Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners FALL IN EXTRAS vs. Cleveland Guardians

Episode Date: March 29, 2026

Anders and Chris break down the third game of the four-game series between the Seattle Mariners and the Cleveland Guardians.     Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!   PlayStation This episode of is brought to you by MLB The Show 26. Visit https://mlbthe.show/lockedon and use code “LOCKEDON” to unlock a pack for use in Diamond Dynasty. Pre-Order now, Available March 17th on PlayStation 5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. RATED E FOR EVERYONE.   Turbo Tax Intuit TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide. You can meet face-to-face with a real tax expert, and your documents get uploaded straight to your TurboTax app on the spot.     Visit https://TurboTax.com/local to find a store near you and book your appointment today.   Robinhood You’re no longer just a spectator. Play by play. You decide. Trade Every Play with Robinhood. Now available across the U.S. Download the Robinhood app now to begin. Futures and cleared swaps trading involves significant risk and is not appropriate for everyone. Event contracts are offered by Robinhood Derivatives, LLC., a registered futures commission merchant and swap firm.   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   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. During the tournament FanDuel is offering $300 back in Bonus Bets every day for ten days. 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.

Welcome to the Mariners Postcast. My name is Anderson Hurst. If only you had a third baseman that has played third base before. Just go ahead. Really? Mm-hmm. Just go ahead. This is the Mariners Postcast.

Your instant game reaction for the Seattle Mariners. Part of the locked on podcast network. Your team every day. I can't believe there's 159 more of these. Oh, we're back, baby. We are so back. It's Mariners baseball. It's the Mariners Postcast.

My name's Anderson Hurst. I got Chris Crawford with me. He was making me laugh a ton before we went live. That's why I look like I'm crying right now. But you've got to have to laugh through the tears sometimes. As the Mariners drop this one to the Cleveland Guardians, go to one and two on the young season. A couple of big moments in there. Julio ties the game in the ninth inning down to his final strike.

Good for him, getting off the Schneider. in terms of the hits this year. And then you give it right back. Just so easily. And I, someone mentioned in the chat, I didn't see who it was, but the game would be tied still if Brandon Donovan didn't throw that away. So yeah, not only did you waste to Julio Rodriguez clutch game tying hit, you wasted a Luke Rayleigh home run that could have been a game tying home run at the same time. So, yeah, good for Luke Rayleigh as well. but not a great result for the mariners today.

We're going to start with the start with Brian Wu. We're going to talk about the late-inning situations, and then we'll get out of here because, boy, am I tired. And it's just one of those days where the Mariners, they exhaust me even more. Chris, what are your initial thoughts on the game before we get to Woo? Well, first of all, Anders, you've had a really long day, and you've done really well.

So I just... Thank you. They put a sound effect board on this for this year, and it was a mistake. I'm just telling you right now. It was a mistake. And once again, that's pretty sound pretty much describes how these first two games have gone, or first three games have gone. This is a really frustrating loss.

And it could be a loss on March 28th, July 28th, October 28th. No matter what, you look at this game and you think, these are the type of games that you have to win. And, you know, there's some good stuff here. The Julio hit is awesome to see what a way to get your first hit. Luke Rayleigh is going to hit 162 homers and finish second. Just Chase the Lodder is going to hit 242. There was an excellent pitching performance,

but there is so much frustrating stuff that happens in this game. And I'll just be honest with you, as a 43-year-old man who can't stay up late anymore, who works one to nine for NBC and has to work seven to 11 and tomorrow morning, I'm ticked off that they couldn't just blow this in the first place. And just let us get this game over with an hour ago. Damn you, Julio. Damn you, Julio Rodriguez for that hit and not letting me go to bed and finding more sound effects

to play, the stinks. It stinks because you should be 3 and 0. Yeah. You should be 3 and 0. and instead you're one and two, and I don't want them to lose the first series of the year. It's not a damning thing. It's not something that'll necessarily prevent them from going to the postseason, but it's not good. It's not good.

Bad starts are bad. And this is, it's not good. Yeah, and like you should be three and no, but I'm also okay and realize that baseball is a weird sport. Of course. You give one of those up and you're two and one because you should at least. least be ahead in the series right now. But right now, you are scrambling to just split the series against the Cleveland Guardians, which again, Tate DeLotter is just the best player that's ever played baseball, I guess. Like, what? Um, but, uh, I just, I don't know, man, it's, there's just a lot

of frustrating things. There, there's some bullpen decisions be questioned today. Maybe not as agreed just as on Thursday. Um, the pinch hitting I'm going to ask you about. Um, um, um, it's, there's just a because that's that's an interesting one. Ryan Bliss is just not a major league baseball player. I'm sorry. He's just not. Like straight up, not. So those of you have been standing him and asking him to be in the lineup for a long time.

You saw what that looked like today. Let's start with Brian Wu. Again, you would think in a situation where your starter out duels, the other starter, you get more hits than the other team. I think you hit more home runs today as well, if I remember correctly. I know Luke really, like, I don't. know, but it just seems like a game that you should win. But Brian Wu, what did you make of his outing?

It seemed like it was going to be an ace like Brian Wu outing until the very end. Yeah, it sucks that it falls apart. And the only thing I'll say, man, is as good as Brian Wu's command is, by the way, I missed the first two winnings of this game. I was at my niece's play. Shout out Eleanor Marth. You did a great job. 23 of 23 pitches for strikes to begin the game.

look like he was in full command. You can't walk the number nine hitter. And it happened twice in this game. And both times, it got you right in the tookus. It got you bad. And yeah, that's frustrating. Once again, nine strikeouts, by the way. It just seems to be what Brian does.

But it was a really good effort. And he certainly deserved better. He certainly deserved better than a no decision. Pitched more than well enough to win. I think labored at the end of the game, which is not a surprise. you know, first time going six innings. We're so used to seeing Brian Wu go six innings.

It's, I think that's just what's in his contract is that he has to throw six innings. No one or less. More or less, but no concerns from what I saw from Brian Wu. It's really encouraging that after Logan Gilbert had a pretty start, your next two guys have pitched really well. Yeah, I agree with all those sentiments in interest of time. let's get right to the bullpen decisions here.

You go six innings of Wu, even though he gives up the last two at the very end there. I almost want to start the when that... I like it. Yeah. Just locked on. That was a mistake.

I'm sorry. Locked on stream yard, whoever was in charge of it. That was a real of you guys to give us a soundboard to play with. But you go. with Edward Bizarro in the seventh. He gets the first two, if I remember correctly. And then you have him pitch to Stephen Kwan with Gave Spire ready.

Now, I'm not always the one to go with the lefty-lefty matchup, right-y-left, whatever it is. But it just made a little too much sense to me. Yeah. But Spire in for the top of the order that has two lefties in it. like do you agree with that take yeah i totally agree with it and here's the thing the the ultimate thing here is and i told anders this before we started recording and before i found the sound boring lost my mind was that the mariners are kind of managing these first few games like extended spring training and it's not that that's disappointing but that is disappointing right

and in the long term it may be the thing that pays off that you don't overuse your bullpen that don't have guys go back to back. The big thing, and I think Ryan Roland Smith was talking about this, it's not so much to pitch count. It's the ups and downs. It's the getting loose, getting hot. You have Spire come in for one batter, but then you have to have Spire in for the next part of the game,

or it doesn't make any sense. But what's the point of having Jose Ferrer? And maybe he wasn't available tonight. Maybe there's something going on there that. Yeah. But why no Jose Ferre in that situation then? Really quick. There's a couple comments saying he had to pitch,

at least three batters. He pitched to four batters before Stephen Kwan. He gets Daniel Schneem into line mount. He strikes out Angel Martinez. Yeah, he walks two batters. And he walks CJ KFIS and walks Brian Rokio. Yeah. So he pays four batters even before.

It was time to, it was absolutely time for him to, uh, leave. And I think Dan Wilson just doesn't know the right times to bring Eduardo in the times to not. Oh, don't do that. I'm very, very. Sorry about it. What can I do?

It's, by the way, I promise you tonight will be the last time I use the sound for it. Maybe not. I think it was a mistake. I think it was a huge mistake. But this is how the Mariners are going to manage these games. They are not going to use guys in back-to-back high-leverage situations, it appears. And that's frustrating, although they end up using Munoz in back-to-back high-leverage

situation. And so, hey, long story short, I have questions about how good the manager of the Seattle Mariners is and how well he manages a bullpen. I think it was a huge mistake in process and obviously in result to leave Bizarro in that game. Yeah, and it just seems like to me the strategy with the high leverage guy versus the second tier guy, we'll say, is if you're down to run, if you're down at all, you're not, it's not either tied or your upper run, then you're not using the high leverage guys, which I think is very short-sighted. There are many situations where if you're down by one run, keeping it at one run and using your higher leverage guy, doesn't have to be Munoz every single time. No. But like, bringing Gabe Spire.

And he comes in the next batter. So it's not like you weren't using him. No, a thousand percent. So it's, I don't know. There's just, I don't know the exact strategy that's going on here in terms of your bullpen usage. But I think that would explain it a lot, Chris, if what you said is true. They're kind of treating this as an extended spring train and trying to get guys a little bit long of our runway, letting guys that you already know they're going to be kind of a big part of your team moving forward,

like a little bit of rest, I guess. Sure. On March 28th, they need rest already. But it's, I don't know. So let's get to the office. offensive side of the ball. I want to talk about, you know, both Cal and Julio get their first hits of the season. Yep.

Today, there is some positives. Luke really hits another home run. It's good. That's good to see him kind of get going a little bit. You know, Brandon Donovan gets another two hits. I think Victor Robles looked great today. I'm going to ask you about the right field situation because I think that's kind of a touchy topic as well. But the big thing I want to touch on is the pinch hitting.

and what the strategy is there. Because I think that similarly to bullpen is, it's a little weird in terms of what they're doing in that situation. But we've got to take a quick break. We've got to give some love to our sponsors because without them, we're not here. So thank you so much to them. Chris, we'll be right back. Chat, let us know who your unsung hero and unsung villain is while we are doing this quick ad break.

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Now available across the U.S., download the Robin Hood app now to begin. and futures and cleared swaps. Trading involves significant risk and is not appropriate for everyone. Event contracts are offered by Raman Hood derivatives LLC, a registered futures commission merchant and swap firm. Welcome back to the Mariners Postcast. Mariners dropped this one of the Cleveland Guardians to go to one and two on this season. Tough one for the Mariners.

They get a decent outing from Brian Wu. Just not enough in the bullpen. in terms of, you know, maybe usage, maybe execution, a couple good outings, but I want to go to the offensive side of the ball because we kind of spent the first half of this on pitching. Chris, what did you think of the first day of Victor Robles today? Because I'm interested to hear what you think in terms of what the right field situation looks like for you.

Obviously, all three of those guys have actually performed pretty well through the first three games of this season when you look at Luke Rayleigh, Dom Canzone. Dom Canzone, probably more of a D.H. spot anyways, but Luke Rayleigh, Dom Canzone, and Victor Robles are kind of all vying for that right field spot. To me, I want to see a version of Victor Robles that plays every day, just because I think if you're looking at the ceiling of the Mariners, he is in the best version of that Seattle Mariners baseball team, and he's playing every single day. Now, whether we get that or not, I don't know. But to me, that's kind of what I need to see moving forward if the Mariners are going to take that next step.

So what do you think about Victor Robles play today? I thought he played really well. And it was fun to see and fun to be reminded of how good Victor Robles was in 2024. And I know he was like beyond bad in 2025. Like the metrics are disgusting. But I do think it's worth pointing out that guy got hurt like in game seven, something along those lines.

And hurt not just like, oh yeah. Like one of the most disgusting Seattle Mariners. injuries I have seen outside of Jose Manio getting hit between his hose and his that is as bad of an injury that I have seen for the Seattle Mariners. I mean, when I saw that injury, it was not good. Sorry, it's going to keep happening. I love what I saw from Victor Robler

today. Hard contact, good approach at the plate. He's a good player. He's a good player. And he's one of those guys that maybe he's not your set it and forget it, right fielder, but I want to see him spell Randy sometimes. I want to see him give, you know, Canzone a day off, give Luke Rayleigh a day off, being the line up here and there against right-handers and hit ninth. Now, it's going to be up to him, right?

He's got to perform at least at a semblance of the level he did in 2024. Yeah. This guy's not bereft of talent. We have seen him have success at the highest level. I was really impressed with what I saw from Victor Rublos today, and I won't be shocked if he's, at the very least, a very solid contributor for the Mariners in 2026. I think that'd be a good sign.

But he was pinch hit for for Luke Rayleigh, who again hits the home run, so I'm not saying that specific decision was bad. I didn't mind that one at all. No, but Rob Reff Snyder starts his first game at DH leading off, goes over to, you know, it's a small sample size. I'm not, you know, super concerned. about anything like that.

I don't hate the decision to actually lead him off today either. No, I really liked it. I think that is, yeah, I think that's, by the way, for those who play fantasy, that's a really intriguing DFS play, because when he's in the lineup against lefties, he crushes guys and he's going to hit ahead of some really good hitters. But sorry, please continue. No, no, it's a really good point.

But he also was pinch hit for, for Canzone. And then Canzone was pinch hit for Ryan Bliss. Just in general, any of those decisions kind of, surprise you, would you have done something different? And just the general kind of pinch hit philosophy with this Mariner baseball team. I mean, in one word, but here's what I'll say. It's not a word.

Yeah, it is. It says bounce. I hit the word bounce. And that's what it really should be doink. But I thought it was a mistake to hit Canzone for Ref Snyder early in that game. And not because I think Rob Refsnyer has. has a better chance of getting a hit than Dom Canzone, but you made it so much easier for the guardians to manage the rest of this baseball game.

Yes. Because you bring in the lefty, and here's the thing I hate, okay, I didn't like the decision to hit Canzone for Rest Snyder that early. The decision to hit Bliss for Canzone. And I know the larger overall sample size that Canzone can't hit left-handed pitching. Yes. But he made so much progress there last year. And what you're basically saying is, we don't want you to get better at this.

We don't think there's a way for you to get better at this. When you make decisions like that. And I'm sorry. And I think Ryan Bliss, you know, is a guy who could be a nice utility infielder. Sure. He's not a guy you're pinch hitting for to be a designated hitter, man. And boy, oh, boy, those at bats were awful, awful. He doesn't get the bunt down.

He strikes out in both played appearances, I do believe. That was bad managing. That was poor managing. And it made things so much easier for the Guardians when you took away all but Luke Rayleigh as a bench option for you. And I just, I just, there's so much questionable stuff like this. And you can point out it's game three for a lot of these guys individually. It ain't game three for Daniel Wilson.

Nope, it ain't game three at all. And you can't help, but note that some of the decisions were questionable last. year. And I don't know, man. I think this is something that is trending towards bad. And that doesn't mean they can't win with a bad manager or a bad in-game manager, I want to say, because Dan Wilson in the clubhouse is pretty clearly really good at what he does. He has some good good stuff to him. Yes. No question about it. I don't want to just say that Dan Wilson is one of the worst managers in baseball or anything like that. He's not. But he's not a good in-game manager. He's not even close to a good in-game manager. And the decisions that he's made,

have hurt the Mariners in two of these first three games, and that's disappointing. Yeah, it sucks. And just in general, like, I don't hate the decision to pinch hit for Victor Robles in a vacuum for Luke Rayleigh. But if you leave him in, by the way, Robles, better versus Ritey's last year.

Yeah. So the whole righty, lefty thing with him doesn't make a ton of sense either. I get it like Luke Rayleigh is obviously better versus Rayleigh. So if there's a time or you're going to play Victor Robles, it's against lefties, but then you don't need to pinch hit for him. So then that leaves an extra option for you for the top of the lineup. If you want to pinch it for Rob Reff Snyder in the game,

then you can do it with Dom Kahn's own later. Right. Wherever you want to go, it just leaves you an extra option. I don't think you need to take Victorobos out of this game. Like at all. I just don't. But that's just where I stand.

It's these, like you said, these decisions where we exited last season as probably the biggest question of what if in Mariners history is if what if we had a manager that made a couple different decisions. We could have had a special season. And I think a lot of people kind of went into the offseason thinking, okay, it was his first kind of full season.

Maybe he gets better at this. The early signs are that he's not. I'm going to be completely honest. And I think you would agree. No, I would totally agree. And, you know, I pointed this out several times. Getting off to a good start is important for the Seattle Mariners. It has been their bugaboo.

One of their biggest bugaboo's has been getting off to these slow starts. And you can argue if they've made up for it because they've won 90 games. They won the division last year. But a couple years, a bad start prevents them for getting to the postseason. And last year, a bad start keeps them from pinch manage. That's very, very funny. That's one of the best things I've heard all day. Unless you on the podcast, we had a live saying, can they pinch manage?

Oh, yeah. Sorry, I forgot about the audio component of it as I play an audio clip. No, these games matter. All of them matter. All of these games are important. And you can manage for the long term. You can say that it's more important that they're playing better at the end of the season. No question about it.

But I want to see this team get off to a good start because, again, I demand this team play in the World Series. And if they make decisions like they did tonight and they make decisions like they did opening day, that ain't going to happen. Yeah, really quick. We're already late. but extra innings, Julio gets the big hit. Oh, that's awesome.

Shout out to him, good for him to get off the Schneide. Great piece of hitting. Strong and quick hands there. Brendan Donovan's throw. Oh, so bad. And here's the thing. I think Brendan Donovan is actually one of the better defender for the Mariners in the infield. Not even really a credit to him.

It's a little bit of me praise. No question about it. No question about it. But, you know, that's just a play. And here's the other thing. Brandon Donovan played a pretty bad baseball game today. He had a bad strikeout earlier in the game. Did have the hustle to score on the double from Robles,

so I want to give him credit there. But he's got to play better. He has to play better. It was nice to see him get a hit against the lefty and all that stuff. But that throw, that's an average throw for a major league player. And he just absolutely, it was funny. I didn't see it live. Like all of a sudden,

I just saw the ball in the outfield and wondering what the heck was going on. He has to make that play, has to make that play. And then comes in the bottom half the inning with, you know, the Mariners down by a couple of runs and has a strike called on him because Randy Rosen Rainer forgets to go to second base. That was really funny. That was really funny. And I'm sorry, man.

I know Randy frustrates everybody and, you know. That's annoying. I'm not going to lie. It's annoying. It's very annoying. But you know what? It's pretty funny too. Yeah.

It's funny and annoying. I will give it. Oh, speaking of funny and annoying. Yep, that just about does it. All right, we are going off the rails here on the Mariners podcast. Mariner's dropped this one, go to one and two on the season, lose six to five to the Cleveland Guardians. They have a chance to split the series tomorrow.

We'll be back with you tomorrow during the day. Chris and I, for those of you who are new, once again, we'll kind of reset it throughout the early part of this year. We go live right after every single Mariner baseball game here on YouTube. You can catch us on the podcast afterward as well. If you are watching on YouTube, like the video. It's the easiest way to support us. We get people asking all the time.

What's the best way to support you guys? A, watching or listening or doing whatever you can is the best way, and be liking the video if you're watching on YouTube. Those are the two best ways. And we just appreciate being to guys every single night. So keep hanging out with us. That's all we ask. And we'll talk to you guys tomorrow.

Have a good one. Go Mariners.