Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners RIGHT THE SHIP against Houston Astros

Episode Date: April 11, 2026

Anders goes live to react to the first game between the Seattle Mariners and Houston Astros in 2026.   The offense had a much needed bounce back performance, and Emerson Hancock had another solid start.   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/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!   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.

Welcome to the Mariners Postcast. I'm Anderson Hurst. The Mariners have won a baseball game. Finally, 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. What up, Mariners fans. Finally, the Mariners get it done. They win the first game with the Houston Series 9 to 6. ended up being a lot closer than it probably should have been. You get a decent start for Emerson, Hancock. The offense finally starts getting going a little bit. You look up and down the box court today, and the offense did its job. Absolutely.

I mean, you're going to say that when you score nine runs. But it's when you get, I think almost everyone gets on base at least twice, if I'm looking at this correctly. Yes. because anyone who didn't get, the only person who got on base just once was Luke Braley. But still, overwhelmingly positive outing from the offense. And it's exactly what you needed to do against a Houston team that was struggling,

especially in the pitching department coming into tonight. So good to see that the Mariners took advantage of that, got Tatsuya Emi out of the game after getting one out. So it's just a perfect. kind of get right game for Seattle in this four-game series against your division rival. No, Chris, tonight. He's taking a couple days off as I took the last couple days off covering the hockey team.

That was a crap show within itself. So I'm back with the baseball team for the weekend. Appreciate you guys hanging out with me tonight. Mariners, they go to five and nine on the season. But it's an important first win of the series. Let's put it that way. And it's not just getting the win today that's important. It's how you did it.

And we'll kind of start with a start here with Emerson Hancock in a second. But I think the big story today is the offense. Ten walks. That's the first time in a long time that I can remember a double-digit walk night for the Seattle Mariners. And yes, a lot of it was the poor pitching of the Houston Astros. But we've seen relatively poor outings from. pitching staffs go unpunished against this mariner a lineup, especially in the early portion of this season.

And to have them basically just take what's given to them. And if you can get on base, get on base. If you have a wild pitch, take advantage of it. And then if they leave one over the plate, try and drive it. And that's, I feel like what this Mariners offense finally did today for really the first time this year, I think. you get multi-hit nights from Randy Roserena is actually the only one that gets multiple hits tonight. But with all the walks, you get multiple on-base nights from J.P. Crawford, Cal Raleigh, Josh Naylor, Randy

Rosalena, obviously, Cole Young, Dom Kanzone, and Leo Rivas. So overwhelmingly a good offensive output for the evening. And, you know, it's good to see that because I think. that's kind of what this offense needed to do. It's not, I don't think it's the driving the baseball that bothered me the most going into this game. It was more of the, they were just, they weren't doing the process part of things, the way that they should have been. They weren't doing, you know, the taking your walks, hit by pitches, you know, putting the ball the other way when you're in two strikes, all that little stuff that we talk about all the time. You're going to get unlucky a lot of the times.

And we're still seeing that with Cal and Julio, I think. In fact, I'm curious to see what you guys think in terms of who do you think is going to really turn it on first between those two. I think I put those two in a different category than Josh Naylor. I mean, everyone puts them together because that's the middle of your lineup right now. But I think Cal and Julio in terms of talent levels, just a step above. So which one of those two in the comments section, you know, in the live chat, which one of those two do you guys see really turning around and putting up a good offensive season that we expect from them first? Because I think you can make an argument for either one of them.

You know, they're still kind of figuring things out here in the early going of the season, but we'll find out. But let's start with the start. Emerson Hancock, you know, it seemed like for the majority of his outing that he was kind of the same that we've seen earlier in this portion of the season. Stuff was really. really good. The sweeper was working when he, you know, figured out the release point. That was kind of the inconsistent part. But there was a couple, you know, instances where it popped up with him because it felt like, you know, those couple walks, it's, we talked about this all last year with Chris that if you're going to be a pitch to contact guy, which I think he can

actually be a very effective pitch to contact guy. You're going to be efficient that way. you're not going to give up a lot of home runs, focus on, you know, drawing ground balls and, you know, occasionally getting the strikeout, stuff like that. You can't walk, guys, if that's what's going to be your MO. And that was the one thing that he was, was drawing him back from being a good starter for the first couple years of his career. And for the first three starts of this year, I think this is his fourth, maybe it's his third, I can't remember correctly.

But for the first couple starts of this year, and, Emerson Hancock had done exactly that. He had taken away the walks as a part of his game, and he did a really good job of that and just kind of focusing on making the hitters beat you. Today, does give up two walks, and they both come around to score. You know, you could pitch out of that, yes, but if you're, like I said, if you're not going to be a guy that relies on your stuff to get out of jams and you're going to be a pitch-to-contact guy, it's going to be a lot harder

to maximize that when you are giving up walks, keeping the bases a little bit more juiced than they normally would have been. So that's going to be the main thing moving forward. Other than that, he was fine. Good, good starter. I think a step back in terms of the overall, everyone kind of was on the Emerson Hancock's like the ace of this staff. Let's slow down on jumping that gun at this point in time. I still believe he, as of now, is the fifth best pitcher on the Mariners staff. I still believe in Brian Wu, George Kirby, Luis Castillo, Logan Gilbert ahead of him. And when Bryce Miller comes back, I believe in him ahead of Emerson Hancock as well.

But it's an absolutely nails guy to bring in when one of those guys is injured. And you've got to kind of rely on that for the majority of this year. So I think he's done excellent in that role, just similarly to what he did last year, but even more, a step up. And I think that kind of new release point that they talked about in the broadcast has been a huge point in that. And it's helped him out a lot, make that slider and two seamer kind of really play off of each other in that tunnel. So good for Emerson Hancock gets through five today. Not his best start by any stretch of the imagination. But if that, if five innings of three-run baseball is not your best.

start and it leaves you with a 2.04 ERA after today. I think you're in okay shape. So hopefully he kind of has a little bit of a mini bounce back his next outing and we can kind of move on from that. Before we get to the offense and the unsung hero portion of the broadcast, I just kind of wanted to mention one more time how important it was for this offense to kind of get this game. There's little moments in here where earlier in the season this Mariners team could have turned this into a much more difficult game than it needed to be. And, you know, the defense didn't rear its ugly head like it had for the last couple weeks today, which I am, I don't know if I'm impressed with that, just because you didn't give them

the opportunity. I think the pitching was good enough. The bullpen was spectacular today, minus the Wilcox outing, which we'll get to. But I think it's just overwhelmingly a positive outing for me in the Mariners series against the Astros. A team that, you know, on one hand has been really struggling on the pitching side, but has been hitting the ball really, really well. So getting the dub is important, especially in that first game of the series. We'll come back. We'll talk about the offense a little bit more specifically, but player by player.

And then we'll do some Unsung Hero, Unsung Villain, and we'll get you guys out of here. Once again, Anderson Hurst with the Mariner's Postcast. Chris has taken a couple days off. He covered for me for the last. few Mariners Postcasts. So I'm kind of returning the favor a little bit before, you know, we get back into the regular swing of things here during a long 162 game season. Mariners win this one, 9 to 6, go to 5 and 9 on the season. We'll be right back with more on the Mariners Postcast. It's tax time, but for a lot of us, the old way of doing taxes is a lot.

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It deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support this show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast terms and conditions. apply. If you need to hire, it's a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Welcome back, Manders Postcast, Anderson Hurst here. Christopher Crawford's taking a couple days off. He covered for me the last few days while I was doing hockey duties. And so I'm kind of returning to favor here on the weekend just to give him a little bit of a rest because he deserves it. He's a good, hardworking guy. We can talk nice about him since he's not here,

but once he gets here, that's when we start to be mean. Okay, welcome back. Mariner's win this one nine to six, just to get right game. And more than anything else, for me, it's a get right game for the Seattle Mariners. The offense, you know, you get multiple on base days from JP Cowell, Josh Naylor, Randy, Col Young, Dom Kanzone, and Leo Rivas. That's seven of the nine hitters. The only ones that don't are Julio and Luke Rayleigh. And O'I gets one of the early RBIs that kind of put you in a good spot.

Let's talk about Randy Rosarana, because I've been kind of waiting for this moment for a little bit. Now, he's looked for me one of the better hitters at the play. If you look at the results going into tonight, he may be, you know, it was fine, but, you know, the Dom Kanzon stick out to you, the Luke Rayleigh's a little bit, the Cole Young's. Just because of those monster games that they had, Randy didn't really have any of those monster games before tonight. So his stats don't look, you know, overwhelming. again, this is before tonight.

We're still in the early portion of the season. These can change really quickly. But for me, I have been really liking his process. He kind of knows who he is at this point. He's not a 30 home run guy. He's not trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark every single time. He takes his walks. He steals bases.

We can be critical of his defense, absolutely. And we have been, and we still will be. I think eventually there might need to be a conversation about him being a full-time DH, but we can get to that point a little bit later. But today, I mean, his home run is the difference in the game. Let's be completely honest here. And I know you get some, you know, insurance runs later that end up being bigger than you need them to be because of Gordaun Alvarez's home run. But I feel like without Randy's home run, you're in a just a completely different situation to put the game in a different spot.

After going up 3-0, it felt like the Mariners were going to run away with this. And then Emerson Hancock kind of has a little bit of a rough inning. You know, a couple unlucky things there. talked about the walks and all that stuff. But Randy being able to, you know, take advantage of that pitch. And it was right after he felt like he was going to walk, too. And it almost challenged. It looked like he tapped his head.

But I don't know if he kind of did it really hard. Like he was kind of mad at himself and he's trying to put his hand on the helmet a little bit, which was kind of funny because I don't know if the ump was going to take that as a challenge, which would have then, you know, change things. I think it would have been called a strike anyway. But then the next pitch, he hits a home run. And it was just an absolute tank. to the upper deck in left field.

So good for him. I think he absolutely needed that. He's been one of the best hitters in the Mariners in the early portion of the 2026 season. So I love to see it. You know, would I like to see Cal and Julio be, you know, getting hot? Like we know they can. Yes, absolutely.

But when they're not having guys like the Dom Canzones, like the Luke Raleys when he was hot, like the Cole Youngs, like the Randy or Rosoranhas, that have been, the Brandon Donovan's when he's in the lineup. Those guys, you know, kind of picking up the slack, makes you think that once Cal and Julio figure their stuff out, this offense is going to be okay. I feel honestly probably more confident in this offense than a lot of other people do.

And that's not the part of the team that I'm most worried about in the long term. I feel like this offense is going to be fine. They're going to go through their dry spells where they don't hit a lot of home runs, and that's how they score a lot of runs. But if you consistently like today, take your walks, good approach. coaches at the plate work through the bullpen. And that's the biggest thing that I think I'm going to look for in the next couple days.

The best part about tonight was, A, that the Mariners won. But B, because you've got the starter out of there getting just one out in the first inning, that has such a ripple effect throughout the rest of this series. You made your, the Astros bullpen throw. I haven't done the math. I probably should have done a little bit better preparation. but you've made him get 26 outs, basically. And that puts a lot of stress on the rest of the bullpen,

especially considering that the last two days, they don't even know who's starting with Christian Javier and Hunter Brown both on the aisle. So for a team that's really trying to figure out they're starting pitching at the moment, getting one of their few starters that they do know out of there in the first inning is so huge for this team, especially for this series, that I think you have a chance to really kind of put your foot on the gas. I think after this game, I expect the Mariners to win three at a four against the Houston Astros. So let me know in the comments what you guys think if you think that's a relatively reasonable expectation.

And then, of course, my question from earlier, who do you think is going to get hot first, Julio or Cal? Because I think you could argue either one of them. My unsung hero from today, ooh, there's a lot of good options. anyone in the bullpen you could really say Bizarro Spire, Brash, Munoz, all good. Munoz is a little shaky at the end, I should say. Brash was fantastic.

Comes in and cleans up for Wilcox. So I'm going to say Matt Brash. You know, Wilcox comes in with a six-run lead. You know, puts a guy on. And then Yordon Alvarez, who, by the way, oh, my God. Watching that guy take a lot. at bats is awesome. I put something on Twitter earlier today, but there's no way to beat this guy.

It's, he takes his walks, just like we were mentioning with the Mariners lineup, he doesn't miss mistake pitches. His swing decisions are almost perfect, and that doesn't just mean swinging at strikes and letting balls go. That means the pitches that are just, you know, pitchers pitches, as they say, the sliders that are low and away right on the corner that can be called strikes sometimes. He lets those go. He doesn't even care. If you, if you, if you beat. You, if you, if you beat, him, you have to beat him very, very perfectly. But anytime you try and sneak something by him, you're not going to. It's amazing. And he can do it against left and a pitchie. He can do it against righties, obviously. That dude is just an all-world hitter, one of the best hitters that I've seen

in such a long time. And as a baseball fan, now I know he's an astro, but as a baseball fan, that dude is just crazy good. So, you know, you're going to take your lumps with him. And he's probably been one of the best hitters, if not the best hitter in the American League in the early portion of the season. So giving up a three-run home run to him with a six runs, with the six-run lead with your kind of middle reliever guy in there, not high-leverage guy, I think is okay. So that's why I actually think Unsung Hero is sort of Dan Wilson at the same time because of how the way he used his bullpen today. Now, I will say, this is one of the first times that it felt like that there was the kind of scripting of the end of the game the way the

Mariners wanted to, right? You get a decent start. You can kind of go spire to Bizarro. Now, if they kept it close, they would have gone brash to Munoz after that. But because you had generated a little bit more of a lead, that's why they go to Wilcox and it ends up not working out. So they end up going brash to Munoz. So good stuff from the bullpen, a little bit shaky from Munoz. That's why he's going to be the unsung villain today. Just for whatever reason, I, you know, the last Munoz outing that we saw was, I think, four days ago. Excellent stuff. He knows how to, you know, make his slider work off his fastball really, really well.

Wasn't locating his fastball that well today. And his slider, he can dot that outside corner to right-handed hitters. But other than that, it just wasn't working. But it ends up, because his stuff is so good, it ends up working out. And you get the win. Mariners win this one, six to nine to six. excuse me, go to five and nine on the season. I am now expecting three wins out of four at least in the Houston series this weekend.

So we'll talk to you guys tomorrow. Another 640 start. So let's get another one. Hopefully the Mariners can come out with the dub against the Houston Astros. Thank you guys for listening. Again, Chris Croft for taking a couple days off. So I'm kind of filling in the gaps for him. So appreciate all y'all coming out.

For the Mariners Postcast, hit the like if you haven't already. Check out tying Colby's videos on Lock on Mariners and we'll talk to you guys tomorrow.