Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners MOUNT A COMEBACK vs the Houston Astros

Episode Date: April 12, 2026

Anders is going solo today to break down the second game of the series between the Mariners and Astros.  Luis Castillo did not have his best stuff tonight, but Cal and Julio both home run in a game for the first time this season, and JP walks it off in the 9th!   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!   Rugiet Get 15% off your treatment → https://rugiet.com/lockedonnhl Rugiet. Performance medicine for men.   Rocket Money Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at https://RocketMoney.com/LOCKEDON.     5-Hour ENERGY The funfetti flavor is BACK on https://5hourEnergy.com or Amazon, crack open Confetti Craze 5-hour ENERGY®️ shot today!   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.   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. Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get two-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.

JP walks it off for the Mariners' sixth win of the season. What a comeback, easily the win of the year and the early going. Let's talk about it here on the Mariners Postcast. This is the Mariners Postcast. Your instant game reaction for the Seattle Mariners. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Oh, man. You guys know the old adage in sports.

When you can play poorly and still win, that is the sun. of a good team. And that is exactly what the Mariners did today. Man, where to start on this one. You got a JP walkoff in the ninth inning. You got big days from Cal and Julio. It seems like they're really starting to click offensively. I think the bullpen did outstanding today.

And against a good Astros offense, the only negative would be the Castillo start, and we'll get to that. But, man, coming out with a win in this game, is just so massive. Let's start with the end. Normally we start with the start. Anderson Hurst, by the way, here with your Mariners postcast. We go live right after every single Mariner baseball game.

If you're new, welcome. It's like your post game show here on Lockt on Mariners. Chris Crawford's normally with us, but like I said, yesterday he's taking a couple days off. He covered for me before when I was taking on hockey duties. So happy to return the favor for him as the Mariners get a dub. But yeah, I think big, let's start with that, that ninth inning because JP walks it off. There's been a lot of talk around his kind of energies surrounding the imminence of Colt Emerson

and when that's happening and all that and his response to it and everything. But that ninth inning was fantastic. It was great to see some good A.Bs from Leo Rivas from Cole Young. You know, Luke really strikes out. That's tough. Brendan Donovan gets the walk. Leo Rivas walks and then J.P. Crawford singles at home.

I thought those first couple pitches. That first one he took. Oh, man, that always looked like it was perfect. But ends up being just perfect to have him get the hit to kind of seal it today. It was 7 to 2 at one point, guys. I know the Mariners went up to 0 with Cal Raleigh and the home run. But it was 7 to 2 and you're taking out Castillo. And it's seeming like, all right, we're kind of punting on this game.

We've got to make sure that, that we just kind of finish this one out. But they didn't, they didn't stop battling. And if the ninth inning wasn't their best inning, it's that fifth inning that was fantastic, because that's when you were down seven to two after the Cam Smith double, after the Carlos Correa single.

And it just, it seemed like things were kind of falling away from you a little, it. Then you come out in the fifth inning. Luke Reilly grounds out. And then Cole Young singles, Dominic Canzone doubles, Leo Rivas walks, J.P. Crawford singles, Cal Raleigh, Sack, Fly, and then the Julio Rodriguez Homer to tie it up just like that. After giving up five runs, the inning before you get it right back. So great to see Julio and Cal get a home run for the first time this year. It's funny how I asked you guys yesterday on the postcasts, like which one of you guys, which one of these two guys do you guys think is going to be breaking out here first?

They end up kind of both today. JP, of course, gets a couple RBIs as well. But those three guys, JP, Cal and Julio, they drive in all your runs today. Three RBIs for JP, three RBIs for Cal and two for Julio on the home run. Just a great day overall. Julio with his first two extra base hits of the year, the double in the first, and then his home run, obviously, in the fifth inning. So this offense started to wake up.

Now, yes, you're playing a tough matchup, I should say, against the Astros. But you got to, it's the get right game, get right series for a reason. So it's really, really important that the offense did start to wake up. And I think it's just, it's telling that as soon as the middle of this order started to get going, everyone kind of takes a big sigh of relief. I was like, okay, we're all right. We win a couple games. You guarantee at worst a split of the four season,

the four game series here against the Houston Astros. I am definitely looking to get at least three out of four. So just one in one of the next two games will do that. So big time, big time offensive performance. Let's talk Louise Castillo, and then I want to break, and then I want to talk about the defense once again, because it's still concerning to me. I think those two go hand in hand for sure. Guys, the defense is just not helping out the pitchers right now. It's not.

And two things can be true. Luis Castillo had a poor start today. Did not look good. I don't think the matchup was great for him either. the Astros just were not chasing that high fastball. You saw that against Andres Munoz as well. But his defense is not helping him out. There were multiple times where an average defense would have bailed him out of some of the big parts of the innings.

Whether it's the double play that doesn't end up being a double play, I think it was in the third inning from Koyang to JP and they don't end up turning it. and I think both runs that, you know, followed end up scoring. So it's just little plays like that. It's not errors necessarily. Sometimes it is, but it's not always errors. It's just, you know, a ball that gets over Julio's head that I think he may have, if he had a little bit better of a route, could get to that one. You know, I know this wasn't when Castillo was in,

but just an absolute blooper that Randy can't get to later in the game. It's like these are plays you expect your big league defenses to make. Now, you did get one of them from Josh Naylor to help end the seventh inning, which was fantastic, and that's good to see. But right now, you feel good about catcher, first base, and center field. That's about it defensively. I know Cole Young's had some flashes, but it just, he drops a ball that JP, like from the Cam Smith double that J.P. Crawford throws to him that he would have had,

him out at second base by a mile. But these are plays you got to make. But the Mariners get the win. So you overcome those things. You overcome a poor start from Luis Castillo. Let's go there because I think Luis Castillo, this was his worst start of the year. And it's not like his stuff wasn't looking good.

He was actually locating the slider pretty good. His first inning looked fantastic. 15 pitches, gets through Jordan. And that, what is? is it nine pitch at bat to Issock Paredes, uh, and ends up striking him out was, that's,

that's vintage Castillo right there. And the first couple starts, the first start against Cleveland, he looked good, or sorry, New York, he looked good. Um,

his last one against L.A. did not look great. And then today kind of just took another step back. I still believe he's going to be a fine starter. Um, he's not your ace, obviously, but he relies on his defense,

you know, so he's not going to give, get the strikeouts like he was able to earlier in his career. So you got, we're going to have this conversation a bunch, unless it's the Logan Gilberts who doesn't really rely on his defense. He's a very much a strikeout guy, you know,

relies on his own stuff. Similar to George Kirby and Brian Wu, but Gilbert's even more so in that category. But someone like Luis Castillo and Emerson Hancock, they're going to rely on the defense behind them to make plays. They get a lot of soft contact, sometimes hard contact. that you just still expect to get outs, but that didn't happen today.

So the final line for Castillo, it looks bad. You know, 3.1, 10 hits, seven runs, all earned, a walk in 3Ks, including the home run. It just wasn't very good. But I'm not, I'm not, you know, ringing alarm bells like, oh, my God, we need to bring up Kate Anderson right now to start for him. I'm not, I'm not saying that at all. So I didn't have that feeling in the first couple starts of the year. he looked excellent against New York, who's a very good offense.

We're now seeing. The Astros are just really good guys offensively. Obviously, they're pitching as another story, but the Astros offense is very good. And you kind of saw that Matt Brash gives up his first hit of the year against Hewardon Alvarez. Man, that guy is good. So it's just a good offense that took advantage of Castillo today. They were not chasing the high fastball, which is kind of his bread and butter.

Try to locate that slider. And it was working a little bit early on. but definitely not where you need it to be in midseason form. So Castillo rough outing. Let's get her on Sun Hero on the other side of this break. And then we'll kind of chat a little bit about the defense. Mariners win this one, 8 to 7 over the Houston Astros. They go to 6 and 9, also even with the Astros and record.

So that's why this is another big little win there. I know it's early. You can't really start looking at records and, you know, how far back you are and stuff like that. But, you know, with the slow start, the Mariners had, it's important to kind of, you know, get things right pretty early on. And they have done that in this series. All right. We'll take a quick break. Come back and we'll talk about our Unsung Hero, Unsung Villain and all that stuff on the Mariners Postcast after a massive Mariner's dub.

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by saying you heard about it on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. If you need to hire, this is a job for Indeed. sponsored jobs. Welcome back. Mayer's Postcast, Anderson Hearst. Normally have Chris Crawford with me, but he's taking a couple days off to, you know, a little R&R. We'll hear from him a little bit later on, but it's great to get this couple of wins. You get the good start from Hancock yesterday. You know, the offense breaks out. And it seemed like, you know, maybe early on that you would have gotten that again today. And then things kind of stumble. And it's like, oh, no, are we going?

going back into this funk again, a bad start from Castillo. The offense after the Cal home run just wasn't there. And then you kind of just instantly get it back in that fifth inning with the Julio home run and the sack fly from Cal himself too, the JP knock earlier in the game as well before the walk off. This offense just looks so much better guys right now. It's not just the, you know, obviously it's the big thing as Julio and Cal are going, right? If those two guys are going to be who we expect them to be and who they can be and who they should be, then that makes the difference throughout the rest of the lineup.

But the big thing that I was looking for throughout the first couple weeks of the season that we didn't see was the rest of the lineup kind of knowing their role, not trying to do too much, getting on base. Great at Bats from Cole Young in a couple instances today. Leo Rivas with a clutch walk in that ninth inning as well. Just kind of moments like that where you feel like, okay, we're starting to kind of get back to the groove that made this offense a good offense in 2025. Luke really struggles today with 3Ks and 0 for 4. Canzone gets a nice double.

Brendan Donovan comes in. You can tell he was not feeling 100%. Still gets the walk in a big spot there. Two walks for Leo Rivas as well. So offensively, he's doing okay. but obviously that top of the order. JP in the leadoff spot, I think it needs to stay for now just because he looks very, very comfortable there. Cal obviously starting to break out of his funk a little bit, not just the home run, but I've never seen a sack fly go that far on a

broken bat. That's how much power that guy has. That tells you that he's seen the ball so much better. And even if he didn't time it completely right, hits it off the end of the bat, getting that ball out to that deep part of the field on a broken bat tells you he is just very, very close to getting locked the heck in. I almost swore there. Locked the heck in. And he still had to home run earlier in the game as well. And he actually absolutely cranked. So good to see Calus started to break out of things a little bit. And then Julio, man, hits the double in the first inning, kind of a vintage Julio doubled down the line. Almost feel like he could have gone three. But I don't know if he thought that no left fielder for Houston had the ball up in his hand already or something, but it's all good.

He gets the extra base hit. You love the way he reacted to. I need the ball. I love how he kind of leans into the fact that he struggles early on in the season, and he's just playing it day by day, which is what you want to see your big guys do. And then obviously the home run. That was just a seed to center field on a, you know, okay pitch. I'm not going to say it was a great pitch.

He was trying to back dorm. with a slider. Julio was not having any of that just destroys that. I think it went 424 feet, I believe, was the final number. But yeah, that was awesome. Unsung Hero today, ooh, there's a lot of good options. I love my guy, Jose Ferreira comes in. I'm going to go Edward Bizarro, though. Kind of gets himself in a little bit of a jam, but then gets out of it with, I believe it was the double play with Jose Altuve. I think that's what it ended up being. Or that was Brash, excuse me.

I'm looking at the wrong inning here. But Bizarro gets a couple hits in the first instance here. Yes, it was the seventh inning. Okay, that's what it was. Carlos Correa leads off with a double. Loparfeito singles. so you got first and third with nobody out. Then you strike out Cam Smith and he tried to challenge it.

You get Yiner Diaz to pop up and then you strike out Taylor Tremel to end the inning. Houston could have easily gotten one or two runs in that instance because there were a couple, like getting first and third with nobody out is a tough spot to be in, especially as a reliever. But he, Bizarre pitched exactly as he needed to in that situation. So good to see him do that. Comes up big. This is a vintage mariner win.

This is what we're used to seeing from these guys. So it was, it's great to see kind of, the team look a lot more like it's 20, 25 self, battling back. Good A, B's up and down the lineup. Never felt like your offense was really out of it. And, you know, kind of coming back against a poor Houston pitching staff. Let's be completely honest. So you have to put that into perspective as well.

So we got two more in this series. It is a day game tomorrow. Let's check the probable pictures here. We're looking at Logan Gilbert going tomorrow, so hopefully he can get a bounce back. The Houston Astros have yet to announce who the starter is in that one. So it's just a perfect opportunity. They have yet to announce their last two starters because they have so many guys on the shelf right now.

So you have a chance for a four game suite, which would be huge. I'm not going to get that greedy. Win three out of four. So win one of these next two games and you're in great shape. So let's keep it rolling, guys. We'll talk to you next time. Thank you so much for hanging out with us on the Mariners Postcast. Again, if you're new, we go live right after every single Mariner baseball game.

It's like your post game show, a little quick breeze of the, you know, biggest moments of the game, best players of the game, all that fun stuff. So we'll talk to you guys tomorrow. The first pitch is at 110. So we'll, you know, we'll check in right after the game. Have a good rest of your weekend, everybody. We'll talk next time. Go Mariners.

Have a good time.