Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners Offense STAYS HOT in game 2 vs Detroit Tigers

Episode Date: July 12, 2025

Anders and Chris break down another solid day at the plate for the Mariners.  Is Julio back? Dominic Canzone, Ben Williamson, and Randy Arozarena all have multiple hits as well.  George Kirby wasn't at his best, but he didn't have to be today. 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! OpenPhoneStreamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at www.openphone.com/lockedonmlb 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.

Cool. This is the Mariners Postcast. Your instant game reaction for the Seattle Mariners. Part of the locked on podcast network, your team every day. Man, I swear I could say, let me quickly switch us here so you guys can get used to it. Make sure it's on the right side. My fault.

I could say, why does this team do it to me almost every single day that we go live here on the Mariners Postcast today? because this is what we know they can be. I understand baseball is a 162 game schedule. I feel like I'm going to sneeze here in a second. So if I do that, I'm not dying. Don't worry.

But when they have these just feeble games, especially offensively, this is where you point to and be like, that is what you can be. That is what you can be against two of the best starters in baseball. What a good series. Series win, I should say. Series isn't over yet for the Mariners as they pick up this win, what was it, 15 to 7 is our final score.

It looked like it was going to get a little close there in the seventh and eighth inning. But fortunately, the offense just keeps rolling. I'm looking at multi-hit days from, I'm looking at the Tigers Fox Square here. Julio from Randy, from Luke Rayleigh, from Dom Kanzone, and Ben Williamson. So just an overall awesome day offensively. This is the Mariners Postcast. My name's Anderson Hurst.

That's Christopher Crawford right to my left as I switched us back to the normal slot. We go live right after every single Mariner baseball game to break down the game. You guys just watch daily recap, as we all know and love here on Locked on Mariner's YouTube channel. Chris Crawford, initial thoughts on the win and the series win in Detroit. You know, I would have liked to have seen not so many field goals. I thought the Seahawks probably should have been a little more aggressive here. Maybe, you know, five field goals is a nice day. And if you have Jason Myers on your fantasy team, it was a really nice.

You're getting into the red zone very often. Yes, you are. And he's not converting. You know, red zone's a pretty way to put it, good way to put it, because not only did the Mariners get into the red zone a lot, they finished. They finished their drives today. The football analogy actually works. I didn't know it was going to. I just didn't know it was going to.

but they did such a good job offensively today. Eight for 19 with runners in scoring position today. That's very close to a, that's in fact, that's above a 400 batting average. You hit go eight for 20, that's 400. That's how math works. And there were some questionable pitching performances today and especially a questionable pitching decision today. But it didn't matter.

Your offense carried you. And that's 27 runs in the last. games and let's not forget about this and i know we're just here to recap the daily show right the offense looks fine against the yankees as well yeah i agree the offense looked very fine against those guys a crazy ring delay thing that i think actually affected george kirby we'll talk about that again um but the offense played well the offense did a nice job in this road trip and no matter what happens sunday i think this is a successful road trip two and four against two of the very best teams in baseball, that's good.

That's not what you can do against everybody else. But when you're playing the Yankees and the Tigers and the Tigers are unquestionably the best team in the American League by record, by running. Maybe in the MLB. Whole lot of stuff. MLB. Maybe. And so to win this series and to win the series so emphatically, it's really cool.

And it's just wonderful to see some of these guys who have been doing it all but in particular somebody who appears to be getting going again and that's a lot of fun. Yeah, we're going to have the Julio conversation as we've had many negative conversations with him recently. I know we're a daily recap show, but what we saw today, we can put in context with what we saw yesterday and the rest of the season as well. And I think that's something that we can talk about here on the Mariners Postcast. We'll also talk about Kirby's start. We'll talk about a Dan Wilson decision that baffles us. but overall I think the story is the offense and you know when you filled in for Ian Furness I think it was two or three weeks ago and you had a maniac to on your show yeah says the Mariners go as Julio goes yeah and it's pretty like like I think for the first couple years it was like yeah I can understand that he's looks like your most talented player looks like your best hitter um this debatably last year but especially this year with the way Cal is going it is

it was like, huh, really, he's still saying that with Cal literally competing for an MVP with Aaron Judge at this point. Right. Yeah. But it's true. It's a, it's crazy how different. I say this about Polanco, too, how different, a healthy Jorge Polanco helps this offense. But I think especially the case with Julio, when he looks right, this is the kind of day you can have, right? And I don't think it's just his at-bats that change everything. His overall vibe when he's playing the way we know that he can play, He changes the entire team. It changes everyone's spirits. It's just, it's the kind of electric factor that he has.

And that's why it's been so frustrating that he hasn't been playing to this point, playing like this to this point. But I'm just going to really quick ask you, is he back? I don't know. Here's the thing. Terrible answer. Terrible answer. No one knows.

No one knows if Julio's back. Now, here's what I'll say. I'll tell you, give you the positive and I'll give you the negative. Okay. The positive is, let's not forget that this guy had a run of three straight games with extra base hits, broken, I think, just in the last game against the Yankees, right? So there were signs that a game like, games like these were coming, right? He was starting to drive the ball into the gap.

It's just the other at-bats outside of that were not so good. And we'll also point this out. He got two horrific pitches that he drove out of the park. The home run by that he hit off Tariq Scoobo. I talked about it yesterday. Horrific pitch. Now, good job by Julio waiting on it and driving it. That's a pitch a lot of times.

He just lines up the middle, right? Exactly. And that's been a huge thing with him. He's not hitting those mistake pitches. Exactly. So he took advantage of that. He took advantage of another pitch today and destroyed it. That's not an insult to him, but let's just call it what it is, right?

Like Julio Rodriguez also, I think, hasn't gotten a lot of mistakes lately. It's something I've been watching for. Like, is he missing those pitches over the middle? No, he's not turning on fastballs, but they're decent pitches that he hasn't been hitting. I don't know if Julio's back. What I will say is there's no denying, zero denying, that he's capable of being one of the very best players in baseball.

And to last two days in particular, not just with the defense, not just with the speed. And, you know, he gets got out stealing twice today, right? so there were some boo-boos, but ultimately doesn't matter. The game you win by eight runs, we'll just forget all about that, right? Yeah, yeah. And he steals the base, too, so that was nice to see. Ultimately, what it comes down to is whether or not Julio Rodriguez can carry this over after the break.

And now I'm disappointed. Yes. He has a week off. I was going to ask you that, too. Isn't it pretty crazy how two days ago it's like, God, he needs the All-Star break so bad, especially after he announced that he's not going. It's like, okay, great. And I want to ask, do you think that has anything to do with the timing here? Because ever since he announced that he's not going, it just seems like there's been a little bit of a switch-plicked inside of him. I don't know.

Maybe that's the signs of things that have been happening, and then it finally just found its way through. But I think there's a little bit of a difference just in his overall demeanor. Maybe I'm looking too far into it. But do you think that has anything to do with it? You know what? I'm going to do it again. I don't know. Oh, come on. I don't know. And here's the thing is that, like, the reason why I think Julio is taking this break, a lot of people were pointing out that it's like, oh, he feels bad about being an all-star

bull crap. That has nothing to do with him. The dude needs a break. The dude has played in a lot of baseball. He's never, I believe, had an all-star break off. The one time where he didn't make the all-star game, I believe it was injury-related, right? Like that he wasn't going to, probably wasn't going to make the team anyway, but he wasn't healthy.

He would want to break. dude wants a break and I think it's just more about the fact that Julio finally got some mistakes and played up to the level that he's capable of doing and we don't know if he'll keep this up it's worth pointing out that in July Julio Rodriguez has been spectacular in the past is there a chance that continues pretty strong one

pretty strong one but nobody knows what Julio Rodriguez is going to give you and this is ultimately my negative side here is why is that the case? Why is Julio Rodriguez so inconsistent at best and maddeningly? I know that's a weird word. Just frustrates the ever-loving, you know what, out of you because there are some atrocious at bats, there are pitches that he misses.

And again, I don't think that's been the case lately. I just don't think he's been a good enough hitter to fight off enough pitches or to make hard contact on pitches that aren't in the middle of the plate. but I don't know what we're going to get from Julio Rodriguez. What I know is there's no denying that he is capable of being as good as any player in baseball. And it's wonderful to be reminded of that again. Yeah. And here's to hoping it can continue.

And I think you put that perfectly. It's it makes it even more frustrating when you see these two games. I love this. I'm sorry. Unless it doesn't. It's going to continue unless it doesn't. That's perfect. That's great.

That's exactly it. And we don't know. I wish we knew. At this stage of his career, we should have a better idea of what Julio Rodriguez's floor is. We know what the ceiling is. There's nobody I think in baseball outside of maybe Ronald Acuna Jr. with a higher offensive ceiling. But there are lots of players with a higher offensive floor, a lot of them. But man, when he's hot, and here's the other thing I'll point out, games like this matter a lot more than the game where he struggles. Games where he is this type of player, the four, where you get on four times, where you score three runs when you hit a home run, blah, blah, blah, matter a lot more than the 0 for fours. There's a couple O for fours you can have when you have a game like this. That's just the

way this sport works. So let's just keep that in mind as well. Well, and that's the nature of failing 70% or whatever everything. So like as long as you, if you have one of these games, that, and again, that doesn't excuse what he's been doing up until now offensively, right? And that makes it even more frustrating because you see this and it's why can't you do that earlier in this season? Sure. But, you know, if it means that he's kind of coming back around and starting to figure things out, because there's two ways to look at it with him. He's 24 years old.

That's young. That's very young in comparison to a lot of players this league. But he's also on year number four. Yep. Which, like, you can look at age or you can look at how long he's been in the MLB. Sure. So I think both things apply, right? He's still like a young man, but he has been in the league long enough to where he should be able to make these adjustments by now,

especially with how much talent he has. Really quick, let's give some love to our sponsors and then we'll talk about the Kirby start. I know we normally start with the start, but I think that was topic numerous, who know that we needed to get to today. So let's say hi to supply house. Sound good. Sounds great. Get the supplies you need from the site made for the skilled trades.

supply house, whether you're in plumbing, HVAC or electrical work supply house is the reliable way to order products online. Their easy-to-use website is packed with helpful resources and the latest product info for help to get you job, get the job done right. They would even help you get that transition done better. Plus, with a complete inventory of over 200,000 parts from 400 plus top brands, you'll find exactly what you need, delivered fast and from coast to coast. If you need help in order, Supplyhouse offers expert support and industry leading service.

So you'll always talk to a real person. And for trade pros looking for an extra edge, their free Trademaster Program offers exclusive perks like a dedicated phone line, free shipping and discounts on every order. Thousands of skilled professionals are already taking advantage. Now it's your turn. Oh yeah, I have something else to read there, don't right? Yes, you do. Join the Trademaster Program today at Supplyhouse.com slash DM. and start ordering plumbing, hback, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks.

Plus, if you use promo code SH5, for 5% off your first order, heck of a deal, and that's at supplyhouse.com. Have you ever decided at the last minute to head to a ballgame with friends or family? Maybe it's game day and you suddenly realize you want to be in the stance. That's exactly where game time comes in. It's the easiest way to grab last minute tickets without the stress. With the money you save on tickets because you use game time, you can now splurge on food, drinks, merch,

or even invite more people to come with you. Game time makes it possible. Game time makes buying tickets fast and simple. Prices on the app actually drop the closer you get to first pitch, and they've got incredible last minute deals, clear seat views, and a lowest price guarantee that takes the worry out of buying. Guys, in these summer months, you know,

the weather can be pretty crazy. It could be really, really hot sometimes. it could be really, really rainy sometimes. Sometimes you want to wait till that last minute. And the fact that you can wait till that last minute and save money makes game time the very best place to go and buy your tickets. Well, yeah, especially if you're in Detroit because there's a flipping rain delay. And people are probably selling off their tickets because they're like,

oh, I need stuff to do at 2 o'clock. So, well, I'm sure we'll talk about here in a second. But you can take the guesswork like rain delays out of buying tickets with game time. Download the GameTime app, create an account. and use code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N-M-L-B for $20 off. Download the GameTime app today, last-minute tickets, lowest price, guarantee. Perfect ad rating for me.

Just like just an unbelievably great job on reading those ads. Yeah, you were Dom Kanzone today, four hits. I think I was more. I think I was more like Edward Bizarro today to be completely honest. That's okay. All right. I'm going to give you the choice, Chris. Do you want to go to the start now or do you want to talk about the rest of the offense?

I want to talk about the start just because it's kind of fresh in my mind. George Kirby, let's not start with the start. Yeah, let's start the second half with the start. Matt is a pretty good description here. And I do want to point out that I do think that the delay affected George Kirby today, just like the delay affected Casey Mize, a guy who was normally very, very good. George Kirby has been fantastic over his last few outings and just couldn't find the strike zone. And when George Kirby can't find the strike zone, I am blaming something.

There is either weather or there is something in the baseball, like terrible. You see it often this year, though, more often than usual. More often than usual, but he was a guy who came in with all of nine free passes and he added, I believe, three today. I can't remember the last time I saw George Kirby start with three walks. It just isn't very common. But I will say this. The first inning, very bad. The fifth inning, awful.

And I would like to thank Spencer Torkelson for his help and him getting out of the inning. I have no idea what you're doing, dude. Like, why are you running in that situation? Terrific throw from Big Dumber. Terrific throw. But what are you doing? I will say this, though. So first inning bad.

Fifth inning bad. Second, third, and fourth inning was awesome. Like, that was the, okay, this is the version of George Kirby we've seen for the overwhelming majority of the game. And this is what I ultimately come down to. What we see a lot of times with these rain delays is that the start and the end of it is when you're affected because I thought George Kirby tired. I think he tired from having to get loose twice for this start.

This game started, what, an hour late, something along those lines? I think that absolutely played a factor into him. having an issue in the first inning, and it ended up tiring him at the end of the game. Now, I'll give Detroit credit too, right? Those, that's a good lineup. That is a good lineup of guys who can hit for average, who can hit for power. I won't say that George Kirby was at his best because of course he wasn't. But if you just watched the second, third, and fourth inning, you guys would wonder what

the heck we're talking about because he was spectacular in those innings. So it's not a great start. And we'll talk about who the catcher was, I am sure. I will also say this, no concerns with Kirby, none. A couple of bad innings, three spectacular ones. George Kirby looks way more back to me than not. All right, that's fair. I just have such high expectations for him,

similar to Julio in this way, where it's like, I know what he can be, and you saw it from multiple innings this time, and you saw it for all of 2023 and a lot of 2024 as well. I understand he didn't have a preseason or a spring training or whatever you want to call it. Like that has something to do with it, but I think we're far along. We're July 12th now.

Like, I think we're far enough along since he's returned to kind of throw that excuse out the window. One thing I mentioned in our little group chat that we have, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are about this. It's weird because his command has taken a dip this year compared to years past, but I feel like his stuff has gotten better. Yeah. Do you think that has something to do with the lack of command because his stuff is better than in years past? he isn't like accounting for as much movement as he would have had to before. I think, I don't think there's any question. The fact that he has more movement on his pitches right now is definitely something

that you have to account for. But again, that start against the pirates. And sure, the pirates and the tigers are very, usually they're pretty similar teams based on their history as of late. Ain't similar right now. Sure, that start was against, but you saw what he did against the twins. You saw what he did in the start before that. I just think today was an example.

example of the ball being slick, a humid day in Detroit on top of the rain. I'm making a little bit of excuses here, but it's worth pointing out. 13 swings and misses generated is a very solid number over five innings. I just think today that the command was affected by the weather delay, and I would expect he'll probably start the third game after the All-Star break. That's what I would guess. He'll be fine. I'm just going to mention it because, I mean, there wasn't much to it, but another reason

is because he had Cal Raleigh catch me today. Cal Raleigh. I'm just going to keep pointing it out until I see a trend otherwise, because every dominating start he's had has been with Mitch Garber behind the plate. And it's not like he's been awful with Cal Raleigh behind him. It's not like the numbers are like, whoa, huge difference. And it's not like it's a big enough sample size yet to where it matters. But I'm just going to keep pointing it out until I notice a trend in the opposite direction.

I'll put it out. That's fair. And, you know, I joked in our little group chat that, today I became more convinced than I've heard that it's coincidental because I don't think Mitch Garber is holding a better like framing target for him. But it's just chemistry. It is, it is an interesting thing. The chemistry for sure. Let's talk about the other pitchers real quick and then we can get into the offense. I thought the decision to bring Ed Bizarro in that situation was one of the dumbest things I've seen from Dan Wilson. And it's not because I don't think

Bizarro's good. In fact, it's the opposite. Bizarro was fantastic yesterday. And a major reason why they won that game. Two winnings of scoreless baseball when it was still a four to three game. Why are you throwing him again after that? 23 pitches doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a lot of getting hot and a lot of not only that, they're getting good looks at you, right? Like those guys have seen Bizarro.

That makes a big difference, especially for a good offense there. I don't understand why you don't go to a leg amina in that situation. Or like go to a Taylor Sossetto for that situation, who looked good afterwards. So that was nice to see. I thought Thornton pitched okay, you know, not his absolute best, but he did, gave you two winnings.

That's one nice thing this bullpen has is they do have guys who can give you multiple innings. It's not something they've had a whole heck of a lot over the last few years. And I thought Taylor Susito pitched excellent. And as about a low leverage of situation as possible. Perfect for him. But it would be great to see Taylor Sossetto to become that second lefty. Be nice not to have to trade some prospects to get that.

second lefty in the bullpen. Yeah, I'm totally with you. There's just other options besides Bizarro. I get that's kind of been his role like, okay, when the starter doesn't go exactly how far you want to go, you bring him Bizarro to kind of mop it up and just kind of get to the rest of the game with your higher leverage guys. Yeah. But like you said, he pitched two innings yesterday, a team that literally just saw him. There's definitely the fatigue factor as well. And you have other guys that can do that as well. So that was a weird, weird one. And real quick, Nice job by Matt Brash as well to come into that situation. Yeah, clean it up.

Yeah. I will say that we had an announcer issue that made me feel like the Matt Brash didn't do a good job at first. We won't go any further than that, but it was nice to see him. And the nice thing is too, Matt Brash will absolutely be available for tomorrow because I think he threw four pitches. Yeah, it was like, yeah, it was really, really quick. So it should be good to go. So I don't think you pitched yesterday either, did he? No, he didn't.

So he should be, yeah. for sure he didn't pitch yesterday. Because he was going to close that game with Andres Munoz not available. And then Big Dumper did what Big Dumper do. Oh, so great. So great. Yeah. We're back.

The Mariners Postcast. Let's talk about the rest of the offense. Yeah. Because we talked about Julio and how much difference him being him can make. And we saw that. My goodness. But let's, I mean, you can't, I almost think the player of the day, you could go, you could go with Canzone.

you could go with Randy a Roserena. We still have to do our unsung heroes slash villain. Where do you want to go here? I'm just going to point out Randy Rosalena. Dude is just consistent right now. Every single day. It's weird because I almost hagged him as similar to Julio where he will have explosions of offense.

And then like, okay, go really cold. It's almost been the opposite. It's like, yeah, he'll give you a couple hits, maybe a home run every now and then. He's just been the model of consistency for about, a month now, or close to that at least. And after being announced going to the All-Star game, he just has another three-hit day, four runs scored for Andy a Rosarena, two RBIs. Yeah, that'll do. That'll do, Donkey. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I was just looking at a Rosarina splits.

May was bad, like 232, 330, 368. That's just not going to get the job done. But 854 OPS in June, even with needing a late power burst to get into the Homer stuff. And then July has been fantastic. He's just been so good. And again, it does matter because if you have somebody like Randy a Rose Arena hitting behind Cal Raleigh right now, it makes it so much harder to pitch around Raleigh. It's still going to happen because like just look at those numbers.

Real quick on Raleigh, I thought he got two. I thought he had two today. And golly, I just, I wanted it so bad. I wanted it so bad. I almost guarantee he hits a Homer tomorrow, by the way. Okay, all right. I'm willing to bet. It swings there.

He's dealing it. Just barely missed a couple today. But, you know, speaking of the offense, I was thinking my unsung hero was going to be Ben Williamson because, you know, it's my thing. And you get a terrific day, terrific today, today, today. Three for five and also saved a double with one of my favorite defensive plays. Luke Rayleigh, you got to catch that ball, dude.

You have got to make that play. But the double bounce. Yeah. Oh, it's a perfect throw. That's that, no, see, that's the thing. That bounce is perfect because it gets the ball into there. You're not going to risk throwing that thing over his head. You want that ball to bounce a couple of times to make that nice, easy play for Rayleigh.

He's just got to make it. And I'll just point this out. Routy Telez makes that play. Routy Telez makes that play. He does a really good job with that. And Solano makes that play usually, too. He's a better defensive first basement. Okay.

But my unsung hero is, we didn't talk. about J.P. Crawford. Yeah. Drives in four, a couple of hits, and boy, does he look back offensively. Yeah. I'm still very concerned about the defense, but it's so nice having that at the top of the lineup. And it was so nice, you got so much offensive production today and big plays.

Like, for instance, Big Dumber doesn't have a great offensive day, but he drives in a run and he makes a huge play throwing somebody out. It walks really. Yep. Luke Raleigh makes the throw, or excuse me, hits the three run. Homer to kind of turn this into blowout adjacent territory, even if they got back in it for a little bit. He had a big knock. Palano had a big.

You could go down the entire lineup. Probably your unsung hero is going to be Cole Young for drawn a couple of walks. And he had a good day. But it was nice to see that Polanco just kind of puncture, or excuse me, that Crawford punctuated it, right? He punctuates it with that base is loaded double. And I'll tell you this. I feel bad about it, but I'll just tell you what I told Anders. I was rooting for J.P. Crawford and Julio Rodriguez to strike out with the bases loaded because I wanted another big dumper grand slam.

I wanted him to tie Barry Bonds with a grand slam for the second straight day. But in hindsight, I can definitely appreciate J.P. Crawford and what he has done offensively, the fact he's driving the baseball and hitting for a solid average can't be overstated. It cannot be overstated. And here's the thing. in order for him to be a valuable player, he has to perform at this level because he's not good enough defensively to make up for it.

He is a well below average player. If he is not at this type of OBP and a slugging percentage that is near this level, if he is not there, then J.P. Crawford is more detriment than asset. I know a lot of people don't like hearing that because they love him and I love him. I'm proud of my son.

It's one of the best trades that Jerry DePoto has made to get that guy for the long term, right? But he has to hit at this level. And right now, he's doing exactly that. Yeah, I'm with you there. I'm just talking about him offensively. The biggest thing for me is he's basically combining, you know, what he had been up until his breakout year in 23 and that 23 year.

Because I think he was kind of selling out for the power. Definitely was able to run into a few more than we probably will ever see from him again in that year. And then last year, he just tried to do that way too much. And he got away from what made him such a good player leading up to that point. And now you see the approach change. He can ambush something and kind of go for it until there's two strikes. And then I think they pointed it up a broadcast.

He actually has a higher batting average of two strikes than he does before two strikes, which is wild to me. It's crazy. That's like one of the rarest of feats in baseball. Great. But that's just because he knows how to just put the ball in play. get it to the outfield and try and make things happen with two strikes um unsung you already did your unsung hero yeah that's that's j p uh i'm gonna go with an unsung play today okay because uh it

involves julio rodriguez okay uh it's number one he i think it's in the third inning he has uh jp on first i want to say uh hits a ground ball could have been a double play ball for almost anyone beats out the double play ball yeah uh then steals second base they throw it away steals third base and that basically at that point in the game took the lead for the mariners yeah uh because that's when cal hit the sack fly his speed literally scored you a run period without his speed you don't score that run and i realize that's just one run in a 15 uh 15 run offensive explosion yeah But it could, like, plays like that, he didn't even have that could have been at bat. He just got on base because he beats out a double play.

It was good because I actually saw him, like, physically like, God, I got to get around that a little bit more. And I like seeing that from him. Sorry, my camera is having a hard time focusing. But his speed is literally something that always can be relied upon and that score to run for the Seattle Mariners there. So that's my unsung play of the day. Yeah, I think that's a really good call. That was a huge moment. And I also, just real quick, I thought you were going to talk about one of two plays.

I thought that walk he drew in the first inning kind of at the table as well. That was such a good at bat. And it was clear. But then he negated it by getting. Sure. But that also kind of like set up that he was seeing the baseball really well today. It was clear that he was going to be locked in, right? Like he clearly was picking.

And I forgot about what our thing is called. Locked on. That was huge. Both of those plays were huge. That RBI single of the middle was an awesome piece of hitting as well. It shows that you can have, yeah, it had an 80 mile per hour exit velocity. That's not very hard, but it had a 920 expected batting average because it was perfectly placed. You don't have to clobber the baseball to be an effective offensive player. It's nice when you do. And you saw that he can clobber a baseball on that omer real quick. And I know we're running out of time. I thought that ball was going to go foul. And I just. about had one of my remote throws, just about, because the way he turned was like, I thought he was going to say, gosh, dang it. Wishing it fair almost. Yeah, but no, it was just that he shall lack the thing that he actually got to celebrate

for a little bit. Oh, that was so awesome to see. And, yeah, tomorrow will be interesting, a chance to sweep the best team by record in Major League Baseball. Yeah, and both with Julio, and I think you could say this about the whole team, when you see them do this in these past two games, that's what make those Yankees games so flipping annoying. So frustrating. Because we should be talking about a three-game winning streak. We should be talking about a possibility to go, what is that, four and two into the all-star break. Four and two into the

all-star break against the biggest litmus test that I think this team has had all year. Probably the two best teams in the American League. I mean, Houston, maybe, but yeah. But I'll just say this, and I know this is a tie in Colby territory. And again, I know. we're going long. Yeah. But this is an important game, and I think it's okay to go long. They've passed the litmus test for three straight games now.

I know they end up losing that game, six five in extra innings, but they were the better team in that game. They were the better team in that game. They were the better team in the first game of the series for a large portion of it as well. Then it just falls apart, right? One of the most misleading 10-3 scores,

I think you'll have because the Mariners were better until that stupid rain delay. build a roof. They've passed the litmus test. They have passed the litmus test. And I am as excited for a deadline for the Seattle Mariners as I have been for a very, very, very long time. And I know we're going long.

I'm going to promote one other thing. I am hosting on KJR Thursday and Friday. At 205 on Thursday, I'm going to be joined by Justin Hollander. We. And we will be joined by Justin Hollander. If you're nice to me, I'll let you ask him something. If you're nice to me, I'll actually let you into the station. Oh, okay.

Yeah, we'll see. In fact, I don't think I will be in the station. No, no, no, that's not a real thing. I'm just joking. I am super excited and I would love you guys to tune in because we had a great conversation last year at this point. and we heard a lot of interesting stuff. Do you remember what Hollander told us during that conversation about how he would be surprised if the Seattle Mariners didn't make moves?

Yeah. Well, look what happened very shortly after. I am really excited for that conversation, and I hope you guys can join us. Yep. Please tune in when you can. It would be so much fun. Sorry, we went a little bit long today,

but it's always fun to talk to you guys after a big mariner series win. let's go get the sweep tomorrow and kind of negate the Yankee series. If you go three and three into the all-star break against the Yankees and Detroit away from home, that is a massive sigh of relief and you have real momentum going into the all-star rate, which is huge, especially if your offense continues to look like this. So good stuff, guys. Thanks for hanging out with us. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

I think it's another 10-10 start, if I remember correctly. 10-40. 10-40, okay. Again, I always just make sure Pacific time, 1040 Pacific time. Yes, sir. If you're watching or listening from another location, we really appreciate it. I will not mislead you in terms of the timing there. All right.

We'll talk to you guys tomorrow. Last word, Chris Crawford. Yay. One more. Come on. That was fun.