Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners START ROAD TRIP RIGHT against St. Louis Cardinals

Episode Date: April 25, 2026

Anders goes live right after the opening game of the series between the Mariners and Cardinals.  George Kirby was excellent, Josh Naylor Homered, and the bullpen shut it down to secure the win in St. Louis.   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!   5-Hour ENERGY The funfetti flavor is BACK on https://5hourEnergy.com or Amazon, crack open Confetti Craze 5-hour ENERGY®️ shot 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. The Mariners end up taking this one to start the road trip three to two over the St. Louis Cardinals. That felt like a very Mariners formula win. Not a ton of hits. You're still slightly tough. But your starter was excellent today and the bullpen shuts it down. Let's talk about it 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. The Mariners have won a one-run game, guys. What a development here. They take this one against the Cardinals, three to two, start off the road trip on a good note, trying to put, you know, the whole series against the athletics behind them a little bit.

That last win on Wednesday was huge. Welcome to the Mariners Postcast. Today's episode is brought to you by game time. download the game time app create an account and use code locked on for $20 off your first purchase guys let's do what we always do let's start with the start because my goodness george kirby was excellent today you know going into this season i said one of the biggest things for the mariners if they're going to take that next step and be a world series contender is they need you know a step up from the rotation and what they got last year if this is the version of george kirby we're getting

And I realize his final line doesn't get a ton of strikeouts. I think he only has one, maybe two. But I'll double check that as we go along here. He does get two kids. Okay. But you don't need to strike a ton of guys out. He's getting quick outs. He's efficient.

Maybe a quick pull. We'll talk about that a little bit later on. It doesn't come back to hurt you, though, at least as of right now, because the bullpen shuts it down. You get a couple quick runs earlier in the game with some timely hitting with runners and scoring. position. But then a Josh Naylor home run is what takes the lead for good. And the Mariners win this one three to two over the St. Louis Cardinals. Yeah, George Kirby, guys, let's start with the start

because he was excellent tonight. I did not know he had 99 in him, but he was consistently getting there today. Maybe he had a little extra juice. Maybe he was that warm air in St. Louis, who knows. But it wasn't just the four seamer, the two seamer was working great today as well. And then, of course, that slider. He has such a good pitch mix that you don't have to have all of your pitches hitting at once to be a successful pitcher for him at least. And those three pitches were working for him today. It's got the fastball, both four seamer and two seamer, and then the slider playing off of that. Sometimes it's almost better to get non-strikeouts, quickouts, ground balls. His ground ball rate has been fantastic this year. That's been something that I think has been a huge

development for him and maybe something that you can compare to someone like Logan Gilbert where he relies on the strike out a little too much sometimes to get guys out and sometimes that makes you you know have to use more pitches you're not able to go deeper in the game and the bullpen has to be used earlier than they normally would have so I love to see that from George Kirby as he's you know finding ways to get outs and that's the biggest thing for pitchers guys it's not you don't have to just have the strikeouts. You don't have to just avoid walks. I know everyone loves the strikeout to walk ratio as a stat. The best stat that you can have is just innings pitched. And that's basically how many outs you're able to get. And of course, doing that without giving up many runs as

well. So he does have the one kind of iffy inning in the fourth. You know, it's interesting to kind of look back on that because I felt like that was a time where George Kirby, maybe he's years past would have kind of, you know, buckled down or folded a little bit, so to speak, and not like kind of gotten a little frustrated with how things were going. The St. Louis offense is very pesky. They're not going to strike out very much. You saw the hit on Munoz that was literally almost hit the ground. That's just kind of what they do.

But that's kind of plays right into George Kirby's hands here because he throws strikes, but he gets a lot of soft contact. And you saw that today. They weren't squaring him up very easy. easily at all. That fourth inning was kind of the only really iffy point for him. They end up getting, you know, he walks Alec Burleson, then you hit the ground will double from Nolan Gorman, and then Mason Wynn hits the single with two outs to get the St. Louis' as only two runs of the day. But other than that, guys, the pitching today was fantastic.

Let's talk a little bit about polling George Kirby after six and a third. He had only had 81 pitches. It doesn't come back to bite you, but we've talked about this before. It's process versus results. So much of baseball over an entire 162 game season is having the right process, right? If you're doing the right things, and this goes for hitting, this goes for pitching, managing decisions, all that kind of stuff. If you have the right process, more often than not, it's going to work. Sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes it doesn't work out. The opposite can also be true, right? if maybe you don't have the right process, but you luck into something a little bit. I don't think they lucked into the win at all today. They definitely outplayed the Cardinals because it's just not a very good roster. Their early start to the season is a little bit of a facade, so to speak. But I do believe that pulling George after 81 pitches just gave up the single to Mason win in the seventh inning. And then it was just an immediate hook from Dan Wilson.

And you could tell as soon as the ball is in the outfield, Dan Wilson was walking out to go get him. I don't necessarily agree with that, especially how well George was pitching. And it was the bottom of the order. And I would have liked to see him continue and try and get out of that position. Now, if he allows another single or walks a guy and it's a guy on first and second or something like that, okay, then I can understand going to Brash to put the fire out, especially after you just took the lead in the previous happening. but with, I would have liked to see George Kirby get out of that. He only had 81 pitches, and it was the bottom of the order. And it seemed like it's not like he was, the Mason Wind hit was completely squared up.

It's just a ground ball that kind of found grass. And I think it was a better option to stick with George. Now, Brash gets out of it. You know, Spire gets out of the eighth inning, and then Munoz comes in for the ninth, and it all works out, Bizarro as well, because he has to come in after, Gabe Spire. But this is one of those situations where in this game it doesn't hurt you, but it can hurt you down the road, right?

And if for whatever reason, maybe in two games, if you have to use Brash again tomorrow and you can't use them for the final game of the series because you had to burn them today or whatever their bullpen rules are, that's going to be one of those things where it's like, hey, you could have just left Kirby in there, then you could have used Brash in that third game. That's all everything that I'm being, that it's saying. here is that the Mariners won this game. And, you know, we've talked about Dan Wilson having a

sense of urgency in the past. And I do like the sense of urgency, you know, knowing that you need to get this first game of the series. And, you know, on one hand, you want him to do that. But on the other hand, you can trust your starter that's looked really, really good today. So I don't think it was an egregiously bad decision. I just wouldn't have made that one. Hopefully it does not come back to bite you later on in the series. All right. When we come back, let's talk about the offense. Josh Naylor, there's some good and there's some bad with the offense. I think a lot of people will look at the box and be like, okay, you only got what, four hits today.

And that's not going to look great on the box score. But I think a couple of them were in key moments, as we talked about. You do get two hits with runners in scoring position and then the home run to Josh Nader. That's three of your four hits guys, score runs, which is very efficient, so to speak. So we'll talk about that here on the other side of the break in the Mariners Postcasts after a huge Mariners 3 to 2 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. MLB season is back and you can feel it. Fresh starts, big expectations and that first crack of the bat,

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If you're kind of deciding last minute, it's perfect if you're just going by yourself. I think that's kind of why when I use that, it's two taps and it's done. No stress, no hidden fees, just great seats in minutes. Take the guesswork out of buying MLB tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account and use code locked on for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account, redeem code L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N for $20 off. Download the GameTime app today. Welcome back to the Mariners Postcast, Anderson Hurst here. I'm wrapping the Seahawks on

draft night. I'm loving their picks so far, but you can check that out on Locked on Seahawks as well. I am breaking down the Mariner 3-2 win over the St. Louis Cardinals. They go to 12 and 15 on the season. This is just a very marinery win. You know what I mean? The offense didn't perform for large portions of the night. And I'm not going to get too negative about them not doing great against a pretty bad starter, all things considered. If you find ways to win baseball games, that's kind of the main thing that matters to me, right?

And I realize that it's a process result, as we talked about earlier. But again, if you're doing what you did tonight, two for eight with runners in scoring position, guys, that's 250. All right. That's a 250 batting average. That is above league average. So compared to where we were in the homestand with runners in scoring position, I will take that all day every day.

Speaking of, I have a couple options for you guys for the unsung hero of the game. I'm going to get to mine a little bit later. I got three options. And if you want to add another one, just mention the comments. But I got Koyang, Domkan, Zone, or the bullpen as a whole. So pick who you guys think was your unsung hero. just type one, two, or three in the chat, and then it'll kind of populate with the percentages there.

But in terms of the offense, guys, there were some bad at bats. I'm not going to sugarcoat it anything like that. Julio has a bad day. Randy or Rosa Rana has a bad day, three K's. Luke Grayley doesn't look great. We can talk about the pinch hit situation to Rob Reff Snyder a little bit as well. I think Cole Young was decent. Just getting that first run for Seattle is a,

pretty important moment in this game. Because, you know, you're at the second inning. It's, you're still trying to feel out what's going on. You know Kirby is dealing. But you get, you get Randy on. And then Nicole Young at bat just, I think it was first pitch, maybe it was second pitch, goes right up the middle. And Randy gets around second to score. And then later on, same kind of thing, Dom Canzone with a great single on the ground to left field or Jose Fermin and Josh Naylor scores after he gets on base and steals second and all that jazz. So that was great to see from Josh Naylor. But I do think that the Mariners aren't slugging a ton right now.

And that's kind of the difference between where they were on offensively last year versus offensively now. And that's going to need to change. Don't get me wrong. But if three of your four hits are scoring runs, I think you're in a good spot where, you know, everyone's complaining about the clutch stats and everything. Again, if you're doing it in moments where you need it the most, it's not going to happen every time.

We know that. But if you're doing it in these moments to score runs more than the moments where there's not much going on, the Mariners are going to be successful. They're going to start hitting home runs. I'm going to talk a little bit about Julio because he's the one that I'm a little worried about right now. It just seems like for whatever reason he's not driving the baseball, hitting way too many ground balls. And that's going to be something to monitor because, you know, him and Cal,

we've talked about a lot in the early portion of the season. Both have struggled. You know, Julio's actually hitting for an okay average. It's not like he's completely struggling on that front, but it's just a lot of ground balls beating out infield singles, ground balls to the outfield. He's not driving the ball in the air. And it's kind of the opposite with Cal Rale. It's a lot of pop-ups for Cal. And then every once in a while he does kind of, you know, connect with one and that's where he's got his power from. But overall, the offense just isn't fully clicking yet. I do believe it's still going to get there.

And hopefully we'll get to that point sooner rather than later. But until then, you're going to have to kind of piece together offensive performances. And they end up doing that one today. So again, I'm not going to complain too much about a win, but there are some things that, you know, I'm keeping my eye on moving forward and this one. All right, unsung hero for today. let's see i'm going to go bullpen just because you do kind of get a little stressed with Gabe spire coming in uh in that seventh inning and then bizardo having to finish that out um or sorry

because braction came out the seventh spire comes out in the eighth uh and then uh bizardo has to close out after spire does get that out um before that ends up happening but uh you know he comes out Weatherholt singles, Herrera singles, and then you do get the Burles and strikeout, which is a huge moment in this game because if he gets on base, you have no outs. Bizarro has to get three outs then instead of just two. And then you get, of course, Eduardo Bizarro gets Jordan Walker to ground and double play, which I think was probably the biggest moment in this game because that was when St. Louis was threatening.

And again, like you compare that to when the Mariners had runners in the scoring position. I know they went two for eight, but, you know, that's a big moment for St. Louis as well. and they could have easily, you know, compare that to maybe Cole Young or Dom Canzon's at bat earlier today. And it's a different kind of, it's a different game that we're talking about. And then, of course, Munoz and the ninth does get, you know, the church single. That's right. It was Nathan Church to hit the single. Again, the ball is literally about to bounce.

And I know everyone kind of points to the blown save on Wednesday with Moon. Munoz. The previous two outings, he was fantastic. And then, of course, the one before that was in San Diego where he was bad. But I think if you take away just an amazing piece of hitting from a really good hitter in Nick Kurtz, Munoz has been really good for a week now after everything happened with St. Louis, or sorry, not San Diego. So I'm starting to gain a lot more confidence with Andres Munoz moving forward.

I hope that's the case with you guys as well. So we'll end up kind of seeing how that plays out a little bit later on. Remember, day game tomorrow. I think Brian Wu is taking them out against Matthew Libra Tour. So I would love some length from Brian Wu. If you can get through seven, that'd be great. You do kind of have to use a lot of your big guys tonight. I would love to maybe leave a couple of them available for the third game of the series as well, if at all possible.

But Mariners win this one, three to two. We'll talk to you guys tomorrow. 1115 first pitch time, Pacific time, I should. say. So remember, it's a day game on Saturday. It's kind of weird. But we'll be with you guys right after that. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in today. Really appreciate it. Mariner's Postcast, Mariners get the dub. We'll talk to you guys tomorrow. Have a good one.