Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners Offense DOESN'T SHOW UP vs Kansas City Royals

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

Anders is going solo once again tonight, and Jorge Polanco feels the same way with his offensive performance.  Logan Evans returns to the majors with an impressive outing, but the Royals get 3 massive runs in the 7th inning. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 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 ONE HUNDRED FIFTY 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. Chat, that was not a fun baseball game. That was not a fun baseball game. The Mariners drop the fourth game of the series against the Kansas City Royals. Oh, man, there's a lot to complain about today. one of them was not Logan Evans

Logan Evans comes and does about as well as you can have hoped for a guy coming back from AAA who has struggled there but he gets through 5.2 innings and about as good as you can look. A couple bad walks but we'll get to the umpiring in a second. The umpiring is awful. The offense besides Polanco So in a little bit of Luke Rayleigh, but not necessarily in a big enough moment for Luke Rayleigh.

But the offense was just not there. It wasn't there. You get terrible games from Julio from Cal Raleigh. Once again, it's a couple in a row for Cal. I know I had the day off yesterday. I don't know. There's a couple big moments in this game that really, really grind my gears. It's the seventh inning walks from Casey Legamina to set up Bobby Whit Jr.

You can't be walking the bottom of the lineup row. You just can't. It's the fourth inning when you do get the Polanco Solo Blast. And then you have Luke Rayleigh with a double right after that and get three straight just awful ABs from your what, seven, eight-nine hitters at that point. You could have, you had Seth Lugo on the ropes. That was no outs. You get the lead off home run. and then a luke really double right after that.

And you get nothing from that. Just three pathetic at-bats. You could have guessed it was Dylan Moore out there. This is a really, really funny chat. Okay, that made my night a little bit better. Debt taxes and Don Gensone homering in a close loss. It's so true, man. Oh, God, that's so true.

He does hit the homer to make it close. I mean, and you get a couple good. It's at-bats in the ninth inning from, what is it, Master Boney. And then who was before him? I'm trying to remember now as I pull up the box score. The Dom-Cans own Homer, the Master Boney, you get J.P. Crawford single. Like, that was a big at-bat from him doing what he absolutely needs to do. The opposite of what Julio did.

Because, man, I feel like it's all or nothing with Julio, because his approach at the plate is either I'm trying way too hard to be the guy to hit this ball over the fence or I'm just hoping for a walk. And that's what it ended up being in that situation there. Yes, the call was extremely borderline. It could have gone either way. I mean, I'm so used to it at this point that it's not even like a thing for me anymore. I'm just like, yeah, all right, it happens, whatever. I shouldn't be. Like, we, We should have robot umpires. I'm just saying that right now. But I'm just used to it at this point. I've been frustrated enough times. I think the Legamina ones were way worse and had a much bigger impact on this game.

And we can go over kind of the blow-up in the seventh inning from the Mariners as they were the ones of the beneficiary end of the seventh inning blow-up last night when they get their couple runs to, you know, pad their lead. and it's tonight they give it up to Kansas City. Just a tough one, man. You needed three out of four from this series. Splitting the series isn't good enough, especially now that the award has come out, that you're going to see Paul Steens on Sunday because now you are basically forced to go in the next two games.

Because, I mean, yes, you have George Kirby going against him, and Pittsburgh's not a great team, but they've been hot. They've been really hot. And going against Paul Steins is definitely not an easy task. probably my vote for best starting pitcher in the majors. Maybe you add Zach Willier into that. I don't know, but he's just so dang good. I just don't know, man. There's a lot to be frustrated with this game. My name's Anderson Hurst. Once again, riding solo on the Mariners Postcast tonight. It is really hot in here. That's why I'm

wearing the JP Crawford basketball jersey. Check it out if you guys want it. I think it comes out later this weekend. So it's cool. I like it a lot, but it helps me, especially when I'm in a hot apartment like I am now. But boy, the offense was not hot. It just was not hot tonight. I'm Ryan Solo tonight. Once again, Chris Crawford had to take care of a couple things. He'll be back with you guys tomorrow. I will be with you guys tomorrow as well. Remember, it's a 110 game tomorrow. But let's talk about this game. Logan Evans. Let's start with the start. Really, really good. He goes, let's look at his final line here. Five point two innings, three hits, no run runs, just the one walk.

and the 3Ks. Like, if you're calling a guy up from AAA, that's exactly what you're asking for. Maybe to get through that sixth, uh, so we can get the full six innings and just have the, uh, three innings of work for, uh, the bullpen to do. But it is what it is, you know, like,

you can't ask for much more than what he gave you tonight. He absolutely, uh, battled through a not good royals lineup, but, um, he came up with the pitches that he absolutely needed to. he was getting soft contact. He was perfect through three. So if you look at his stats, and I'm going to ask Chris about this maybe tomorrow because I know we break down the game that just happened,

but I have a question with him because I'm not someone who is as much of an expert with the pitching development side and everything. How abnormal. I mean, obviously the first time through the lineup is most likely going to be your most successful time through the lineup. The second time is going to be a little bit less. and then the third time, they always say a third time through the lineup is that's when most pitchers get taken out of the game unless you're one of the elite elite starters.

But if you look at Logan Evans splits, the first time to the lineup, he's like one of the best in the league. He has like, I think just over a one ERA. And I'm looking at from the batters perspective, he's giving up a, let's see, times facing. He's giving up a 570 OPS, which is extremely low, 190 batting average, 2.42 on base. and 328 slugging against Logan Evans the first time through the lineup. Absolutely magnificent stuff. But then for the second time, it jumps all the way up to a 375 batting average, a 419 on base with a 679 slugging for a 1.098 OPS.

You're basically Cal Raleigh going through the second time of the lineup against Logan Evans. And we saw that today because he was perfect through three, looked extremely efficient, was getting, he got Bobby Witt out twice. which was great. But then you kind of got in a little bit trouble in the fourth inning. Ends up getting out of that one to keep the lead for the Mariners at 1-0 at that point. And then in the bottom of the fourth, Jorge Polanco had an excellent game tonight. Let's take a quick moment before we get into the negatives and talk about how good Jorge Polanco was tonight because that is a big, big development.

If you get him and Randy, I know Randy was bad tonight, you know, ups and downs of the 16th. 62 game season. If you get him and Randy going, this offense is going to be in a lot better shape. Now, with Julio really on the struggle bus now coming back down, I don't know how much that's going to pay off in terms of the tradeoff. So this is why you need just more bats at the deadline. You really need a couple more bats. Polanco hits a leadoff home run.

The top of the fourth Mariners go up one zero. Rayleigh hits a double in the first pitch right after that. You have Seth Lugo on the ropes. Nobody out. Rayleigh at second base, you have to get that run in at the very least. I kind of have an ungiven rule, maybe like unwritten rule, you should say. That whoever's on base with no outs, that's at least the amount of runs you should be getting in that inning. So if, especially if they're in score in position, right?

So if you get the bases loaded, no outs. You should be getting three runs. That's a good general rule of thumb. If you get a guy on second with nobody out, he should be getting home. And that's exactly what happened with Luke Rayleigh, but three bad, pad at baths from Dom Kanzone, Ben Williamson and Cole Young. And it just kind of blew the whole momentum. Now, I know you're still up one zero at that point. But it ends up biting you because we talked about this last night on the positive side.

And when you get that extra run, it saves you because you need it later in the game. But then in the seventh inning, so Legamina comes in the sixth because Logan Evans can't fully get through it. But he comes and closes the door in the sixth inning, stays out there for the seven, gets one out, but then walks two straight batters to get to Bobby Witt. So that's the nine hole and the one hole with Jonathan India, which you just can't be doing. You can't be putting guys on base against their one elite hitter. I understand, like, there's a lot of, now I'm more upset with the umpiring in those two at bats than I am in the Julio at bat, 100%. There were a couple, like, really bad calls during those two that actually ended up hurting

the Mariners in a bigger way than at the end of the game. I know the end of the game gets very, like, kind of zoomed in. but the calls against Legamina in the seventh inning, there are some bad ones, man. And you could see his face. He was like, what? How do you call that a ball? So, and I said it ends up biting them because Bobby Witt then singles.

Or sorry, Vargas comes in to face Bobby Witt. He singles immediately off of him to tie the game. And then Vinny Pass Quintino singles and plates two, including, my gosh, how good of a player is Bobbywood Jr., man? That's slide. I've seen some compilations on YouTube of some crazy slide avoidances recently. I don't know, they're just popping up in my feed, but that's got to be added to it. That was insane how he got around that and just kind of tapped.

It wasn't even like he was scrambling or anything. He knew exactly where Cal was going to reach, put his outside arm around it, and then just tapped home plate, and he knew exactly what it was. You saw no argument from Cal either, because the, that was crazy. That's such a good play and such good heads-up, like, instincts. And you don't see that in every single baseball player. So the Royals go up three to one at that point. Then you get the Dom-Kanzone home run in the ninth inning after Estevez comes in the end of the eighth inning to close out that inning. I mean, and then the ninth inning. Let's just roll through everything.

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All right. Let's go through the ninth inning here. So as we talked about earlier, the Mariners get, you know, a little bit of a weird inning in the seventh to kind of, I don't want to say blow up. I know I put it on my background here, but it's not a full, complete blowup. like he just couldn't find the strike zone. There were a couple really bad calls. And then you just, it's at the wrong time in the lineup is the bigger issue for me. You can't be doing that to the nine and one hitters leading up to Bobby Wichinger. That dude is by far the best offensive player on their team.

And he, I mean, he has a little bit of it down here this year, but he was the runner up for ALMDP last year. So it's just, there's, it was very avoidable. And unfortunately, it came back to bite the Mariners. but you go into the ninth inning with a 3-1 deficit, kind of looking like, all right, you know, we split the series, whatever. But early on, Dom-Kanzone to lead off the inning, it's a dead center home run where it's like,

all right, we're back in this game, Dom-Kanzone with a big, like, pumped up, like, yell as he goes into the dugout, thinking like, all right, these guys are going to get juice back up, let's get going. I was just praying for a big moment from someone. one that leaves it to Miles Master Boni as he hits for Ben Williamson. He hits a single that just drops right before the right fielder.

Cole Young strikes out, tough A-B for him, you know, a little tough night for him and the bottom of the lineup in general. But that's going to happen. I'm not as concerned with that because, you know, he's a rookie. This is what you expect from a guy like that. J.P. Crawford then has an excellent at bat. You look the first pitch he swung at, it looked like he was trying to hit it to Mars. and I was like, uh-oh, he's going to strike out 100% here.

But then he kind of honed it in. And this is the, I think the difference with J.P. Crawford that I, from this year that I saw last year from him is, yes, he has that pitch where he can go all in and try and hit the home run. And last year, he would do that the entire at bat. But he realizes, okay, that was my pitch to hit out. Now I got to go to my two-strike approach. And he does it as good as anyone goes the opposite way. absolutely just perfect hit you get first and second with one out for Julio Rodriguez. So let's talk about the Julio Rodriguez at bat because earlier in the game,

I actually thought I was a very good at bat, his walk in the first inning, and he gets to second base with a stolen base, but nothing ends up coming of that. So let's remember that as we evaluate this ninth inning. Now, I know it's the first inning versus the ninth inning. This is why, you know, he has kind of that. label as a not clutch player right now. And I wouldn't necessarily disagree. I don't have the utmost confidence in him at all coming up in that moment. And I didn't today. I would have rather someone obviously Cal Raleigh, but even he didn't do his job either. But the biggest thing with

Julio is that there was one out. And then especially after the wild pitch, you get second and third with one out. You don't need a home run dog. A base hit wins the game. And even less than that, get it to the outfield, and it ties the game because you can hit a sack fly. Now, anyone asking for the bunt there? No, just, no, he's going to swing away. And I'm okay with that. I'm 100% okay with that. But you've got to get the ball to the outfield. And it, it's an approach change for him, man. Like, you could tell, like he, and I know, I don't know him as a person, but I've been around him. I've been around the clubhouse. He wants, he wants it so bad. I think he wants it too much, to be honest, for someone, especially his youth kind of comes into

that factor a little bit as well. When you're 24 and you've been like handed the keys to the franchise, basically, like, and you have shown that you can do it for long stretches during a season, and you aren't coming up, you just want that even more. You want to work your tail off to get back to where you expect yourself to be. And he's just not there right now. I want to go through the entire sequence because the called strike, honestly, the first pitch was the one to do. There's been a kind of a split amongst the community with Julio recently about being either too aggressive or not aggressive enough. And I think that split in the community is happening in his head as well. Because I think one thing, what made him really good when he was, his

rookie year and his second year in 23 was that he was very aggressive. Now, the downside of being that aggressive is that you're going to strike out a lot. You're going to have a lot of swing and miss when you're trying to time up the fastball, especially inside, right? Now, because everyone, maybe is coaching staff as well, but obviously everyone in the media, the fans,

the strikeouts have become a huge deal. And I, you can see it, and Chris has talked about this before, you can see that he's just almost just trying not to strike out. And that's why he is late to the fastball inside because he doesn't want to overswing for the slider away, which he still does, by the way. But it ruins his entire time. It's not who he is as a hitter. I want him to go back to who he was in 2022 and 2023.

I would gladly take that version of him right now because he just needs to attack. He needs to recognize the pitch and he needs to attack. And he's not doing that right now. he's reacting. He's reacting to something thrown to him, and he's expecting his bat speed to catch up to it. And it's just not happening. It's not happening. And you can't do that at the major league level. I don't care how talented you are. You cannot do that at the major league level. So I just want to see him. I realize there was a stretch where he was swinging at every single first pitch, and it didn't exactly work out. It's not as simple as just swinging at the first pitch or taking the first pitch.

It's a mentality change as a hitter. That's the difference that I want to see from Julio. It's not as simple. It's like in your golf swing. It's like, oh, you know, I'm going to change my grip. That's going to fix my entire swing. That's not how it works. You've got to have an entire approach change to where you know what you're doing when you step into the battered box. All right.

And that's something that I really haven't seen the adjustment from him. And I really want to because he's such a fun guy to root for. He plays great defense. He still gives you value on the base paths. There's so many good things about him. He's a great person. personality to be around every all the players love him i just want him to be a better hitter like and i think it still will come but i don't know if it'll come as soon as everyone is expecting at this

point so um it was a tough spot for him and i think it's a kind of a microcosm of where he is right now in his career and where he is right now in the season so um i also think if he had better hitters around him he wouldn't that mentality that we talked about wouldn't be there He wouldn't have to feel like the pressures on him to be the guy. He could let loose and know that you have a better hitter behind you. Now, I know he has cow behind you, but you have an entire lineup of guys. But when it's just one or two guys that are going, you feel the pressure like, dang, if I don't do something, then no one else will.

So it's a failure on the Mariners. It is a failure on Julio Rodriguez as well. But there's just so much blame to go around. And I don't want him walking anyway. Like, I want him to be the guy to be like, all right, I'm going to recognize, you know, if it's a pitch that I can't hit, I'm going to take the walk, right? But I want to be the aggressive, like, I want to be the guy to make the play. Be excited to make plays. Don't be afraid to make mistakes.

And those are two completely different mentality. So he strikes out on a call, a very, very borderline call. It is a strike, though. But if that's called a ball, Carlos Estevez is very upset as well. So it's just a tough one. It's a tough one for him. He's very close to a 700 OPS right now, which just isn't good enough. It's not good enough from your two-hole.

And you don't have an option to move him down because there's no one good enough behind him. But kind of lost in everything is how bad CalZep out was right after that. Now, I understand there's two outs. He doesn't have the sack fly available to him. and it's a different at bat for sure. But it's kind of, we're a game reaction here. Cal had just as bad enough bat as Julio did

in a less likely situation, so to speak, but it was just as bad as Cal was. So that ends up being a Mariners drop the final and you split the series against the Kansas City rolls, which a series you should not be splitting. It's a series you should be winning three or four and you should have been winning two of three against the pirates as well. So dare I say you really want to sweep against the pirates to kind of make up for this one?

If you win two out of three, that's okay. But two really bad teams come into town, you should be expecting to win both of those series. So I don't know. Cal is over five today. That's another thing. He doesn't get on base once. I think this is the last two games as well where he had over five for four Ks and today over five for just one K.

but he doesn't get on base in either of those two games. So I don't know. There's a lot to, there's a lot of blame to go around. I understand everyone's frustrated about the Julio thing. I am too. I really am, especially after we felt like we were gathering momentum. But the game was lost in the first seven or eight innings because, man, Logan Evans, Evans just deserves better.

He put in a winning performance from the starting pitcher tonight. And you just didn't get any of it from the offense. And as I put out in my tweet, this is just so true. And it was true in 2022, 2022, 2023 and 2024 as well. If the pitching isn't perfect, literally perfect, if they make no mistakes, you might win. You probably will win because if you're pitching's perfect, you're doing well. But if it's not, your offense isn't good enough to make up for it right now. It's just the way it is, unfortunately.

So I don't know, man. It's where the Mariners are at right now. They need some help badly. And they need to really, really win this series against the Pirates starting tomorrow. One 10 game for the 4th of July. Just before we get out of here, I want everyone to stay safe, have a good time. Appreciate you hanging out with me today. An excellent postcast.

I love kind of venting with you guys. And sorry for showing me my absolutely pale white arms. I need to get a little air in here because it is toasty in my apartment today. So really love having you guys hang out today. We'll be back with us tomorrow, I believe. So we'll be able to kind of break it all down, give a little bit more of an analytical approach instead of just reactions like me.

I'm just a schmuck who watches a lot of baseball. So hopefully the Mariners end up kind of putting this one behind them and getting at least two out of three against the pirates. I'm kind of hoping for a sweep personally. That would really kind of put this series out of sight a little bit. But you needed to take three or four. You didn't, and it sucks. And it wasn't because the pitching,

We went in yesterday after knowing that it was going to be Logan Evans instead of Brian Wu, thinking that, oh, you know, now they're kind of putting the white flag. And it wasn't because of Logan Evans that we lost this game. Absolutely not. He was probably the best player for the Mariners today. But unfortunately, Polanco and a little bit of Rayleigh are the only ones. I guess you could say Canzon with a solo blast, but it doesn't really mean anything in the end. Are the only ones that get offense for the team.

So we'll talk to you guys tomorrow. we really, really, really need to get this one against the pirates. So let's hope for a dub. Let's hope for a dub ski. Oh, really quick, unsung hero for me is Eduardo Bizarro. After the kind of blow-up from Legamina and Carlos Vargas in the seventh inning, and just shuts down the lineup in the eighth inning, kind of keeping things at least as close as he possibly can,

still looks really good. They're overusing the crap out of him. But, hey, if he continues to pitch, well, you got to keep using him. So Eduardo Bizarro is my unsung hero. But comment who you guys' unsung hero is. And please like the video because it does us a huge favor. Like, comment, all that fun stuff. And if you missed any part of today's episode, you can check it out in any podcast platform that you use.

It'll be up just a few minutes after we go live. And if you want to see my face, just go to make sure to go back to the locked on Mariners page. Go to the live. And then you'll see all of our postcast right there. Really appreciate you guys. Go Mariners. We'll talk to you tomorrow. 110 first pitch against the Pirates.