right. Well, Ty and Colby, if you guys are still listening, that's a great topic for you guys to talk about tomorrow. So I'm sure you guys already had that on your show sheet, as they say in the thing. is. But really, please you get you guys tuning in tonight. Once again, tomorrow, 640 Mariners Nationals. I believe the pitching matchup, is it Emerson Hancock or George Kirby? It is George Kirby against Trevor Williams, unless it's changed, which, you know, that does happen every now and then.

But right now it is scheduled to be Mr. Kirby against Mr. Williams. All righty. Well, tune in, guys. Once again, we'll be live right after the final pitch. And be sure to catch Locked on Mariners podcast tomorrow during the day to kind of get your 30,000. thousand-foot view of things as Ty and Colby break everything down and do things better than we ever could. So, uh, appreciate you guys tuning in. We'll talk to you guys tomorrow. Okay, go Mariners.