Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners SWEPT AND SHUTOUT against Texas Rangers

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

Anders and Chris talk about the final game of a three-game series between the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers. Bryan Woo wasn't at his best, the offense stunk, and the Mariners are swept for the first time in 2026. This isn't the best.     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! 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. Anderson is Chris Crawford with you. I didn't know you were going live. This isn't fair. He didn't say anything I was going to hit the button. This is unfair. Oh, that's actually fantastic. I was trying to get that little rant in before without you knowing, but it delayed itself

quite a bit. Yeah. But hi guys. Welcome to the Mariners podcast. The Mariners get swept. They lose their fifth straight game. They continue to not be able to swing the bat off. offensively, their offense is bad, their defense is bad, their pitching is okay.

But Chris, just quick thoughts before we have the intro. Don't do that to me again. This is the Mariners Postcast. Your instant game reaction for the Seattle Mariners. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome all. one come all join this suck fest that is barrenner baseball in april as it always is um they get swept

uh was it three zero second straight or not second straight but second time getting shut out on the road trip um they have a day off tomorrow they come back home to face um i believe it's houston yes for four games chris uh just before we get into this game specifically um We'll talk about Brian Wu. We'll talk about, you know, the bats just not waking up. But overall, I'm going to ask you a kind of macro question here. Okay. I know on one hand you can think it's early.

Like you obviously are not saying that it's, you know, season over or anything like that. But what are you seeing now that is concerning to you? What is something that matters? because I think it's more like trends more than anything else instead of statistics. So what are those trends that you're seeing that worry you? Because I think a lot of Mariners fans are like, okay, when is it time to start, you know, throwing the, not panic button, but just like urgency button, I guess. Boy, does that bring me back to a certain manager who didn't like that.

When is the panic button question asked, if you may remember a couple of years, not even a couple years. Yeah, I guess it was a couple years ago now. Real quick. It's great to have you back, Anders. We miss you. Thank you. I want to apologize real quick to some folks about the last couple shows.

My Wi-Fi went out in the middle, and I read in the comments that some people were really not happy about it. And for those who were really upset about it, I just want to let you know, I got paid anyway. Ha. Ha. What's concerning about this is just that we've seen the movie before, Anders. We have seen the movie before where they play catch up. And sometimes it gets them into the postseason, not very often, but sometimes. And sometimes that effort to use the basketball term when they're down 20, right?

And they make the run. Well, you exhaust so much energy making that run that you're just too tired to put the thing away. And we have not seen the Mariners be able to accomplish what we want them to accomplish. And in large part, I do think poor starts have something to do with that. Maybe not everything. And again, I mentioned this yesterday. I mentioned it the show before. I'll mention it going forward. No, this is not necessarily predictive, but it doesn't make it any less disappointing and it doesn't make it any less hurtful because

you have to go nine and four now to play catch up to get back to even. Nine and four baseball is really hard to do, Anders. It's really difficult. If you did nine and four, you would break win records by a considerable margin. It is not easy to do. This is frustrating. This is a other loss that you look at and you say, yeah, this is the better team on paper, but they don't look anywhere close to actually playing like a team that should be competing for a world championship. Yeah, and that's the tough part is I feel like this year was one of the first years in my lifetime that the Mariners have gone into a season with expectations.

And that's why it feels so much worse because maybe going into last year, you're like, oh, same old Mariners, you know, this is what we expected coming into this year. For the slow start, I mean. But this year, it just because it's that much lower than what your expectations were, that's why the panic button is being set in amongst fans earlier than normal. All I got to say is I don't see many parts of the baseball team right now that are playing well enough.

Right. And that's the tough part. It's one thing if you're dropping close games because your manager, blowing it. It's one thing if you're dropping close games because you're starting pitching just can't get through six innings. It's one thing if you're dropping close games because maybe your pitching's elite, but your offense can't do anything. Oh, and all three of those things are happening. Sure. It's like, okay, what can we lean on to go on a run here? Right. So that's the part where I get a little bit worried moving forward. But let's zoom into this game.

Brian, we always start with the start. What are your thoughts on his outing today? So he ends up with five innings of one earned run baseball, and that's not too shabby. I think he looked worse than this. And five innings of three-run baseball was probably deserved. And I'll give you my unsung hero really early. Rob Reff Snyder for robbing that Homer and having a couple of good match today.

Good for Rob Reff Snyder. but outside of outside of a couple of pretty good pitches there Brian Wu didn't have it today. It was not a very good effort. And he got saved a little bit by the defense, not just a ref Snyder catch, but some really nicely turned double plays

for the Mariner defense. One not so nice play when he was in the game as well. Welcome to Seattle, Conner, Joe. What a heck of a debut for you, my band. But I thought he was pretty shaky. I thought the command was off. If he didn't fool guys, only the two strikeouts. I don't have the swings in this in front of me,

but it couldn't be more than a handful or so. It sure didn't look at it anyway. I expect more from Brian Wu. And when five innings of one run earned baseball, and even five innings of three run baseball, are you at your easily worst for the season? You're a really good pitcher. Like, you're really, really good pitcher.

But Brian Wu, Brian, were you a good pitcher? Ryan, Brian Wu did not do, he's not the reason they lost, but I wouldn't say he was so good that he comes away with a hard luck loss. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I agree with you saying that that line actually probably is flattering to him, to be completely honest. Right. He had a lot of hard contact today, guys. He had a lot of fly ball outs that were, you know, either warning track or warning track adjacent costs, including the Robb, refs Snyder, Rob, as you're saying. So, yeah, I think you're right.

And while the Connor Joe play was tough, it's, I'm not expecting him to, you know, do much. So that's not something where I'm like, oh, what are we doing? It's, and it kind of ends up kind of his line looks similar after that. But I did like the little still shot, which will be our podcast cover, by the way. Mitch Garber trying to reach to catch it and he still can't. Anywho, yeah, offensively. the order continues to struggle. They sat Josh Naylor today.

What are your thoughts on that? Just to get him a rest, it seems like, to kind of get a reset for him. Cowell still just yikes. And Julio's really starting to not be great as well. So real quick, before we get to our commercial stuff, Bullpen did a nice job today, too. I thought Jose Ferrear looked good, Bizarro did a good job. And Gabe Spire looked, I think, the best that was. we've seen him this year as well. So that's encouraging as well. The thing that I think has been

the best for this Seattle Mariner team has honestly been the bullpen. I've been really impressed with what I have seen from all of those guys. Which is crazy, right? Yeah, it's disappointing when, and the rotation has mostly been fine. Yeah. The lineup, we'll talk about it. Yeah, well, we'll talk about that here after our, uh, quick commercial break, but, uh, I appreciate all you guys coming in and venting with us on this midday Mariners game. Um, they drop. They drop. the final game in Texas. They get swept. They lose their fifth in a row.

They are now four and nine on the season. Not good. Not good. Hopefully a turnaround is coming, but we'll see what ends up happening. We'll be right back to discuss the offense or lack thereof, Chris Crawford. How about that?

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Download the GameTime app, create an account, use code locked on for $20 off your first purchase. Again, create an account and redeem code L-O-C-E-D-O-N for $20 off. Download the GameTime app today. Welcome back to the Mariners Postcast. Mayors get swept in Texas by the Rangers. a team that was already kind of struggling a little bit, but we're the get right game all of a sudden, I guess, because that's kind of where we're at at this point in the season.

There's a four and nine on the season, and a big part of that is due to their lack of offense, Chris. Do you want to go positives or negatives first? I'll go to the positive, and my positive was, there was some decent at bats tonight. And you know what? The positive actually leads to a negative, because they draw a couple of walks in the first inning.

And McKenzie Gore, here's the other thing I'll say for the positives. Have the Mariners had some bad luck over these 13 games facing pitchers who are at their very best? Absolutely they have. They have faced some really good arms who have been great. And McKenzie Gore, who I was thrilled when they pulled him out of the game, was awesome today. And you saw why that guy was easily the best pitching prospect in baseball, not that long ago today. Like that curveball in particular was.

absolutely filthy, a lot of guys wouldn't have hit it. I know nobody wants to hear that right now because this is a long sample two weeks of baseball where they have just looked like absolute hot garbage, but you do have to give some credit to the other team sometimes. That being said, the couple of walks, I think actually ended up hurting them because I thought a lot of guys went up to the plate after that looking to draw a free pass. And their lack of aggressiveness put them in two strike counts. And when you're in two strike counts and you're facing a curveball like that, you are well, you know what, and far from home, my friend, because you have no chance of that thing with two strikes on you. You have to protect. You have to be looking fastball

as well. And it's just not going to work out. It's just not. And after the first inning where you draw a couple of walks and you have a couple of good plate appearances like Julio drew a nice walk, ref Snyder, who we mentioned drew a nice walk. After that, it was pretty lethargic. And you go, I believe something like four innings without a hit, something like that. A long time, I know that, because you only get two today. You get one from Mitch Garver and you get one from Cole Young. I mean, they just, they look bad. They look bad.

And just because, again, it's not predictive. Do I have confidence that they'll figure it out in June? Sure. Do I have confidence that this team is going to start hitting against the Astros this weekend? Absolutely freaking not. No, no. they've done nothing to give me confidence in that regard. And that's the concerning thing.

Because, yeah, they started out four and eight last year and then things turned around, right? What if they don't turn around as fast? What if you turn around, but it's more of a slower process here and another team in the AO West or teams in the AL Central and ALE get so hot that you put yourself out of that home field advantage discussion again. This office just has to get better quickly. and you know what love Edgar, love Kevin Siteser. These guys got to get it on the ball.

They have to get it on the ball because they cannot keep hitting like this if they are actually going to be contenders for winning home field advantage. And I want home field advantage, Anders. Home field advantage not only gives you the best chance to win the World Series, it gets us home games. We've been so long without a lot of playoff home games, man. I want as many of those as possible. possible. And if you play like this, Jim Mora playoffs times 30. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good point.

And to your point about kind of tipping your cap to the opposing starters, yes, but I also think, like I'm a little tired of, you know, giving them their props. Like at some point, like you said, the sample size is becoming too big where what's the common denominator here, Chris Crawford? It's that this offense just isn't good right now. Right. A thousand percent. And no, I agree with you. I think you have, some really good pitchers. Mackenzie Gore, we've talked about it many times. He's a fantastic pitcher. He was in the one Soto deal for a reason. So that's like that guy's a really good, really good player. I think the Rangers did well getting him into their rotation. Sure.

Offensively, what looks different than to me, again, I'm not going to go to the nitty gritty and look at specific, you know, predictive outcomes or anything like that. What looks different for me this year than what I saw last year, even when they were struggling last year was there was an element of battle and there was an element of grinding out A-Bs, getting pitchers pitch counts up that I don't really see with this group right now. There's occasions when it happens. I know they got McKenzie Gore and like,

I believe it was the first inning actually. Maybe it was the second inning where they got him kind of, you know, a couple walks. Yeah, it was the first inning. Okay. And just really grinding out at bats, even though you don't get, you know, a run from it or results, so to speak. It's a domino effect. Not only does it give you confidence next time you're up there

because you're not getting blown by. It makes them get into their bullpen quicker. You know, you can draw walks. It just, it's another option to get on base. I don't know. I don't feel that much of an element. This is all just vibes for me right now, though I'm saying. Of course. That's the thing that I noticed differently because you're going to go through slumps with the, you know, the bat-bip and all that stuff. So that's the biggest thing I notice. I'm going to go, Jose Ferrer for my unsung hero. I just, I made a couple points about it early on in the season that even though his first couple outings actually didn't look great results wise, I think he's looked a lot better

than what the results that he's getting. And the last couple of outings have kind of proven that because it's, it's, it's good to have another guy that you trust in there. And it seems like he's kind of falling into that category. but man, we've talked about it so many times. He relies on defense and this defense just isn't good right now. Brendan Donovan, another just noodle arm throw from third base. I mean, he makes some plays.

Yeah. But it's, it's, this defense isn't good enough, period. I'm a start, that's something that I'm actually right now pushing the panic button on. Yeah. I totally agree. Because that's not something that goes through slumps. Defense doesn't slump. You should be playing good defense every day.

I hate to do this, but I'm going to. can we stop the hegiography with Perry Hill like that oh my gosh what a what a savior Perry Hill is because if Perry Hill is a savior then how crappy were these guys before right because they just look absolutely dreadful outside of Julio Cole Young and some moments from Big Dumper this defense has looked just wretched and it's not something that just all of a sudden improves guys like Usually it gets worse as guys get tired and as guys, you know, begin to pick up minor injuries. And as guys just kind of wear out. This is concerning.

And it was my number one concern for this team coming into the year. And Colt Emerson, be ready, bud, be ready because not only can I think you help this team offensively, you might be the better, best defensive infield on, excuse me, best defensive infielder on the team the moment you get up with all due respect to Cole Young. man. This defense stinks. It's bad. It's really bad. So. Anders, real quick, did you see, because I know you had a bunch of stuff going on? Definitely. Did you see the throw from Connor Joe to Mitch Garver? Yeah. Is that more on Garver or more on Joe? See, I was taking Garver when I first thought. I thought so too. I think that's a play I want my catcher to make, man. Like, I wasn't a great

bro. No, it wasn't a good throw. But he's a first baseman and he's charging the ball. I don't know. It wasn't like he sailed it or anything, though. And if maybe you got to, if you're not going to make that play, maybe you got to step off and let that one run score. Not that it would have mattered. The Mariners weren't going to score a run today. But I think that air was more on Garber than Connor Joe.

But boy, what a miserable debut for Connor Joe. By the way, for those who missed it, Victor Robles goes on the injured list. Carlos Vargas on the 60 days. So we're not going to see him for a while. now maybe i wouldn't shock me if that's one that carries over into 2027 lat strains have a tendency to do that there but boy you strike out in your first abat you hit into a double play at least you hit it kind of hard but and and uh you make are credited with the air that scores the two runs so uh

where did you come from where did you go where did you come from connor joe should we just end on that i feel like we yep all right talk to you guys tomorrow or not tomorrow why i'll talk to guys on friday It's been good.