Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners DON'T SHOW UP vs Minnesota TwinsMARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners DON'T SHOW UP vs Minnesota Twins

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Anders goes live right after the first game of the series between the Mariners and Twins.  Luis Castillo once again struggled, the offense was non-existent until it was already over, but at least Alex Hoppe made his major league debut.   Everydayer Club If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everyday...   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!   5-Hour ENERGY The funfetti flavor is BACK on https://5hourEnergy.com or Amazon, crack open Confetti Craze 5-hour ENERGY®️ shot today!   Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast   KALSHI For a limited time, download the Kalshi app and use code LOCKEDON to get ten dollars when you trade ten. Kalshi. Trade on anything.     HIMS To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss, and more, visit https://Hims.com/LOCKEDONMLB.   Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.   FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get one-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins. Visit https://FANDUEL.COM to get started — Play Your Game.   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. Welcome to the Mariners Postcast. My name's Anderson Hurst. The Mariners did in fact play a baseball game today against the Minnesota Twins, and they lost 11 to 4. The winning streak is over at 4.

And now they have to beat Joe Ryan and Taj Bradley in order to win this series in the next two days. So not a lot in this game in terms of... We're back. Sorry about that. My mic disconnected for a quick second. Not a lot in this game in terms of just big moments and stuff to talk about. But I'm going to focus on three kind of parts to this.

And one negative, two positives. And we're going to start with Castillo. We start with the start. And we'll talk about Cal. And then we'll talk about Alex Hoppe and his major league debut. couple good positives from this game, even though the Mariners lose this one. The big conversations around Castillo, though, guys. I don't know how I feel about this right now because I've been someone who's been

relatively bullish on Castillo for a long time throughout of last year where he had a relatively really good year. He was your second best pitcher, if you look from beginning to end of the season last year. Even though it looked like kind of the stuff was coming down a little bit. and then he began this season. He wasn't in the bullpen or the postseason rotation, excuse me. And then he began this season with a really good outing against a really good Yankees team at home. And it has just gone downhill ever since.

So I'm curious what you guys think about Luis Castillo. We'll kind of open it up at this point. The obvious answer that I see a lot of people having is to put him in the Penn when Bryce Miller comes back. And the reason why I think this is a difficult situation is because, number one, the obvious, I mean, he's owed a lot of money. And the Mariners like to kind of play the long game with their clubhouse leaders. That's why you see J.P. Crawford playing shortstop every day.

That's a whole other situation. But the other one that I think is actually more apparent is that I don't think his stuff plays that well from the bullpen. It's not like he has this plus plus fastball and slider that he can play off of it right now where he just doesn't know how to use it in a six-inning sample size. It's just that the fact that his command is not good right now. And his velocity is decreasing. I know today is a little bit of an outlier. I want to say a lot of it is because of the conditions. It was really wet. They seemed like they kind of forced through this game to just play it through.

If it were under, you know, postseason conditions, so to speak, they would have probably postponed it a little bit. So I'm not necessarily looking at his drop and velo in today specifically. But overall, throughout the course of this season, it's been, you know, 98, 97 on his fastball. It looked like he was getting a little bit of a better feel for his changeup. the last couple, or in the first couple starts the season, I should say. And I think that was a big development because that was really his best pitch in Cincinnati before he came to Seattle.

But having him struggle as much as he is right now is a little bit of a weird situation that I don't know what the Mariners are going to do. Because I think the obvious answer is to go to a six-man rotation based off of, you know, what I think the Mariners are doing. But there is a negative to doing that because you're taking an arm out of the bullpen and putting it in your starting staff and therefore having one less guy available in late-inning situations. And especially if you can't trust Castillo to get through.

I mean, he does get through five today, but it was an ugly five innings from Luis Castillo. When you can't trust your guys to get through that five, six innings every single time, which you could last year. and this year it's just been a struggle. It just seems like there's a better solution, but I don't know what it is to be completely honest. You can't just straight up DFA him.

I don't think he has any trade value. He doesn't play up in the bullpen. You're going to have to kind of write out him as a starter, unfortunately. And I think the most obvious answer would be, like I said, to go to a six-man rotation. And fortunately, the mayor, Mariners don't really have like a true ace, where it feels like you need that guy to go once every five days to give yourself the best chance to win. Their strength and their pitching staff is in

their depth. So having five guys or right now, four guys that you trust, and then once Bryce Miller five, that's an okay situation to have where in a six-man rotation and you don't feel like you're losing starts. Plus you could, you know, keep guys fresh for the postseason. throw our positives to a six-man of rotation. And for those, I see a couple chats saying six-man rotation makes no sense. Wu and Kirby, you saw what Brian Wu did last outing. You don't have a true ace to kind of feel like you need, like to have him going once every five days.

Just spreading it out once per day or one day per rotation through the starts is going to do them a whole lot of good. You saw Brian Wu last year as well. When it got to the end of the season, there were some injury concerns. Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, earlier in the season as well.

So I think six-man rotation does make the most sense to me. I don't know if they'll do it, to be completely honest, but that's what I would do. And unfortunately, what I think is what they're going to do is they're going to move Emerson Hancock to the bullpen. But we'll see what ends up happening.

I just want to know what your guys is worry meter on Castillo is because it was another bad one tonight. It was a dud. And he was the main reason you lost this game. And I've been someone, like I said, I'm bullish on him for a long time when everyone kind of wanted to put the nail in the coffin at the end of 2024. And then he kind of had a bounce back season in 2025, even though the expected stats were not matching the results.

Now they're starting to match. So we'll kind of see what ends up happening with him. Maybe he could have a bounce back. I'm not really counting on it at this point, though, because it just seems like a guy that's coming towards the end of his prime, end of his career, who's been so good for so long, but he's just getting up there in age. So I'm curious to see how they handle this,

because this is a very interesting discussion. Really quick, before we get to the positives of today, I wanted to mention a couple people reached out to me regarding the Randy or Rosa Rana incident in the bottom or the top of the eighth inning. Ray tried to stretch the single into the double off the wall. You're down four. You do have some offensive momentum going. It's not the best decision.

I don't personally hate it that much. If he hits the ball off the wall like he did and he stops at first base with a single, there are people mentioning that, oh, what the hell? Where's the hustle? get into second base come on i know it's four you're you're down by four runs but you got to get the second base on that he's going to get roasted no matter what happens there so i i admire the hustle to try and get into second base probably not the time to do that and it's not like he was not going fast out of the box at all either but that's just the natural reaction of what people are

going to say um especially someone with the personality of randy at rose arena let's be completely the honest. And it's just a tough slide. He honestly beats the throw. He just comes off the base. So it's just a tough situation. You're down by four. It's unlikely that you're going to, you know, make a comeback there. But it's just, I don't hate it as much as a lot of other people we're saying on the internet, so to speak. I want to talk about Cal in the second half of this show because I've been waiting a little bit to kind of have this discussion about him. I think today's a perfect opportunity. Mariners lose.

Castia was bad. And then we could talk about Alex Hoppe as well. All in the other half of the Mariners Postcast here, 11 to 4 loss in Minnesota for the first game of the series. We will be right back on the Mariners Postcast. If you've got a sweet tooth like I do, you know how tough it is to find that perfect treat without all the sugar. That's why the confetti craze five-hour energy shot brings that nostalgic

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They got a 14 and 16 on the season. They continue their road trip through the Midwest. They do have another one tomorrow against Taj Bradley. Sorry, Joe Ryan tomorrow, Tage Bradley on Wednesday. So hopefully they can bounce back and get one, maybe two, to win the series here in Minnesota. All right. A lot of negatives today.

Like I said, Luis Castillo throwing a dud. Really didn't give you much of a chance to win today. Offense was bad throughout the first five. six innings of this game. I joked online that it was, you know, there wasn't a rain delay. We've had this discussion a lot of times last year. There wasn't a rain delay, but it kind of felt like the boys wanted one and expected one. By the way, they came out playing today, both from the pitching side and Luis Castillo on defense,

just some lackadaisical playing. It wasn't even like bad mistakes. It's just like guys that look like they're kind of going at 60%. And then at the plate, it just, it weren't ready to play baseball today. And unfortunately, this is a theme with this kind of weather when you're not expecting. Maybe you are expecting a delay to come so you can rely on that to get yourself ready and get going. But even when there were delays, these guys had trouble with it last year. So I don't know what it is.

It's a theme with this team the last couple of years. Hopefully they can find a way to turn it around. But let's go to a little couple positives. Cal homers for the second straight game. That changes his slash line to, he has to a 205 average with the 707 OPS through the first, what is this, 30 games of the season. Let me say something really quick. I expect Cal to be better than what he has been through the first 30 games of the season.

But I think the narrative of, you know, the massive regression from last year would not. not be there. And, you know, how much of it is, you know, him struggling out of the gate, how much of it is the WBC and everything. If he, if he was coming off a regular Cal Raleigh season, where he, you know, hits maybe 35 to 40 home runs and has an, around an 800 OPS and is one of the best catchers in the game, still a very, very good, like, season for a Mariners baseball player. I don't think we'd have the same discussions as we're having about Cal Raleigh right now.

It's just because we're comparing it to last year where he almost won the MVP. So I get it. I understand the expectations have been changed because you've seen his peak. You can see what he can do. But, you know, it's just a 30-game sample size at this point. And he's been really good in his last, like, a couple weeks. So good to see him kind of turned it around a little bit. Julio was a rough day.

He had started to turn it around in that St. Louis series. and then the previous series before. But he goes 0 for 4 with the K today. Didn't seem like he was ready to play. Josh Naylor, O for three with a walk. Randy Rosaranda does get two hits. As I mentioned earlier,

one of them should have and could have been a double, but it is what it is. You're going to have to live with that every now and then with him. Koyong, O for three, but does get the RBI ground out, I want to say. I forget if it was a flyout or ground out. But just the offense wasn't showing up that much. today. But let's talk about Alex Hoppy. All right. Good for him, first of all. I love to see,

you know, the kind of other side of baseball that not a lot of people get to see about the grinding through a lot of the minor leagues and a guy that's a little bit older, 28 years old now, looking to kind of make his step up into the major leagues, has been waiting a long time for this, has to have a lot of, you know, I don't want to say hype around him, but it has had a lot of, you know, upside that a lot of teams have kind of seen and had belief in. The Mariners took a chance on him. I don't love the fact that they left him out there for that, for that ninth inning or the eighth inning, excuse me. It just kind of screamed like, hey, you know, congratulations on your debut.

We're sending you right back down, so you're eating this one. It just sucks for a guy that's, you know, grinded as much as he. that he does or he has. And I get it. Like, that's the nature of the game. You're trying to save your bullpen who had a taxing series against the Cardinals. And it's not a close game. You want to give this guy, you know, just get as much out of him as possible before you send him back down.

But didn't leave a great taste in my mouth. But it was good for him to get that debut. His slider looks great, but the command isn't really there. He has a couple walks, which come back to bite him a little bit and gives up a couple earn runs because of it. But that's this one, guys. Mariner's lose 11 to 4. We got, I believe it's George Kirby tomorrow.

Actually, let me double check. As I say that, I probably should have done the research ahead of time. It is against Todge Bradley. So it is Logan Gilbert. Okay. And then I believe it's George Kirby on the 29th. It is against. So we got Logan Gilbert against Joe Ryan tomorrow.

And then Wednesday we got George Kirby versus Tosh Bradley. So it should be a good one. Hopefully the Mariners can bounce back. Hopefully there's no rain. I was kind of going into this postcast thinking like, hey, you know, you might have a rain delay. So I might, you know, take my time and setting everything up. Didn't end up happening. It felt like that maybe should have had one, but it is what it is.

Show up to play tomorrow. That's all I'm going to say, Mariners, because you didn't really do that today. And we'll come back and discuss things after the game tomorrow. Have a good one. Go Mariners. Just show up tomorrow.