Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners STRUGGLE with the bats in loss to Baltimore Orioles

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Anderson Hirst and Christopher Crawford break down another tough offensive outing for the Seattle Mariners. What has happened to the offense we all thought had made strides this season? How was Emerson Hancock's outing? How worried are we about the bullpen?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Wonderful PistachiosGet snackin' and get crackin' with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit WonderfulPistachios.com to learn more! 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 for 50% off your first year. FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED 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. This offense sucks, man. This offense sucks. The Mariners lose by scoring only two runs against a terrible Baltimore Oil's pitching staff. They've scored, what,

five runs in their past three games five runs umerson hancock pitch as well um but the offense just can't get anything going uh at all uh welcome to the merriters postcast my name's anderson hurst christopher crawford to my left here appreciate you guys tuning in and joining in our misery uh because geez this one just felt like an old fart yeah from like from the beginning and it just it's reminds me so much of 2024, man. It's just like, oh, we're back, except not the elite pitching, although Hancock was pretty good tonight. But we'll talk about another bullpen blow up, sort of.

I don't know if you can call it a blow up. Yeah, screwed it up. Hancock's outing was good, and then we'll talk about this offense. I think that'll be the majority of today's episode. But Chris Crawford, initial thoughts after a tough one. I'm going to let Agent Michael Scarn speak for me right now. That sucked, man. That was such a horrible offensive effort after another horrible offensive ever.

But by the way, happy belated birthday. I hope you had a wonderful one. I didn't burn the studio down somehow while I was going so low. Thanks for holding down the fort. Yeah. You're very, very welcome. It stinks because Emerson Hancock was fantastic tonight. He made one mistake, literally one mistake.

Yeah. And that's all it takes now. And this is why the person who wrote that this feels like 2024, that's what it feels like right now that every run the other team scores feels like. Dagger doesn't even feel like the right word. It feels like just throat slit every single time the run scores. And maybe you're praying that you go to the world's best surgeon to get that throat slits tied together because it's just not good enough. It's not good enough to have these kind of offensive efforts against a team that I know the broadcast. was talking about how much better they're playing. Yeah, they played well against

AA Montgomery. They played well against the White Sox against pretty much everybody else. They've stunk. This is a bad baseball team right now. Specifically a bad pitching staff. That's the thing that's been dominating you. And that's the thing. And like, look, Sagano was good last night. I will give a ton of credit to Sagano. He located the entire kitchen sink and, you know, he's been pretty good this year. Yeah. He Polvich isn't good. He has good swing and miss stuff. But he has abhorrent command. There's a reason why his ERA, and I know pitcher ERA, blah, blah, blah, but when it's over five, you know, and if it's over five and not like Emerson Hancock

where it's based on one disaster of a start, you're not a great pitcher. And you're certainly someone you should score more than one flipping run against. It's just not good enough. Yeah, I'm struggling to come up with more superlatives for what this offense is right now. It's just what happened to it. I guess we'll go right into it now. because I think that's the main story. Like Hancock was good. We'll go through his outing. I think he has a good, like at least somewhat of a future in this rotation for now.

But the offense, man. Like we spent the first month, six weeks of the season kind of being like, okay, this offense feels different. They're battling. They're making pitchers work. None of them are getting through six innings very easily. They're having to, you know, use a bunch of. of bullpen arms just to get through a game.

Even in losses, it was like the guys are battling up there. It's just the exact opposite now. It just seems like way too many uncompetitive at bats. It sucks when you have to play one of Jorge Polanco or Mitch Garver right now. Yeah, for sure. Because both of those guys are automatic outs. Solano was getting better. Not anymore.

He's an automatic out again. Cole Young, fine. like you can tell he just came up from AAA. He's going through his growing pains. I think he's been great defensively. Yeah, he's looked really good with the glove. And that's been something that we should have missed at second base for a long time. No question.

So that's a positive, but he's not doing much with a bat. I'll tell you that there's not much else besides Big Dumper today. And even Big Dumber has two hits. He has two K's as well. I had a little bit of an off day as well, which is weird for him saying that. But I just, I don't know, man. JP, I guess has been pretty good lately. that's about it sure the approach from jp was really good tonight did get some hitable pitches that he didn't

drive and you know that's just not jp's game right now he is clearly just geared for contact unless he's over down the middle of the plate like you know you talk about Julio and Cal well he didn't mention hulio specifically but like they combined to go four for eight and they get an rbi and a run scored as well if there's ever been an unimpressive four for eight yeah an rbi from those two It's that one. And look, Cal got pretty lucky on both of his hits. They just kind of fall into the right spot and good for him for making contact. Same with Julio and Infield single.

And then a little blooper. That hit ended up being huge because Randy Orozarena hits a sack fly on that next play. So if the runner doesn't get to third, we don't, I think we're talking about a shutout again. Yeah. Close to it. Just not good enough. Just not good enough. And it just goes to show you particularly big dumper, but also all include Julio in this.

when they're not going, this team isn't even close to good enough. If you do not get big efforts from those guys, this is not the Dodgers or the Phillies or, you know, the Yankees where if they don't get production from their stars, you've got a chance to still score four to five runs. If those guys aren't going, and I mean going, you're getting one or two. You're getting one or two. And now we had a moment where we could say Polanco was part of that. We had a moment where Rowdy Tellez was kind of.

a part of that. And sure, to let's hit the home run yesterday. Two atrocious at bats tonight. That lasted bat in the ninth. That ball should have been hit 600 freaking fate. It's just not good enough. And it's way, way too star-reliant right now. Yeah, I just, I don't know if I want to get it. So one thing that was helping this offense for the first month or so of the season was the bottom of the lineup was hitting. Yeah. And it was the Leo Rivas's, sure. now been optioned. It's now been, it was Ben Williamson for a little bit. For a little bit. It was Miles Master Boni a little bit. J.P. when he was batting in the nine hole. But then, as soon as you move JP up, Miles Master Bonney hasn't been the same player. You've called up Cole

Young to try and fix that second base spot, but him and Ben Williamson have just not been good offensive players. They're either, I'd say borderline elite defensive players as a tandem. And it's made the the infield defense look a lot better than I thought it would be. I would agree with that. But offensively, it's just not it right now for those. And I understand they're two rookies. They're two guys that probably shouldn't be everyday players on a playoff team. Yeah.

Oh, I would agree with that. I mean, I guess Young is one I could like make an argument for just because how good he was in Tacoma and his prospect category. And he's like he's only played in what, six games? Yeah. It's a very small sample. Yeah. I have been concerned.

Now, I will also point this out to everybody. And Ty and Cole, we can speak more on this a little bit during their show as well. Real quick, I want to remind everybody to please donate to their Feeding America. Oh, yes. Please, please, please. That's such a wonderful thing that they do. And it helps such a great cause. Link in the description.

Please, please, please go check that out. Young has struggled at every level to begin his career. Every single level he's joined, there has. been an adjustment period. That is far from unheard of. That's a lot of prospects that I can tell you who are very, very good major league players right now who have scuffled to start. Am I concerned, though, based on the small sample? Yeah, he doesn't appear to be making great contact with anything. I think he hit like a decent little line drive foul today, but outside of that, it's been mostly bloopers. The approach has been fine. And again, the defense, I think it's worth

pointing out how good Ryan Bliss was playing defensively for this team before his injury. It's nice to have that only. I'll do respect to Ryan Bliss. I love my big beefy boys and I love my short kings too. Cole Young has infinitely more offensive upside than Ryan Bliss. Infinitely. Like that's slightly hyperbolic, but there's no doubt he didn't get the job done tonight. The bottom of the lineup was really bad, really, really bad tonight.

And again, it just goes to show you that this lineup isn't good enough to overcome so, so, games at best from Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez. Yeah, and Drew, like Young-O-A-S-13 at Bats, guys got to give him a break. Yeah, we're not drawing any conclusions here. Real quick, real quick, sorry to interrupt the Daily Show. It's a daily show. We only recap what we see. And there's no denying that Cole Young's one of the top 40 prospects in baseball,

almost unanimously. It has a almost assuredly bright future in this league. I say that as a Seattle Mariner fan, but you know what I mean? Yeah. It's very hard for me to see him not being at least an average regular, but we can only talk about what we've seen tonight and what we saw tonight wasn't good enough. Yeah. Completely agree.

Julio goes two per four has an infield single and then kind of a, I don't know, loop single. But, you know, just, yeah, to center field. But I mentioned this to you before we went live. It's the eye test for me right now. now. I don't get a lot of confidence when he gets to the plate, especially when he gets in a big situation like he did in the, what was it, seventh inning. Or maybe it was, yeah, it was the seventh inning. And then like just, I don't know, his, that's when he kind of grounded out and they called JP out at home. So I'm just curious to, you know, what your thoughts are because he's going to

draw attention wherever he goes. I get that he has a value defensively and value on the base paths. At this point, the team needs the bat at this point. And it's kind of hard, at least for me to watch. He seems to have a hole in his swing on the inside, anything hard and inside. He just can't get his barrel to. He can't turn on that inside pitch as well as I've seen maybe like a big dumper, obviously. But I'm curious on what you're kind of evaluation of him, because I know you're a big fan of his. Sure. Let's just kind of open that up.

Yeah. And real quick, most people are a pretty big fan of his. Like, this is it like me being like a, the overwhelming consensus in Major League Baseball is still that this guy is pretty darn good. I wanted to ask you real quick since you brought it up. Was that indisputably out on J.B. Crawford at home plate? I don't think so.

But it seemed they did it quickly. Like, they challenged it. and it was like 15 seconds before they came back and said it was overturned. So maybe they got an angle in, where is it, New York, that we didn't. Yeah. But to me, it seemed pretty dang close. It was really close to me. And that's, yeah.

Why have, why make the whole indisputable thing if that's not the case? If it's going to be a judgment call, then just tell me it's a judgment call. Don't tell me that it has to be indisputable because that's clearly not true. Now, on to Julio, my big concern with Julio Rodriguez is, he's too afraid of striking out right now. And what's weird to say for a guy who struck out four times over the last few games, I think it's actually five because he struck out tonight. He hasn't had an extra base hit since June 20, or excuse me, May 27th.

That's a lot of baseball games. Now, in between that, there's a lot of two-hit games. There's only one hitless game in between that. Yeah. But Julio Rodriguez just looks like he's not comfortable driving the baseball. And to your point about the inside pitch, I don't think it's a hole in his swing. I think it's a hole in his approach.

Because what he's trying to do there, and it will look like it's late. It's not late. In my personal opinion, it's not late. It's what he's trying to do is he's trying to inside out that baseball and so that he can drive it to the opposite field. Because that's where Julio Rodriguez feels most comfortable driving the baseball is opposite field. Well, the whole reason Julio Rodriguez turned around last year is because, because he stopped doing that. He started trying to turn on the ball and hitting it over the fence.

Like Julio Rodriguez isn't the reason this offense is bad in my opinion. And to your point, you know, the situation, I don't have a ton of confidence in Julio when he comes up to the plate and late inning situations. I'm not like, woe is me. I'm more excited. I'm hoping that he can do something. Yeah.

Anybody who's hoping that he's not going to do something probably has a miserable life, but that's okay. being miserable is okay sometimes but the whole thing for me with Julio Rodriguez is when he's at his best yes he's using the entire field and there's no way you can pitch him when he's at his best but when he's really at his best and when he feels comfortable driving the baseball down the left field line or over the left field fence and right now to me Julio Rodriguez doesn't look comfortable doing that yeah and I wonder if like we all kind of praised the approach that Kevin Siteser and

Edgar Martinez brought to this like, okay, stay up the middle and then go the other way. And for someone like Julio, who thrived on just like ambushing and attacking anything that he saw, it kind of took that away from him so that he wouldn't strike out as much. Right. I wonder if it's had that effect where it's like, okay, he's trying to go the opposite way with everything. I don't think there's any doubt about it. I think that there is no doubt in my mind that strikeouts were in Julio's head. and I think we're all a little complicit here

because we complained so much about strikeouts. Wait, and don't get me wrong. I don't like strikeouts. Better things happen when you put the ball in play most of the time. You know, you avoid a double play if you strike out. You avoid a runner getting thrown out at third, blah, blah, blah. But they're just outs. What we have, we're concerned about as Mariners fans is too many people were getting out.

Yeah. It just so happened. They were strikeouts. But too many people were getting out. I don't care if Julio Rodriguez strikes out 170 times. If he's hitting 30 to 35 homers, hell, I'll go for 25. They don't pace right now. He's at like 22, 23, something like that.

It's not way off. That's not the Julio we expected, though. No. That's not the 800 OPS guy that had his rookies. Well, that's what I'm saying. The big thing for me for Julio is not just getting back to those 25 to 30 homer. rates, more doubles, more balls down the line, putting the ball into the gaps. And look, infield hits for Julio Rodriguez are infinitely more valuable than any other

player on the Seattle Marrass because it gives them a chance to steal second, steal third. You know, he produced that win in that extra inning game. The ability. On Sunday, yeah. It's a chopper, but he steals second and he steals second so easily, he makes it to third as easily as possible. But he's got to start driving the baseball more consistently. I completely agree.

Just like he's turned into a single-sitter once again, which is the thing we saw last year. And it's great that he's doing that and striking out less. Yep. But he's not walking anymore, which kind of, like, those are the two things you kind of associate with putting the ball in play a little bit. So, yeah, you just got to drive the baseball.

If he starts to do that, I think we're in good shape. Okay, let's go to Hancock. But first, I want to talk to you guys a little bit about some monarch month. If you ever check your bank account and wonder where did all my money go between dining out, online shopping and entertainment, it's easy to lose track. That's where Monarch Money comes in, your personal CFO giving you full visibility and control over your finances. Monarch Money isn't just a budgeting app. And Anders, I'm going to ask you to stop saying that. Stop saying it's just a budgeting app.

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But unfortunately, because of how bad the offense was, we kind of had to push the lead by how good Emerson Hancock was tonight. What kind of, what went into his start tonight? impressed you. So much. And this was probably the best stuff I have seen from Emerson, Hancock. And look, he was really good against Boston too. But even in that start, and you know, this is a little bit revisionist history. There were still some moments where it's like, oh, you got away with a little one here. Yeah. The only pitch he could have gotten away with tonight, he didn't. It was absolutely mollywopped by Adley Rutchman, who must have taken to heart what I was

saying about him no longer being as good as big dumper. It's still true. But he showed that there is still that raw power in there. That ball was absolutely Maliwap. Outside of that, Emerson Hancock was dialing. He was once again, 96 to 97 miles per hour with his fastball. He threw some really good sweepers today. He was hitting corners. He was changing hitters eye levels a lot tonight.

That high outside strike was one that Baltimore really struggled with. I think Baltimore also struggled with an inconsistent umpire because, of course, they did. So did the Seattle Mariners. give me the robots before you give me air. Apparently it's coming next year. I'm trying to. Yeah, I sure hope so. But Emerson Hancock was fantastic tonight.

I think I also have to give credit to Gabe Spire. I thought he did a night job. Does issue that walk. That pitch from Carlos Vargas was atrocious. It's a breaking ball right in the hitter's path. And it ends up being the reason you lose this game. Now, you can also say the reason they lose this game is the only score two runs, right? Yeah.

But a better pitch there from Carlos Vargas and you get out of that. inning. You absolutely get out of that inning, but that's a breaking ball to Heston Kirstad, a talented, but player who's been inconsistent at best, it could have been Kestyn Heara hitting at the play. Boy, that's a shout out. By the way, the fact there was a Heston, Kira and Kirsten Hesstead, I can't do it. It's so ridiculous. They were playing at the same time. But yeah, as Brett brings up, that's an O2 pitch that is a 40 grade breaking ball that just breaks right into the middle and perfectly into Kierstad's swing path.

It's got to be better. It's got to be better. Yeah, to me with Vargas, the issue was the four-pitch walk to Kobe Maygo. You were brought in to go get the Ritey out and a Ritey who struggled a lot, especially against Ritees. And you can't locate a single pitch. And I think that's what led to him using the breaking ball with an O2 because it's like, I can't locate my sinker right now.

So I, oh, yeah, wasn't good. You know, this is kind of the bumps with him because his command is just not there. Right. He has good stuff. He throws 97, 98 with movement. Lots of movement, yeah. The secondary pitches still are not really there. And his command really isn't there.

And sometimes he can, you know, just dominate a lineup if they struggle with that one pitch. But like tonight, when you're, you have a four-pitch walk and then give up that triple. Yeah. Also, shouldn't have been a triple. Dylan Moore, just, you're not a gold lover. No, not in my head. I'm so glad you reminded me to bring that up because if Lioti Tavaris is in right field

in that situation, that ball gets fielded so much quicker. Dylan Moore just doesn't have great instant. And a better throw, and a better throw. There's no question that Dylan Moore just flat out cannot throw. Boy, there are some weak arms on the Seattle Mariners. I was just thinking about that. Polanco just flat out can't throw right now. Cole Young is not going to be known for his canon of an arm.

J.P. Crawford ranks among the worst short stops in baseball and arm strength. Even Ben Williamson doesn't really seem like he has like a cannon at third. It's certainly good enough at third, but it's not the strongest throwing arm is, well, probably the Leo. Yeah. Yeah. I put Leotie in that category as well. He can throw a cannon every once in a while, but Randy, absolutely not. It looks like he lobs it in every single time and gets the ball.

It doesn't look like he's comfortable throwing the baseball. But did make a terrific catch tonight that helped. Yeah. So that was nice to see. What were we even talking about? The Dillan Moore play on defense. Oh, yeah. That's a play that needs to be made.

But it's also a play that should have never happened because don't walk Kobe Mayo. Don't, Kobe Mayo probably has a bright future in his league. One of the best power hitting minor leaguers in a long, long time. But you can't, you can't walk Kobe Mayo. Yeah, I'm with you there. We're at that point of the night, ladies and gentlemen, after another loss, I thought the vibes were turning around. I had my birthday little outing, George Kirby.

Get it? It's like mayonnaise. So like, oh, really? I didn't catch that last time. So if you take away the mayo, hold the mayo. I'll leave that. That's good. That's like really good.

Remember that one. Kent Tremendous, if you're watching this, I'm willing to come right for one of your shows. Oh, man. Well, oh, it makes a good point. This makes me miss Robeson really. Yeah. I mean, those are you guys that are better in both offensively and defensive situation. And it kind of reminded me because I totally forgot about them at this point.

That's one of the reasons why this lineup is so short right now. Sure. But, man, your offense has to do better against probably one of the worst pitching staffs in the whole league, which is one of the reasons why that Baltimore is as bad as they are right now, and I've already fired their manager. So, yeah, you've already lost a series. So please don't go out and get swept at home against this team. Please don't.

Like, just don't. Brian was up tomorrow against, I mean, arguably their best pitcher, Zach Eflin? I might go to Gagano at this point. But Eflin is probably the most talented of those pitchers. And it's starting to get a little better. But, I mean, he's going to, well, we all know he's going to go seven innings. So one run, you know, two hits against the Mariners tomorrow.

So hopefully me saying that makes it incorrect and doesn't happen. All right, guys. Really appreciate you guys hanging out with us. I love doing this postcast every single night, having people to kind of share these feelings with and kind of get through the day makes it awesome. It's great. Once again, check out and please donate to the Food Lifeline.

That's what you would call it, Cope and Ty are doing. They have such a cool program. Check out any of our socials, both on Locked on, Myself, Crawford, Ty, Colby. They all have it all up there. So it makes a huge difference. Even if you can't donate anything, just make sure you're subscribed to the channel and that will help us out a tonne. So really appreciate you guys. Have a good rest of your night.

And thank you so much once again, Crawford, for helping me out while I went to the game yesterday. So it really means a lot to me. So it's like mayo. Like it's what you put on a sandwich. And like people say hold the mayo. But like in a baseball term, it'd be like holding mayo off getting to the base. All right. See you tomorrow.

Like Mayo.