Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners begin MASSIVE SERIES with a LOSS vs Texas Rangers

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, in a massive series, the Mariners need to have, or at least split. They lose the first game against the Texas Rangers. They lose this one, five to four. Unfortunately, Bryce Miller gets credited. I guess you could say with all five runs against.

Starting point is 00:00:41 He wasn't great today. He doesn't get a single strikeout, which is a little bit interesting. Does give up the one walk. Gives up a couple home runs. Bizarro can't come in and f*** off. But offensively, on some ways, the Mariners actually had a pretty decent day.

Starting point is 00:00:58 Offensively, they do get 10 hits. And they do score four runs, but they definitely had some missed opportunities to really get to McKenzie Gore specifically in that second ending. So missed opportunity is, again, the kind of the word that I'm going with, and it's kind of been a theme all season long. The stars aren't showing up. I mean, Cal, Randy, Josh Naylor, Julio Rodriguez, where are you guys?

Starting point is 00:01:25 When we need you the most, it's July 24th here, and you're nowhere to be found. It's a three-hit day for Cole Young. It's Weston Wilson driving in a run. It's Dominic Canzon driving in a run. It's the peripheral guys that you shouldn't have to rely on to win games. And the big guys are just not getting it done. And that's really been the story all season long. It's unfortunate that the stars are not playing the way they should at this point.

Starting point is 00:01:57 But they're going to have to start doing it if the Mariners want to get to the playoffs. Because, man, it's tough to watch right now. Cal Raleigh just, I mean, looking at his numbers, I, of course, took, you know, about a six-week period off for the World Cup. I come back and he still has a 572 OPS. I mean, what are we doing? And I'm watching these at bats and it's like, man, alive, he doesn't look like he's figured anything out. I know they tried to glaze him on the broadcast a little bit today. Oh, he hit the ball hard.

Starting point is 00:02:31 He's still swinging pitches two feet above the strike zone. And getting fooled left and right, flying out to the warning track. That's not Cal Raleigh, guys. That's, that's just not who he is. It's, God, it's such bad performance. Then you throw in the Edward Bizarro mishap and you have a bad baseball game. Bryce Miller, let's start with the start like we always do here on the Mariners Postcast. My name's Anderson Hurst.

Starting point is 00:02:59 Where do we go with Bryce Miller? Because I didn't think he was awful today. He was getting a lot of fly ball out. and there was a lot of close calls with him. But more often than not, he was able to kind of get out of it without giving up a ton of damage. It's really when he gets to the sixth inning and Bizarro comes in for him and can't get the job done,

Starting point is 00:03:21 Jake Berger's the guy to kind of really get you today. That's what really does him in. And, of course, it's both the runners that Bryce Miller left on base that do end up scoring. So it's, you know, as Dan Wilson would say, tough loss tonight, guys. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing super egregious with what the manager did today that I'm going to really complain about a ton. I would have seen Victor Robles in there versus instead of Mitch Garver. I know the season numbers versus left-handed pitching tell a different story.

Starting point is 00:03:56 But Robles just had a pretty dang good homestand. A couple multi-hit days in there. He brings some energy. You could have thrown him at right field. dog and have a little bit more defense as well. I don't hate it though. I mean, it's just I would have done something differently. I want to see Victor Robles get going and it feels like Mitch Garver is what he is at this

Starting point is 00:04:16 point. But again, you can't really blame it on that, those kind of decisions, right? You bring in Bizarro. It's just he should be getting that job done. If that is your, what, second best right-handed pitcher right now without Matt brash you have uh sorry right hand reliever i should say you have andres munoz edward bazaardo and then the two lefties spire and ferre as you're kind of quote unquote high leverage guys if that's your second best high leverage right hand of reliever and uh he's had two straight kind of stinkers to be

Starting point is 00:04:49 completely honest we're in for a world of hurt forward so um yeah it's just it's not good it's um the guys need to wake up at some point and i'm just going to keep going back to the stars need to start playing better. Julio, Randy, Cal, and Josh Naylor. Randy, bad day to day, really bad day to day for Randy. He was the one kind of the one at fault in the second inning for not taking full advantage of what seemed like the blow-up ending from McKenzie Gore, which he has been vulnerable to as of late.

Starting point is 00:05:24 But overall, in the season, you can't really blame him. He's been your best offensive player all season long, but you still want to see more from him there. Randy who are sorry, Julio Cal and Josh, they need to get going, man. You're not going to do anything without those guys doing something more than what they're doing right now.

Starting point is 00:05:42 So it's just, it's a loss in a huge series where your part of division rival, the wild card picture is starting to flip out of focus here. So it's kind of AL West or bust at this point for the Mariners. and if you put up a stinker this weekend and then go into the Dodgers series, like three games out of first place, yikes, that's not a good place to be for the Mariners as we are close to entering August. And you're going to need a miracle run just to get into the playoffs at that point. At some point, it's going to be late to be early, right?

Starting point is 00:06:21 And I'm not saying anyone's saying it's early or anything like that, but you're running out of opportunities at this point. So Mariners lose this one five to four. A couple good days from Cole Demerson and Cole Young. And, you know, besides the Bizarro Mishap, I guess Michael Rucker comes in and does okay. Two innings pitch and saves using more high leverage arms, whatever. But it's the stars. And we're going to go back and discuss individually what's going on with those guys. We'll talk Julio, we'll talk Cal Raleigh, and we'll talk Josh Naylor.

Starting point is 00:06:55 I think those are the three guys that you need to. see be better for this last stretch. And, you know, that's going to be the tough one for, for the Mariners to really figure out at this point because those guys just, they go. The Mariners go as much as those guys go. And it's obviously a lot of people say that about Julio. But you can say the same about Josh Naylor too. When the team was playing well at the end of last year, it was right after the Josh Naylor trade. And he was one of the guys you trusted most.

Starting point is 00:07:27 in those positions and in the clutch situations. And now it's like you're hoping for just anything for him to get on base, not do damage just to get on base and not screw it up. So I mean, I wish we had better feelings about where those guys were at right now. But we just don't, unfortunately. So we'll come back. We'll discuss specifically what kind of what I'm seeing with those guys as they're, you know, coming up to the day.

Starting point is 00:07:57 maybe a little bit in the field as well. But Mariner's loses one five to four. And Bryce Miller was okay. That's just kind of, if not okay, like you expect more from him because he's honestly been your best pitcher up until now. So let's come back. Let's discuss the stars what they need to do differently here on the Mariner's postcast after a tough loss in Texas.

Starting point is 00:08:25 Before we get into today's show, it's time for the everyday icon presented by stance as the official sock partner of Major League Baseball stance knows greatness isn't built in a single moment. It's earned over time through consistency, preparation, and showing up every day. That's why each week or each day we're recognizing one player whose performance embodies those same qualities. Today I'm going to go with Cole Young because he's been the model of consistency for this Mariners team doing it defensively at second base. He's been the only mariner player to play every single day this year. And then he gets three hits today.

Starting point is 00:09:03 He's doing it kind of in all facets. And this season can go a multitude of ways, depending on how those stars that I mentioned earlier, kind of perform for the rest of this year. But one thing you can take, no matter what happens, is a positive for Cole Young's development. And you can't necessarily say the same about Colt Colt Emerson, it's a different situation because it's really his rookie year.

Starting point is 00:09:29 This is where he gets his feet wet, kind of starts to figure out the major leagues. This is Cole Young's first full year after playing, you know, a large portion of the year last year. And you could tell he's taking steps forward in his game. So the everyday icon is presented by Stance. Check out the icon collection from Stance, premium comfort, performance, and durability. Design for whatever your day brings. Use promo code locked on at checkout for 20% off your purchase. Stance, the official sock partner of Major League Baseball.

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Starting point is 00:10:34 L-S-H-I. Cal-She trade on anything. One of the things I highly recommend with Cali, you can go into game-by-game basis. You can go into futures. You can combo it up. There's so many different ways you can go about it. Just check Calci. Remember, use code locked on to get $500 in bonus credits when you trade $25.

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Starting point is 00:11:24 It's really going to change not just where you are in the division standings, but where the Mariners are going into the trade deadline because if they find themselves, you know, three, four games out after this road trip, they're going to be in a tough sell, uh, sell. Funny that that word is used. Not, no pun intended. It's going to be a tough sell to buy, uh, for Jerry DePoto and Justin Hollander at this point.

Starting point is 00:11:49 Obviously, you can tell, I mean, can you tell that there's a sense of urgency, but they're going to try whatever they can to avoid, um, really punting on the season. but if things continue to go the way they have been going where it's just one step forward, one step back, sometimes even two steps back, it's going to be a tough opportunity for the Mariners to go into the trade deadline and really put everything on the table to go and win this year.

Starting point is 00:12:15 Because if you're not in a position to do that, then it would be malpractice at that point to really mortgage your future for a year in which you're playing this type of baseball. So Justin and Jerry need to kind of, to figure out what they're doing. And in order for them to figure out what they're doing, the team needs to help them out in terms of playing better baseball.

Starting point is 00:12:37 And that's not just on the manager. It's obviously on the players as well. I just, I wonder if Dan Wilson's the right man for the job. There's nothing egregious today in terms of the in-game decision-making that I would have pointed to as a huge reason the Mariners lost this game. But the fact that these guys continuously aren't breaking out and going on that magical run that we need them to go on, not even magical run.

Starting point is 00:13:01 Just have a stretch of games where you feel like consistently you're the better baseball team for a week for 10 days, for 15 days. That's going to be something where you know, you don't have to win every game. You don't have to go 11 and 1 in a 12 game stretch, but win three series in a row for once. I don't know the last time the Mariners have done that. But that's the big difference between, you know, what's going on with the teams and winning baseball mode right now and where the Mariners are at. This loss today drops them to 51 and 53 on the season and not looking good right now.

Starting point is 00:13:41 And one of the big reasons for that is the play of their stars. Yeah, you can fire the manager all you want, but if Julio Cal and Josh Naylor aren't playing well, and I'll go through their kind of numbers here in a second, but you can bring whatever manager you want in, those guys having a, respectively, Julio Rodriguez has a 741 OPS, Cal is a 572 OPS, and Josh Naylor is a 678. If those three numbers stay consistent through the rest of this year, you're not doing anything. You're not doing anything. So, yes, I advocate for a managerial change just to kind of shake things up, get things,

Starting point is 00:14:21 if nothing else, send a message to the guys. they tried to do that with firing like a second or third string hitting coach. That obviously didn't change anything because the offensive approach while getting 10 hits today didn't look any different. You're still not coming up in big moments and with runners in scoring position. And it's just one of those things where the guys have to play better. And whether that is a message that needs to be sent or just the period, end of story, I don't know what comes first. I don't know if a managerial change kind of prompts the players to play better,

Starting point is 00:14:57 or players playing better will make the manager look better. Like both of those things can be true. So Julio, Josh, and Cal, they, right up, those three guys are going to define what the rest of this season looks like. I hate to be that simplistic with things. And, you know, I like to offer different reasons why a Mariners team loses baseball games on a daily basis here on the Mariners Postcast. And, you know, I like to think sometimes a lot of people are thinking the same thing. But it's at some, it's the play of your stars.

Starting point is 00:15:31 It's the play of your best players that are playing every single day that you expect to, you know, provide the goods offensively and defensively for that matter. When those guys aren't doing their job, it's really hard to win baseball games. Straight up, end of story. So I don't know, maybe you go and see what is available in the trade market to bring and another star to rely on, whether that's a Byron Buxton possibly, or I don't know. I don't know what that looks like, but the Mariners aren't doing anything if those three guys are going to continue with what the numbers they have right now.

Starting point is 00:16:02 So we'll be back tomorrow. Another, you know, a big game for the Mariners. They're losing the first game of this series. It's, they're really behind the eight ball here because now you're forced to win at the very least, you know, the very least one of the next three games. So you don't get a four game sweep and really put, you know, yourself in a terrible situation. But really, you're looking for two of the next three.

Starting point is 00:16:32 If you're one, and that's kind of still a baseline expectation. You need to at least split the series. But, and now you have to win three in a row if you want to win the series. So you're really in a tough spot. This first game is so, so huge, especially in those four games series. So tomorrow, it is another, what, 505 first pitch, I believe it is. Sorry, 515, excuse me, Boo versus Nathan Evaldi. And really, both those pitchers have had so, so years compared to what their career numbers look like.

Starting point is 00:17:05 So I don't know. Brian Will on the road, too. We'll see what ends up happening. But another Mariners loss, another frustrating one, as they are now, what, three games behind. two and a half, I think, behind the Texas Rangers at this point in the division. And that's only going to keep growing if you continue to play baseball like this. We'll be back with you guys tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Mariners Postcast.

Starting point is 00:17:31 My name's Anderson Hurst. Brian, Nathan of Evaldi tomorrow. We'll talk to you after the game.

Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners begin MASSIVE SERIES with a LOSS vs Texas Rangers

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