Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners CLINCH SERIES versus St. Louis Cardinals

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

Anders and Chris break down the middle game of a three-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals for the Seattle Mariners. George Kirby was mediocre. But the offense hit two ding dongs aka homers and there's been plenty of loud contact. The Seattle Mariners are now one game back of the Houston Astros. Let's get nuts.   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. OpenPhoneStreamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at www.openphone.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/lockedonmlb for 50% off your first year. GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime. 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. Boys continue to get the job done at home as I realize I'm on the wrong side of the screen. Let me switch it there. Thank you so much. Good to see you. How's it going?

Mariner's Postcast, Anderson Hearst, Christopher Crawford with you. The boys continue to get the job done at home, which is why this ALE West race is so critical because I want to play home games in the playoffs. So we'll keep an eye on that as we continue to go. George Kirby is not great or not even really good today either. But the offense picks them up. You get a clutch home run from Randy Rose. Randy, you get a clutch home run from Josh Naylor.

you get a couple other really good A.Bs in there as well. Good day from J.P. Crawford, a good day from, like I said, Josh Nailer, Randy Rosarana. You can throw those guys in there as well. Overall, Chris Crawford, what are your thoughts on this game? As the Mariners win this one to win the St. Louis Cardinal Series. I mean, it's getting fun. It's getting fun, but it's also getting so stressful because these just matter. so much and a quick shout out to our neighbors up north, those Toronto Blue Jays.

And a quick, what the hell, man, to the Milwaukee Brewers who are just driving us a little bit insane as well. But it's one game, guys. It's literally one game. It is one game and you officially control your own destiny. You have the destiny in your hands. And you don't need a sweep with Houston Astros now either. That's a lot of fun too. And I know that's long-term stuff.

you can't help but think about it. I thought they played really well today. The starter did not give you a great effort. I thought he battled. I thought he was the fact that the damage was limited to just three runs was pretty nice. It also could have only been one run. We'll talk about it in a second. The bullpen was fantastic today.

The defense minus one play was fantastic today. But boy, that one play drove me insane. If you want to know when that play happens, watch our locked on Seahawks postcast or podcast our squad show excuse me i'll get it right one of these times you will see my face go from talking about i believe sam darnald at that point or maybe the pittsburgh steelers into just the most sullen angry it's right after an ad read oh it was so i was so mad i was so upset but it's you know what it's the second time in two days that there is a individual effort, and effort is the key word here, that pissed me off only for them to, to quote,

dumb and demmer, totally redeem yourself with the effort that they made later. So it's a great win. The vibes are good again. What can we do to just never play on the road ever again? Ever. Yeah, never, ever. Never. I don't know. Maybe take it up with Rob Manfred. But I want to talk about Kirby for a little bit here because wow long time viewer first time commenter what's up jay good to see you appreciate good to see your name floating in our

comment section appreciate it signed josh nailer he says you know there's a there's a good shout for that to be completely honest there's a lot of decisions that have to be made that is time of holy territory yes we don't have to worry about that we just break down the game that we just watched

all right i want to talk about george kirby because if you are a long-time viewer of this podcast, first of all, thank you. Second of all, like the video, please. And third, you know that as excited as I am about the offense, it's the starting pitching for me that changes everything for this team. If they are able to get the starts, that's why we start with the start every single night, because I think it's the most important thing, if you're able to get the starts that you should be getting from these guys.

guys, this team can do something really special this year. And once again, George Kirby, God, I don't know what it is. What was it four walks today? Three, but it was too many. It was too freaking many is what it was. Oh, and you know what? It only ended up being two. But the way he fell behind hitters, I'm sorry to interrupt, is just it felt like so much worse, didn't it?

No, yeah. It felt so much worse. So, yeah, I was a long way of setting that up. What was it with George Kirby today? He just didn't have his command. And the thing about George Kirby right now is that I don't think you're going to see that command artist. I was taking a look at it. And he's in the 84th percentile in walks.

I do like that shirt quite a bit. It feels so much worse. And part of that is just because of expectations, right? We've talked about expectations a few times. I don't have expectations for Luis F. Castillo. I don't have expectations for Jackson Co. I don't have expectations for guys I don't think can actually get it done. I think George Kirby can get it done.

And honestly, Agent Michael Scarn says it's a lost year for Kirby. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The fact you've gotten anything from Kirby this year is starting to look more like a blessing because there was a nice little run. And I meant to look up the stats of he had a run of about six, or seven starts where he looked bad, like completely bad.

And he had a really good start against Cleveland, seven innings of two-run baseball, where he just gives up a couple solo ding-dongs. You will take that for sure. But these last two and a couple mixed in before that, it's just not the same pitcher. And to me, it's the arm angle. It's the fact that he just doesn't have the same feel for his stuff. On the positive side, George Kirby easily could have escaped this inning with one run, easily. And, you know, if the Mariners would have lost this game, I would have thrown a

conniction about the effort Randy or Rose Arena makes on that fly ball to left field. For those who miss it, George Kirby looks fantastic in the first inning. He gives up a little single. And then a little blooper is not the right word. It was kind of a liner out to left field. You can't dive there. You cannot dive there. You have to keep it in front of you. And that's, the weird part to me. One of the things Randy Oroz Arena does really well is he doaps. He's very good at convincing someone he's going to get it and then he just lets it drop right in front of him. He has no chance to make the play. But he does the great thing. He dops it and keeps them from going further. For whatever reason, he decides he wants to play Hero Ball. And it's a

massive mistake, massive. Should have got out of that inning with one run. Then the run that he gives up to tie the game at 3-3, some not super hard contact, and then a ground ball that hops off of third base that goes like. Gene almost made a great play on that. And he almost made the play of the year. That was almost the play of the year. And Josh Naylor, by the way, boy, he's good at stretching that out. My big beefy boy is able to get his blizzle on pretty good there and get the stretch down

because, man, that's not something Rowdy to Les. doing. That's not something Luke Rayley is doing. I'll tell you that much. Salonum. No. But yeah, exactly. By the way, congrats to the Texas Rangers on becoming the Seattle Mariners. Like every castoff is now a member of the Texas Ranger organization. And it's pretty funny. And like, that's kind of how they play too. They're like pitching dominant. They can't score more than like three or four runs. It's weird. It's very odd because that's not the way. I mean, the Texas Rangers have a good starting staff, but you kind of thought that they would be if they were going to carry themselves would be the offense. No, it's not at all. Let's take them through. But it could have easily been a

one-run effort. That's not to say George Kirby was good or anything close. He gives up seven hits. He gives up the two walks. And the big thing is only eight of 20 first pitches for strikes. You just don't have good enough stuff, George, for you to get away with that. I have a ton of short-term concern with George Kirby quite quite a bit. He is the guy that I trust the least in this rotation right now. Some of that is a little bit complimentary. And I think him and Bryce Miller might be tied to be fair. Like, I need to see at least another one good start and some missed bats from Bryce Miller. But there's no question Bryce Miller's been better over the last two than George Kirby has. No question about it. So that was going to be my next question. I'm going to lead off on

that. Sure. So talk. I mean, we can, I'm not even daring to dream. We're just kind of looking longer term here in terms of a playoff rotation if you i think pretty safely whatever order logan and brian woo are are in the top two i to me it's a three-way tie for after that it's castillo it's curvy it's it's brice miller all for their own different reasons right uh i probably say longer term if castillo has as a couple other bounce back efforts he gets back up into that next tier but at least as of now i think those three guys are all in kind of one spot And it's not like anyone's really taken a hold of it because Bryce Miller, like, he's been okay since coming back. He hasn't been awful, but he hasn't, like, definitely not taking the bowl by the horns or anything like that.

Kirby's blowups and these last couple starts have me concerned. I don't know. Maybe it's just one of those things where similar to Luis Castillo, you go through that stretch in the season and then you kind of figure it out later. Hopefully that's what's happening. Guys, I understand the Luis Castillo concern. I think we can't be such recency biased folks to ignore what he was for the first 20 starts of the year. And you know what? And I'll be the recency biased guy here.

He looked great in his last start. Absolutely. His secondary stuff was fantastic. I have so much more confidence in Luis Castillo than George Kirby right now. Not in the long term. I think the problem with George for this year, just for this year, if I had to set my playoff rotation, it would be pretty easy to go Wu, Gilbert Castillo. And another part of that is, I do think George Kirby's stuff could play up really

nicely in the bullpen. I think that Bryce Miller, we've talked about it. His first time through the lineup, he has been fantastic. Luis Castillo has to start. He has to start. He is not going to be a guy who, and as Jason points out here, maybe you make some changes based on where you're playing the games too. If Luis Castillo's pitching at home, it's an easy call for me.

Easy call for you. But I think the fact that George Kirby and Bryce Miller could be such weapons for you out of this bullpen, that has to play into it as well. Let's get there first, of course, all that stuff. But George Kirby needs to pitch better for sure over these. And he's going to make some massive starts, folks, some massive starts against baseball teams that are right ahead of you and right behind you. So this is a big, big time for Mr. George Kirby. Long term, it's going to be fine.

Short term, I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a completely measured and educated take. First time anyone's ever said that about me. Thank you, sir. It was bound to happen sometime, right? Yeah. So I normally begin to offense later, but after the break, I want to get into bullpen.

Yes. The bullpen is kind of what saved you to me. Let's talk about that. nasty all across the board. We'll take a quick break. I'll read the game time, Chris Crawford. You read the monarch money. Does that sound good?

That's great. We probably should talk about it. Great. On the fly. We're producing on the fly. Live radio. There we go. You're listening to Mariners Postcast.

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Welcome back to the Mariners postcast, Anderson Hurst, Chris for Crawford with you. Appreciate everyone hanging out with us. Either if it's live, if it's later on the podcast, however you consume us, we thank you. and really appreciate it. We're going to be with you for the rest of this season. However long long long way through that goes. Hopefully it goes through October a long way through there. I would love that.

And me and Chris have actually been brewing up a few ideas if that does happen. So stay tuned for that if something special does end up happening this year for your Seattle Mariners. Let's talk about the bullpen. We only have a few minutes left, so it's kind of ripped through this here. It just when your starter goes forwardings, it's, And I love the decision from Dan Wilson, by the way. He could have easily gone back to George Kirby because he's like, yeah, he only has. I think he had like 85 or 86 pitches at that point.

And like, yeah, there is an urgency to get through five just based on how the bullpen's been performing lately. But I love the decision to be like, no, he's not our best option right now. He's straight up is not. And they went to Caleb Ferguson, did an excellent job getting through three batters on nine pitches. You get Edward Bizarro just looks nasty again. I am a huge bizardo fan right now. Gabe Spire looks good. Matt Brash looks good.

And then Andres Munoz shuts the door. Chris, what can you say about this bullpen? It was phenomenal. And my unsung hero was going to be Dan Wilson. But I'm going to go with Caleb Ferguson because we needed to see Caleb Ferguson pitch well. We needed a reminder of why the team made the trade for him, why they felt confident in the bullpen after you make the Ferguson trade. not that confident because they really wanted Yon Duran,

but they definitely, you know, that was a big part of what they were trying to do, and he looked fantastic. The one guy to me who looked kind of shaky with Spire, there was some loud contact there, but oh my gosh, that play from Julio Rodriguez, holy crap on a cracker.

It was just so good, and his ability to track down baseballs is just phenomenal. He is the just absolute, absolute best center fielder. Can Chris please have something positive to say? Oh boy, I just rave for about Julio Rodriguez for about 20 hours. How about I do it again? Julio Rodriguez made one of the best catches that I have seen this year. My reputation is so weird. And the fact that people even know who I am, I think some of you think I'm Nathan. I am so grateful. I'm not, but I'm not. I'm not Nathan, goodness gracious.

The bullpen was phenomenal today. Absolutely phenomenal. And Matt Brash is back. Matt Brash is absolutely back. The stuff that he has shown over these last couple of starts is just been so flit. Our starts. Someday we might see Matt Brash starts someday. But what you're seeing from him in the bullpen and a very solid job from Andres

Munoz as well. Yeah. Offensively. Let's get to it. Randy hits the home run. Josh, neither hits the home run. I'm going to go with my unsung moment is the Randy Rosarena Sack Fly to make it 5'3 for both the Sack Fly and how both Victor Robles and J.P. Crawford and Mitch Garber set the table on that play. And I saw a comment earlier.

I'm sorry for whoever put it, but I am so glad Victorolos is back in this lineup. I didn't think it would be that big of a difference considering how well Dom Kenzon is playing. I am very, very glad that Victor Robos is now back, and I'm comfortable having him be the everyday right fielder. And I'm starting to believe, honestly, that last year was not a fluke with him. He's not going to be as good as he was last year, I don't think. But him being an everyday player, a good one at that is, I think, absolutely the case at this point. Yep. It should be your starting left fielder next year when you sign Kyle Tucker. I'll just say that right now. That should be the thing that happens. I love what Victor Robos does. I love what the bottom of the line up day.

By the way, some people talking about Mitch Garver, this is from my buddy Luke Arkins versus left-hander since the All-Star break, 49 plate appearances, not that small a sample size, three homers, three doubles, 293, 367, 585. So that's the reason Mitch Garver is playing against the lefty. Yeah, he hits into the double play and that was frustrating. But then he draws a big time walk, huge walk on a really good plate appearance as well. So Mitch Garver is not a problem for the Seattle Mariners right now. Mitch Garver is playing the role that he should be, a lefty killer.

I love what Mitch Garver has given them. The offense was really good today. There was so much loud contact that just goes unrewarded. But Josh Naylor, oh my gosh. And first, the Radio Rose Arena home run. That's the redemption of all redemptions after that drop. To get that three-run homer, I felt very confident the Mariners were going to win the game after that. I know the Cardinals do tie it up, but I felt great about it.

and Josh Naylor, the anger that he took out on that baseball, the absolute anger. Oh, my God, you mean? Yes. Oh, my gosh. And you just saw the Katie Perry, you're going to hear me roar afterwards as well, man. Like, Josh Naylor's been awesome. The numbers aren't actually all that great. But what he has done, especially at T-Mobile, has been incredibly impressive.

Man. By the way, yes. For those who missed it, James who's in here all the time, Sushi Jude just want to give a shout out to James, his wife and his family, he's locked on family, and we should all keep sending in positive thoughts, positive thoughts, prayers, all of it. We haven't seen James in here today.

I hope everything's going well, buddy. We really, really appreciate your support. Thinking about you, man. And we love having you be a part of this. And everyone, too, not just James, but we're giving him a quick shout-ups. We know what he's gone through. I have a statby, Chris Crawford.

I'm sure you may have seen this, but there are 186 different batters that have had 50 plus at bats at Team Mobile Park. Can you guess which batter has the highest OPS? Is it Josh Naylor? It is Josh Naylor. He is officially the best, I mean, best results, I should say, at Team Mobile Park out of anyone. And that's what you need. You need batters that hit your ballpark.

I think he was actually quoted saying that it's easy to hit at Team Level Park, which is hilarious, considering everything coming into these last couple years about him. So, yeah, no, it's really cool to see someone who is able to hit at Team Level Park. All right. Anything else you want to get in before we get out here? No, just that this is awesome. Guys, it's one game. It's one game with 18 to go. There is a chance to do something really special.

and winning this division is special. Winning this, going to the postseason's cool. They're probably going to go to the postseason. And I have not seen it enough for me to believe that that's not a cool thing. Just flat out. If they lose in three games after they make the postseason, the season will be an objective failure. If they don't go to the ALDS, objective failure.

Kind of failure if you don't win a playoff series, you know, just the fact of the matter. But winning the division, win something that you haven't won, since I was 18 years old and guys look at this I'm old as dirt old as dirt go win that division and you have a great chance you control your destiny get home games make the playoffs do damage beat the Houston freaking Astros this could be really fun it starts with going for the sweep tomorrow we'll talk to you guys then have a good one go mariner