Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST - Seattle Mariners BLOWN OUT vs Houston Astros

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Anderson Hirst and Christopher Crawford break down blowout in the first game of the big 4 game set in Houston.  George Kirby makes his return to the rotation and shows some rust in his first start of the season.  Julio Rodriguez is also scratched before game time. 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) 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. As my good friend Chris Crawford would say, Oof-Magoof. Oof-M-Goof. Oof-Magoop is right, sir. Oof-M-Goo-M-Goo.

Not great vibes right now for your Seattle Mariners. They dropped this one 9-2 against the Houston Astros, first game of four. in Houston big series this weekend. George Kirby makes his return. Julio is scratched before game time. Brian Wu gets catches some strays literally. Gets hit by a liner in the eighth inning.

We're going to talk about it. You're welcome to the Mariner's Postcast with myself Anderson Hurst, Christopher Crawford there to my left. Appreciate you guys tuning in for a tough Mariners game. I know George Kirby, it's his first game. came back, kind of thrown into the fire a little bit. There was the Julio thing. We're going to talk about that.

We're going to go through our unsung hero. We'll talk about a couple big moments in the game. But really, this one was just kind of doomed from the start, it seemed like, with how the vibes were with the boys today. Chris Crawford, instant thoughts on the game today and Kirby's return to the starting five. my first thought was thank goodness gracious they won yesterday thank goodness they won yesterday and we're not talking about a three game losing streak now it was a pretty bad one and even when the mariners took that two nothing lead i didn't feel super great about this game it just didn't have that feel

a lot of times when the mariners get out to an early lead especially with their uh starting pitching staff over the last couple of years you just feel like oh this is going to go really well i never got that feeling and it wasn't an insult to George Kirby. It was more a, we don't know what's going to happen here. We just don't know how this is going to go. This was essentially not a spring training start for him, but it's his fourth start basically all year. Fourth start. And the results in Tacoma were mixed. The stuff apparently looked good. And I actually think the stuff looked good at times tonight too. Yeah. Like the actual stuff, what we aren't used to was George Kirby. be not having great command, and he certainly didn't have great command in this one.

And again, controlling command, not the same thing. Control is throwing strikes. Command is throwing quality strikes. And he just didn't throw it on a quality strikes today. He was over the plate too often. There were a couple of really nice breaking balls. The fastball velocity looked fine. I didn't pay super close attention because I'm not good at this.

Anders, you're going to have to be the guy who keeps track of the important things in this. Great. Thanks. This is our 10th game together. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Like that went really fast. Yeah, really,

really fast. But George Kirby looked bad tonight, but I was encouraged that I think George Kirby's going to look okay going forward. Yeah. I will say this too. Anybody who ever doubts George Kirby's competitive spirit is insane. I know he had one really bad quote, but did you see dude's face when he was coming off the mound?

To quote my grandma, he looked madder than a wet hen. And it's not because he didn't deserve it. He's just a really competitive dude who wants to get people out. He said one thing that was kind of silly a long time ago and now people question his toughness. No, George Kirby is tough. And he wants to be out there as much as possible.

I know this was killing him. And I know, I know for a fact, he definitely wanted a better outcome than tonight. Yeah. And like they mentioned on the broadcast a couple times, he sure probably would have wanted to come into today and shove, just like he normally does against the Houston Astros. He has a pretty good record against them in his history and his career. But it's, like you said, it's his first game for the whole season. You could even say this is basically like a third or fourth training,

a spring training start for him in terms of his ramp up. Yeah. He was only limited to 75, 80 pitches, according to Dan Wilson today. He didn't even get to that point because, like you said, there was some command issues. I'm not an expert on this stuff. I just kind of use my eyes and try and judge what I see and then you're going to tell me if I'm right or not. It seemed to me like I'm not concerned that he's like still injured

or he's still feeling anything. I'm just, this is just one of those things where he looked rusty. He looks like a guy that's just made his first start of the season when we're in the middle of the sea, or not middle, but when we're in the middle of May. So I think this was somewhat expected. there weren't any like warning signs like, uh-oh, he's broken. He needs to go back on the IL or anything like that, but it definitely did not look like the normal mid-season form, George Kirby.

No, absolutely not. And, you know, there are things that you can't simulate, you know, making minor league starts or even in spring training. And we have seen plenty of great starters have a couple of rough ones and then bounce back just fine. And that's what I think George Kirby will do. Now, all we can do is react to tonight and be, completely truthful. George Kirby wasn't good tonight.

Like, first couple of innings were okay. He hits the very first battery faces in Jeremy Pena. By the way, Pena with two HBPs and a triple. I'll have to ask Sarah Lange's how common that is because you don't see that too often. But George Kirby's command just wasn't good enough tonight. And while the Houston lineup is a shell of what it once was, there's still enough quality hitters there. Jose L2.

Yeah. Not the guy you want beating you. No, it's not only that. Like Jose Al-Tuva has been dreadful. That was the first RBI he's had in the month of May tonight. The first RBI in the entire month of May. And, you know, he was due for some regression or ascension to the mean, I guess I should say. Yeah.

Still hate him. I have nothing but negative things to say about him and anyone related to him and anyone he plays for. I don't like you, Jose Altuve, but he had a really good game tonight, and unfortunately, George Kirby and the bullpen did not have good games today. Yeah, I just so our audience knows, I'm going to take you guys behind the curtain a little bit. I am refreshing Twitter or X as much as I possibly can to see if we have any updates on Julio and I guess Brian Wu. But Brian Wu did return to come back out of the locker room or clubhouse there and had some

smiles on his face so it seems like he's okay just from first glance but we're going to get an update from dan wilson after the game but especially julio uh we want to know if that's anything long term to be worried about uh offense wise not great tonight um against and lance mccullors that has also struggled uh for much of the season as well um you get a couple opportunities to do some damage early in the game with the jp walk randy walk rowdy single in the top of the first it looks like okay that this this offense is going to get to him a little bit. Then you get the Dylan Moore's solo shot in the second to go up to zero, but nothing much after that.

Yeah, it's just, and you know, there were some opportunities here. Like, it kind of feels like you let Lance McCullors off the hook in the first inning by only getting one. Then Demo hits that lead off Homer in the second. Don't do a heck of a lot after that. I guess a couple of guys get on Ben Williamson lines a single. By the way, you could also see Lance McCuller's face how frustrated he was. He's still looking for that first win.

and isn't able to go all five innings. But the offense tonight wasn't good enough. It was just not a competent effort against a pitcher who is, you talk about a shell of himself. He's just not the same Lance McCullors. And of course he's not. He had like a 749 day. That's not hyperbole,

749 day streak between his last appearance. I believe his last appearance before the most recent one was like 2003 postseason, maybe 2022. Yeah, it's, of course, it's understandable that he's not the same guy. But the Mariners missed some hitable pitches tonight. And the ones that they do, they line for singles and they weren't able to do enough afterwards. So, you know, I think you can give credit to the middle of the lineup. I think Big Dupor had a nice day.

It was nice to see a good game from Radio Rose Arena offensively because he had really struggled in that Chicago series. So it was nice to see him on the ball tonight, Roddy to Les with a couple of singles. but the very top of the lineup in particular was awful in the bottom of the lineup. Outside of a Williamson hit, just really didn't do the job tonight. Yeah, I think one of the bigger moments in the game, bottom three, you got bases loaded, no outs for ESOC Paredes. Should have been a double play.

Yeah. All the Ben Williamson fumbles and only gets the force out at second, and it comes back to bite them because Altuva then next hitter gets a sack fly. Should have been two outs, and then the Altuva fly out would have been the third out, and you're out of the inning. Sure. But then he gets a sack fly to tie the game that's two, two in the third league. Yeah, that was big.

And look, Ben Williamson has been fantastic with the glove this year, so I don't want to go too crazy. But we are a daily show. We can only react to what we see tonight. And that was a big mistake. And, you know, you also just can't help but note. And sure, it's only one run. And in game, they lose by a touchdown with the extra point good.

It also, the vibes did not feel good after that play. You know what I mean? Like, if you convert that 5, 4,3, what are you talking about here you know okay it's two to one kirby escapes with just the one run altuvay sack fly means nothing what are we talking about do we feel a lot better because i sure is heck would and of course this is hindsight as well you know like saying hey of course you'd feel better to one instead of two two but the vibes were bad there and that's a mistake williamson can't make we talked about it in our text line ben williamson has to be elite with the glove to have value for this

team and tonight he was an elite and he was more hurter than helper tonight. Yeah, and he's definitely slowed down with a bat recently. So he absolutely needs to make sure that glove is good. Because I still think there's value for him. I'm not a total Ben Williams and a leader here. No doubt. But I'm starting to think like, okay, like we still, third base is still to me. Very upgradable.

Yeah. It's a very upgradable position. So with second base, you know, the obvious replacement. we'll have Ty and Colby talk about that, of course, going forward. And they'll have a bunch on Julio's issue and Brian Wu's issue. So make sure you guys are subscribed and pay attention for that stuff. But, yeah, you have got to look at some upgrades here. I want to talk about the top of the lineup, though, because, wow, it was bad.

J.P. Crawford and Jorge Polanco were atrocious tonight. They combined for six strikeouts. I think Crawford may have gotten a hit. Maybe he went 0 for 4 with. three strikeouts, but either way, six strikeouts from your very top of your lineup and certainly no hits for Jorge Polanco tonight. And I just watch Jorge Polanco and I don't think he's healthy. And some of that is me saying, well, of course he's not. He's Jorge Palanco. Jorge Polanco love him. He gets hurt a lot. We've seen him not be able to hit from the right side

whatsoever. I think it's starting to affect him from the left side as well. And boy, that's a bummer because Jorge Polanco was a savior might seem too strong a word, but he was hitting so well that it's not that far off. It's not that far off. He was literally as good as any hitter for a while outside of Aaron Judge in the American League. I think the case anymore. And I think on top of the fact that he is struggling with the bat and the facts that he can't swing from the right side, he got to consider moving him down.

I don't know what the answer is, but you have to consider sending him down or even giving him a 10-day stint to get right. Yeah. I think that's a really good point. At least move him down in the order because you can't have him where he is batting second in these big moments where you need him to come through and he's just not healthy at this point. I understand if you look at the numbers on the season, he's still one of your best hitters. Oh, my doubt. But that's because of how hot he was in March and April. Exactly.

The last three weeks, at least, he's been a pretty bad hitter. Like, fully pumped down to earth. I don't have the splits in front of me. But this is something where you can see what he has the ability to do when he is healthy. He can carry this offense in a way. And the fact that he just hasn't been right is it's hurting this team's ability to score runs right now. There's no question about it. And by the way, we are both refreshing like crazy.

is he trying to Julio Rodriguez. I know I'm trying. And, you know, I'll say this. Was he worth a touchdown worth of runs? No. Did it? There were some moments where I really wish Julio Rodriguez was in this baseball game.

And one of the biggest moments to me was that base's loaded situation, five to two. And Lioti Tavares just got worked. Got absolutely worked for him. Even if you get a run there, you feel so much better of being down a bloop and a blast compared to down three. And of course, Altuva hits the Homer the next inning to make it six, two.

I'm sure feel better about six three than I do six two as well. It's amazing how these scores, even though, you know, you don't seem like that big a difference. It's amazing how being within that sage situation feels a lot more comfortable. But it didn't matter because Liotr Gavarez got absolutely shellac tonight. And he had a great game yesterday. And the eye test tells me that he's been a solid performer for the Mariners. There's also some metrics that suggest he's hit the ball pretty hard tonight. Or tonight, no, he didn't hit the ball all tonight.

Lately. There's metrics. Yeah, that suggests that he's hit the ball hard over his first two weeks. He's got to be better. He's just got to be better. Yeah, and we've done the praises of Liottaveris because of the role he's been asked to play. A bottom of the order, like right field, like emergency put in because you lost Victor Robos for a large portion of the season or maybe more.

but when you're expected to be filling in for Julio Rodriguez's top of the order in center field, that's not a Liot Tavares position to be in. And he wasn't able to get the job done tonight. I still think he has a fine place on this roster. But no, I think we react to what we just saw, and he wasn't good enough in the position that he was asked to play tonight at all. So it looks like I haven't gotten the full update yet on Julio. They're still waiting.

We will let you guys know as soon as we possibly can. According to multiple reporters, Julio is dealing with back stiffness is day to day as of now. So we're hoping this is just a sort of, hey, it kind of stiffed up a little bit. I got to take the day off sort of situation and just make sure I'm okay and not something deeper than that. But I want to say he had back.

issues two years ago as well in 2023. So I don't want to kind of speculate anything, but it's not necessarily the best sign. It's not just a sickness or anything like that. That's what I was hoping for. Like, no, don't get me wrong. I don't want anyone to get sick or anything like that. But, you know, you're kind of hoping for something where you got the snaffles, not back tightness.

That is not great. And I, you know, Ty and Colby could talk about this more tomorrow. So it is very odd the way the Mariners have, they've always hit injuries, just like every other major league baseball team. The way they've gone about the Crawford injury and the Julio injury is really bizarre to me. Usually teams just let you know right away.

Hey, you're scratched because of backstakes. Exactly. Like, that's what I do for a living is I literally write, Julio Rodriguez has been scratched Thursday due to back tightness. Like, I have done that for NBC Sports slash Roto World. thousands upon thousands of times. It always happens, like maybe two or three innings into the game, but the player gets scratched and then they let you know what's going on.

Sometimes it's before, but usually it's during. It's never after. It's never, ever after. So I wonder if the Mariners think they're playing some sort of long game with this, but it's very bizarre to me. Yeah, and also according to multiple reporters, Wu was hitting the lower leg. There's some bruising, but Wilson,

Dan Wilson does not believe his start on Saturday is in jeopardy. So he seems okay. Good. That is a good update in terms of the two things that you got tonight. Once again, Mariners lose 9 to 2 get the touchdown past him, at least lost by a touchdown to the Houston Astros this evening. This is your Mariners postcast. We react to every single Mariners game right after the final pitch.

Myself Anderson Hurst from Sports Radio KGR and Christopher Crawford of Myel Y. Thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate you guys tuning in. We're going to get to our unsung hero in just a second. But first, Mr. Chris Crawford, I want to talk to you about supply house. Get the supplies you need from the site made for the skilled trades. Supply House, whether you're plumbing, HVAC, or electrical work, and you're in those industries. Supply House is the reliable way to order products online.

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exclusive perks like dedicated phone line, free shipping, and discounts on every order. Thousands of skilled professionals are already taking advantage, and now it's your turn. Join the Trademaster program today at Supplyhouse.com slash TM and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus, if you use promo code SH5, you'll get 5% off your first order. That's supplyhouse.com. All right, in a game where you lost by seven, you're not going to get a ton of unsung hero shouts tonight. There weren't a ton of moments in this game where you really felt like, okay, the game could have changed,

maybe early on in the bases loaded situation that we talked about with Ben Williamson. But there were a couple decent performers this evening. Before we get to that, though, you guys should comment who you guys think the unsung hero is tonight, who is something or someone that may not get the, the plotts they deserve and it deserves a special shout-up, especially in a loss like tonight where we're going to be talking about the big stories. I want to ask you one question. There was a couple of comments on this earlier in the stream. I understand your bullpen options are limited. Can you explain maybe what Dan Wilson was thinking and using Gabe Spire

in the eighth inning? So I was shocked. And then I thought about it for a second in our good buddy, Aaron Goldsmith, who doesn't know who I am, but I guarantee like Zanders a lot. brought up the fact that the Astros don't have left-handed pitch hitting. So I think the idea there is, okay, let's use one of these guys. We're probably not going to use in high leverage for these next three games. At least don't need to, yeah. Right, because of the fact that, look, if Yordon Alvarez was around, sure, you're hoping to have Gabe Spire. Even if it's, you know, intentional walk, intentional walk, pitch to Yoron, that's not going to happen.

But you know what I'm saying, like they just don't have a lot of use for Gabe Spire in this series. So I actually kind of liked it for two reasons. Number one, the fact that you're using him in a game that means nothing. And number two, now Gabe Spire's not going to go like four days in a row without pitching. Like you want to make sure that these, you don't want to overuse them, but you don't want to have them that much rested. You know, you want to have the, don't have to shake off your Cobbswebs with one of your most important relievers. So it was a little weird to see him.

But then when I thought about it, and all credit to Aaron Goldsmith and the fantastic Ryan Roland Smith, I give him a ton of credit for pointing out, hey, you're probably not going to use Gabe Spire and high leverage in this series. Yeah, and I kind of thought the same thing. I was like, wait a second. Like, I also understand like, if you don't want to use high leverage arms, there's not really a ton of low leverage arms that you have at this point. But if you're going to use one, might as well use a weapon. Exactly. And it's also worth pointing out that if they were down by, I believe you have to be down by eight now. I can't remember. Leo Revis is probably pitching that situation, but because they held him to nine instead of ten,

they aren't able to do that. So, yeah, it was a little bit of a weird decision there, but I got it the more I thought about it. Yep. So no calling for Dan Wilson's head in terms of that decision today. But tune in tomorrow. We might have something on that front. On Songhero, who you got? Gosh.

I'll go with Colin Snyder just because it was a really quick inning. like the ability to throw only those 10 pitches and, you know, the fact that he was, you know, you probably could have gone to Colin Snyder, but you're probably going to need Colin Snyder a couple of times in this series. So I'll go with him. You could go with Rowdy to Les too or I don't know. Yeah. I'm trying to decide between Rowdy and Demo.

Demo with the home run, another hit as well. It seems like his home run's always come in losses too, so I got to kind of give him some credit. But it's just really funny. I love that. But I'm going to go Rowdy because I think going up 1-0, having guys on base that piece of hitting in the first inning, and I believe in the fifth inning, when, God, they just put the new reliever, and I can't think of his name.

I don't know if Houston's rostered that very well. But he had a couple good, yeah, okay, yes, thank you. But he had a couple good pieces of hitting today. And it's not just those homerunner busts sort of things with Rowdy Tellez at this point. He's putting the barrel on the baseball on some good pitchers pitches in two strike counts. And I'm kind of, that's a very welcomed development for me. Now, Donovan Salano gets pinch hit firm late in the game. Grounds into a double play like he always does.

So maybe you start thinking about hitting Rowdy-Tales against the left-handed pitching because there's no way he can't be worse at that point. I have. It's time to move on. Yeah. I think it is. I think it really, really is now. There's no excuse to keep him on your roster at this point.

So we'll see what ends up happening. Don't forget, guys, anyone who's tuning in now. You guys can catch Ty and Colby tomorrow with the Lockdown Mariners podcast. They'll kind of take a bigger picture view of things. Probably look at George Covey's start as a whole. Julio's injury, how much that affects, you know, things moving forward over the weekend and even longer, hopefully not. But, and then Brian Wu looks like we got a good update there. And then, you know, maybe Don and Solano gets DFA in about.

I don't know. We'll see what happens. But appreciate you guys tuning into the blocked on Mariners postcast, myself Anderson Hearst, Chris for Crawford, my good friend. Thank you guys for doing this with us. I really enjoy talking to you guys. Even if it's a seven run loss like tonight against the division rival that hurts to talk about. Having you guys with the community of people that really love the Mariners and enjoy it with us is so much fun. I enjoy it every single day. It's something I always look forward to. It's not a job to me and I love it. And I really appreciate you guys. coming and hanging out with us, even if it's just for the 20, 25 minutes that we go live right after the game. But remember, you can also catch us on any audio platform as well. We go right after we finished live here. You can catch us on any podcast platform and catch us back on the YouTube once again. Chris Crawford, anything to say before we go to tomorrow? I hate you, Jose Al-Tube.

All right. We'll end it on that one. Thanks, guys. He's just the worst.