Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST - Seattle Mariners WIN first game of series vs San Diego Padres

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

Anders and Chris break down the excellent start from Logan Evans against a really good Padres lineup and more. Is the offense back after a tough home stand?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Amazon Fire TV Stick 4kDid you know your Fire TV is also an Xbox? Turn any TV into your gaming and entertainment hub with Fire TV Stick 4K devices — no console required. Head to Amazon.com/firetvlockedon to get started. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription and compatible controller required. 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 LOCKEDONCOLLEGE at monarchmoney.com 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 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. Well, Los Mariners win, game one of the Vetter Cup, question mark. As the Mariners win 5 to 1 against San Diego on Friday night, big win on Apple TV. The offense kind of gets going a little bit. huge start from Logan Evans.

But what's the first thing you think of Chris Crawford? Anderson Hurst here with Chris Crawford. What's the big story tonight for you? I'm sorry to everyone who was trying to watch Severance tonight. I understand that it's a really good television show, but tonight you'd had to get the Seattle Mariners. No, it's a game that felt like you had to win. In part because of how things have gone,

the one in five homestand, which, you know, I think they played better than a one in five homestand. But the results are the results. You won one of those six games, excuse me. And everything was so much in favor for you tonight compared to maybe not so much in favor for you for these next two. So you have avoided a disaster. You have avoided something where you go to San Diego and even with the weather being super nice. You don't want to get swept by the San Diego Padres.

No fish taco is that good. You want to go and win baseball games. And you have a great chance to win the series now because you have Brian Wu going on Sunday. And hey, maybe Emerson Hancock bounces back and has a great game against Nick Pavetta. I felt like that was a must-win game as much as a game can be must-win on May 16th. Yeah, well, you throw out the must-win in May. That's a pretty bold statement. But I don't think it's that far off, to be honest, because coming off at the home sandwich,

we just talked about, just you needed to get at least one in San Diego, I think, for sure. and this was the one both pitching matchup-wise and how everything lined up, it was the one to get for sure. I was surprised by how, I don't want to say dominant Logan Evans look, but he always seemed to make the right pitches, pitch to contact, which I think is maybe the way to attack this Padres team a little bit, who seemed to be pretty free swinging. So evaluate Logan Evans start. Did he take a step up for you, or did he maybe get a little lucky tonight? how do you evaluate the six innings, no earn runs? So Anders and I were talking before the game, and I purposely did not mention Logan Evans because I think there was a lot of luck here.

Okay. I think there was a lot of luck here. Now, that doesn't mean that he pitched poorly, nor does it mean that you should care if Logan Evans got lucky. But in the long term, I still saw some stuff from Evans that concerns me. It just doesn't really fool hitters. You know, I think he generated something like seven swings and misses in the start. Now, only two extra base hits over six innings. You'll take that through a lot of

strikes, only the one free pass. So limited the self-inflicted damage there. But there were some balls that could have been hit a lot further in this game. Now, the whole, it's, I always struggle with this because the results, what's matter. But if you watched this start and you weren't keeping score, you were going to your niece's tee ball game or your nephew's tee ball game and they weren't having a scoreboard there, I don't think you would say Logan Evans threw six innings of shutout baseball. Right. Having said that, it doesn't matter because he did throw six innings of shutout baseball and the Mariners needed it. They needed this performance to get that win. Now, actually, in hindsight, they didn't need this performance because they end up scoring the

five runs. Long story short, I wasn't overtly impressed with Logan Evans, but I also know that if you can get six innings of shutout baseball from your seventh starter you should not complain so i'm not going to and it's not like it was against the white socks or rockies or anything this is a good lineup looking at the opses that uh apple tv is bringing on each screen and i was like damn they have a lot of hitters that are very very good hitters or at least having a good year at this point in the year so uh i think it was great to see uh it they mentioned something he got had someone on third base for three straight innings or something like that uh and he just made the pitch when it needed to.

Yeah, it needed to happen. So that's a skill. That's not something that just you fall into. I think he was not really leaving anything over the heart of the plate. Now, like you said, he's not getting swings and misses. But the Padres are a good lineup. Anytime you blank them, at least when you're starting pitcher is a win for me. Yeah, there's no question about it.

And it's literally a win too because you throw those six settings of shutout baseball. I just have still some long-term concerns with Logan Evans. Profiles more to me as a multi-inning relief type, a guy that if you didn't have the rotation the Mariners did, the type of guy you'd be thinking about using an opener in front of for him to work three or four innings. I don't like him facing a lineup through three times. But the results are the results,

and the results are six innings of shutout baseball. It doesn't matter if he gave up eight runners. It doesn't matter that there were a bunch of balls hit over 100 miles per hour. tonight because you got the win. It was good enough, and the Mariners can take good enough from Logan Evans. It's not ideal that he's not your fourth starter, but it is what it is. And if he can pitch like he does tonight, even if I wasn't overtly impressed, the Mariners have a good chance of doing some fun things. Yeah. And if you keep just surviving until you get Logan Gilbert, George Kirby back, at least from the starting pitching standpoint, we'll get to the offense here

in a second. And if you keep surviving until you get to that point, the closer we get, the better shape you're going to be when you get your five guys back, whether it's Bryce Miller, Logan Gilbert, and George Kirby. So, and George's supposed to be back next week. So I think that's going to be something we can monitor. I don't feel necessarily terrible about him going out against a bad white socks team or anything like that. So I don't, I wouldn't feel bad about Dennis from the Beach Boys pitching against the White Sox. Like that's just an absolute. The fact the White Sox, and I know this is a Seattle Mariner

locked on postcast. Yes. The fact the White Sox aren't the worst team in baseball is one of the saddest things of the Rob Manfredera. The fact that there are two teams like this with the Colorado Rockies and the Chicago White Sox, holy crap on a cracker. Is there some bad, bad baseball teams? And the thing I love, by the way, is that the Colorado Rockies

will not be able to. have a lottery pick nor will the Chicago White Sox. But let's talk about the Seattle Marlins. You got me on a rant about bad news. I'm sorry. We'll get to the White Sox next week when we get there. But let's let's talk about this game. JP got us started right off the bat. I actually missed it. I tuned in like five minutes late. And of course, it's the first pitch home run. Mariner's up one nothing. It just seemed like he had a little bit of an ambush, which I love from JP. If you're going to be aggressive and if you're going to go for the home run swing, a lot of people kind of got on him for doing that a little too much last year. He's done it perfectly,

at least in the last like two, three weeks of where if you're not going to ambush, you change your swing up, you put it in play. That's what he did in the game winner against the Yankees. But then you can go for it a little bit at certain points in the game and he did it to put us up one zero and put Logan Evans on a good spot. Yeah, it was great to see, especially after, you know, he gets scratched from the lineup on Wednesday and to, you know, totally a precautionary thing. Certainly looked healthy on that swing. And look, we have to talk about how fortunate the Mariners were to be facing Stephen

Colick, not just because they're facing Stephen Colick, but they're facing a Stephen Colick who's coming off a complete game shutout. And there's this thing called regression to the mean that we will talk about a bunch over the next 120 or so games. And boy, oh boy, was Stephen Colick due for some regression to the mean, a former mariner legend, or a guy that lost a lot of the game. in the Rule 5 draft and had no plans on using whatsoever. And as a perfectly cromulent depth option,

the Seattle Mariners should score five runs against the Stephen Colix of the world every time. They have a good enough lineup now that you should be able to score five runs against these guys. But they did it. And it was great to see a great game from the top of the lineup today. JP Crawford with a nice day. We'll talk about Big Dumber, of course, in a second. Julio with a couple of hits, Jorge Polanco.

They looked like a legitimate one through five today. and they did it against a guy that they should beat up. But again, you did it. When you do it, you deserve praise for it, especially when we're a daily show like this. The top of the lineup was excellent. And I am very proud of my son, J.P. Crawford. Yeah, yeah.

It seems like he's kind of finding his groove in terms of just being in the batters box, looking more comfortable. I think that day off really helped him. Also, he muffed a ball. I think it was in the bottom half the inning, but then came up with a big double play right after that as well. Before we talk more offense, I'm going to solicit some comments from you guys.

We always do an Unsung Hero segment at the very end of the show. Comment in who your Unsung Hero is. Just a reminder, maybe someone who wasn't like the biggest story of the game. Maybe it was one certain play. Maybe it's just an aspect of the game that you think doesn't get talked about enough or one player that maybe flies under the radar a little bit. So comment in who your Unsung Hero of the day was, we'll get to those a little bit later.

I might look through a couple. I need some help. I'm trying to think of one right now. So you guys comment in yours. But yeah, you mentioned the top of the lineup because I think the story for so long with this offense and the reason why I was performing better than we expected coming into this year was the fact of the bottom of the lineup, the bottom third specifically was playing really, really well. And it wasn't because of the Julio's, the Cal was having a good year, but wasn't like the reason

why the offense was going. Randy up and down sort of thing. And then obviously Polanco when he's playing. But against lefties, he doesn't even play. So you can't rely on him in every single moment of the game or every single game. So I think we're starting to see the opposite now, where the bottom of the lineup is starting to look like the back of their baseball cards, the Leo Rivas is when he plays, the Miles Macedonis, the Dylan Moors.

Ben Williams had a hit tonight. had a good play at third base still kind of the same kind of thing we know what his role is at this point but the good thing is the top of the lineup starting to get going Julio had a great series against the Yankees and he had two hits again tonight. Cal with a big home run row row. What are you going to say? That's what he does, right? He's going to strike out twice and hit a home run. That's just kind of what he does. Yeah. And you know, you just hope for enough of those nights to make it work. But yeah, top of the lineup has been really outstanding for the majority of the year, really. Julio's line still isn't where we want it, but there's been enough progress there.

And comparing what he's doing now to compare what he did at the start of the season last year, holy goodness gracious, will we take what this is, especially with him playing such good defense? But you cannot say enough good things about Cowralli and just the absolute star that guy is. And he doesn't get nearly enough credit outside of Seattle. Heck, he may not even get enough credit in Seattle to be completely honest with you. Like he should be an absolute name brand player being that good defensively coming up with as many big hits as he does and having pretty easily his best quarter of a season thus far. He's on pace for right around 50 homers on the year.

That's not going to happen. I will just tell you that right now. But 40 home runs as well within reason, 35 to 40 home runs, especially if they're having him in the lineup as often as they do. That's a special player, man. And look, Randy Rose Arena, just the one hit. every at bat is so good. And having two guys now in the lineup, three guys, excuse me, that are getting on like Polanco, Raleigh, and Randy, it's been a long time since we've

seen Seattle Mariner lines that have looked like that, a long time. And sure, Polanco's line is aided by the fact that he missed time and the fact that he can't play against. That's one thing I am pretty concerned about. Once again, pitch hit for, I think he may not be able to be swinging the bat from the right side again. And that is a big, oof, magoof, because they really, need that guy to be in the lineup. But man, having those guys who can get on base the way they are, and then having Julio Rodriguez at that 320 mark, that's not bad. We want better, but it's certainly not an abhorrent mark. It's a really good one through five. It's not such a great six through nine, but it's good enough, I think, to be, oh, and by the way, J.P. Crawford getting on at an incredibly

high rate, too. How did the heck do I forget that as well? Like, this is just so much fun to watch Seattle Mariners have competent offensive players. We'll find out if it's worth losing 60% of your rotation. Yeah, and like I said, the longer you can just tread water until you get to that point where you get two of your big guys back, maybe even all three, if Bryce Miller comes back the way we expected him to be, we'll be in good shape. Because if this offense is performing like this with your five guys,

this team can win 95 games. I don't think it's out of the picture of whatsoever. So I think that's huge. They just keep winning a few games here and there, splitting series, winning a series, maybe losing a series. As long as they don't have the bottom fall out from underneath them, while they have this much of their rotation out, which is supposed to be the backbone of their team, that's such a big development. And I think what you said about rainies at bats can be said about a lot of mariners right now. There's a lot of mariners that have really good at bats. And maybe the results aren't specifically there for everyone.

I'd say even not about Julio. I'd say that about Cal. I'd say that about Ben Williamson. There's so many guys, JP thrown in there as well. There's so many guys where you just like last year or last two years, you could go in and like just expect a strikeout like 40% of the time that they come up to bat. And especially if they get two strikes on them. But these guys battle and they battle.

We've seen so many long, multiple pitch at bats. way more than we have the last couple years. And I think it takes a toll on the starting pitcher. Yep. And I've talked about this a bunch on Maliwap Monday. I talked a little bit about it on Maya Y. So much of that credit, I know Edgar's the guy that everybody points to.

I give so much of that credit to Kevin Siteser, man. The day-to-day operations for this team just looks so much better. And one of the things I like with the exception of Donovan Solano is that guys don't go on these big long benders. if they have a terrible night at the plate, they bounce back so often. And again, there is a reason why Kevin Siteser was with Atlanta for as long as he was

and why he was considered one of the very best hitting coaches. And a lot of team. Yeah, absolutely. Even last year when their offense fell apart, it was because every single hitter you could name for Atlanta was on the injured list at some point. Like it was just other than Marcelo Zuna, everybody else was having missed time for something.

along those lines. And I know some people like to say, oh, it's, it's just not having Branch Brown. It's the lack of analytics. Not analytics are still playing a huge part of the Seattle Mariners and every other baseball team. But Kevin Siteser has done an incredible job as long as Edgar, with Edgar, excuse me. And I love Edgar. He called me a cool grandson. I will love him forever. But Kevin Siteser doesn't get nearly enough credit for the work that he's done over this first quarter of the year. Yeah, I think that's well put. Remember, we're soliciting who your unsung hero was going into the last kind of part of the show. Before we get to that, though, Chris, let's talk about game time. Have you ever decided at the last minute to head to a ballgame with friends and family?

I actually used this recently. Maybe it's game day and you suddenly realize you want to be in the stands. 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, you can splurge on food, drinks, merch, or invite a bigger group of people to come with you and game time makes it possible. Game time makes buying tickets fast and simple. Prices on the app actually drop the closer you get to the first pitch. And they've got incredible last minute deals, clear seat views, and a lowest price guarantee that takes out the worry of buying. I love that part. I love that, you know, you don't have to feel like, oh my gosh, what the heck if I just bought. I know that there have been.

times where I've been, you know, I'm old enough to remember scalpers standing across from stadiums and trying to sell me tickets. I sure feel a lot more comfortable buying from game time. They are as good as it gets. Yeah. And I tried this last week when I was trying to actually go to the Mariners game, right before we started our podcast. So I wanted to get one more in. And I used game time. So it was kind of a last minute decision. And they actually rate the deals for you. So tickets that are like less than they probably should be, they get, they list those out for you. So you're like, hey, you're getting a deal here. Or maybe you're not. getting so much of a deal here. So I love that about game time. So you can take the guesswork

out of buying tickets with game time. Download the game time app, create an account and use locked on MLB for 20 bucks off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem the code L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N-M-L-B for $20 off. Download the game time app today. Last-minute tickets lowest price guaranteed. And, you know, something that I wish, we could do in the stadium after I buy my game time tickets is take some bets on Mariners because man, I'd be betting on them right now with the way that they're hitting the baseball. But you know what else is going on? It's the NBA playoffs and they are in full swing and every night delivers highlight worthy performances, major momentum shifts and can't

miss moments, whether it's a game winning shot or a breakout player. There's never been a better time to get in on the action. Faddole makes it easy to stay in the game before tip off and live with player props, performance trends and some game same game parlays, fans have even more ways than ever to play smart and win big. If you were betting on me making a couple of errors in that read, you would have a lot of money right now. By the way, absolutely, game seven, I am betting on the Florida Panthers to win by at least four goals that's going to happen. I love that this is just setting up for the Maple Leafs to fail. I'm sorry, Ian, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It has to happen. And Nicola Yokic, you're about to get a 50-20-20 as well because those Oklahoma City Thunder,

they're going nowhere, folks. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sorry to Ian because if you're new to Fandul, it's the perfect time to sign up. Head to Fanduil.com and place your first $5 bet. If it wins, you'll get $200 in bonus bets. Make every moment more with Fandul, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right. Let's get to it.

Our unsung hero of the night, Chris, I'm going to let you go first while I solicit some comments because I need some help. Who's your guys as unsung hero? Let us know. I can't think of one right now. I'm going to look through some here. I'm going to go with Ben Williamson. And I know it's weird to go with a guy who went one for three with two strikeouts. But that defensive third base is so good. He is such a good defensive player. And any offense you get from him right now is just a bonus. It is the fan dual bonus right now, anytime that he makes any type of offense for you. It doesn't matter to me.

And the nice thing is, is that the Mariners lineup is so competent right now that he could be hitting 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 and still provide tons of value for the Seattle Mariners. There were some really good performances tonight. And again, one for three with two strikeouts is nothing to really write home about. No. But Ben Williamson, to me, is that unsung hero because he just seemed. to get the job done.

Yeah, and I feel like you could say them almost every night because of the defense. And I want to specifically highlight a play. I don't know if anyone is watching with the sound on with the Apple TV broadcast tonight. I think it was bottom three. It was a one zero game at this point. He fakes a catch on a blooper by Louisa Ryas. Like it's going, he takes a step back. He knows he's not going to catch it.

But he looks up. Fernando Tautis is on first base. He could easily round second and go. go to third base, take the double play out of it. But Ben Williamson makes him stop to think he might catch it, even though he's not going to get there. And then that keeps the Tate's at second. And then literally the next play, they get a double play.

So it was a perfect encapsulation of, I think, an unsung hero. For me, though, our Lockdown Mariners host, Tye Dan Gonzalez says, let's get Rowdy. So I'm going to go with Rowdy to Les. I think that was a big home run. It was still 1-0 at that point, just giving us a little bit of buffer. before we get into the later part of the game. I think it's not necessarily a clutch situation, but being up 3-0 with Logan Evans on the mound against the Padre's lineup

is so much better than being up 1-0. So I'm going Rowdy-Telez. Let us know on the comments with who you guys is unsung hero of the night is before we move on to the next game. Chris, any thoughts on Rowdy before we get out of here? I love my big, beefy boy. It's just fun to see success. him and you know the metric suggested that rowdy to les was much better than his atrocious atrocious

start to the season do i want rowdy to les to be my starting first baseman right now i got to be honest no i would prefer luke raily or i'd prefer an upgrade there if you have to use luke raleigh in the outfield i saw someone by the way mentioned about victor robles i just don't think victor roblers is coming back man i don't either it's just so hard for me to now i hope i'm wrong I pray I'm wrong because Victor Robles does so many things for the Seattle Mariners, and you can hit him ninth now. Like, you can make Victor Robles your ninth hitter. Somebody brings up Nathaniel Lowe.

That would be an excellent player to be targeting it for your first base position. But I love my big, beefy boy, and I'll root for success until it stops happening. I have a bad feeling that it will. I will also say this, though, I'd love to keep Roddy to Les around if you could make the roster work because that's a nice weapon off the bench. that's a nice guy to say, nope, you cannot bring in that righty right now because we have Rowdy to Les,

just like Dylan Moore, if you bring in that Leffey, well, we have Dylan Moore off the bench. It'd be nice to have, but I really would prefer to see Routy Telez on the bench. Real quick, we could have gone with Casey Legamina and Carlos Vargas who were both absolutely sensitive.

Seems like you could say that every time they pitch, honestly. It's crazy, especially to me Legamina, like just the ability right now to miss bats. And look, Carlos Vargas threw 10 of 11 pitch, is for strikes and didn't give up a hit and has been so much better, so much better than we could

have ever anticipated based on his results in Tacoma in 2024. But both of those guys doing a great job. Colin Snyder, you know, he gives up the run, but nice job to bounce back after that double and not have to use Munoz because now you have Munoz and Brash, probably only Bras for one, but you definitely have Munoz available for Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, if you can get a series win against Padres. That is a massive win, massive win. So great to get the first one tonight. Kind of takes a little bit the pressure off you guys. Hope the Padres are hungry for beans. That's funny. Thanks, Ty. Really appreciate it. But it takes the pressure off for the rest of the weekend. Because I still think if you lose the next two games, you could go away from this series thinking it's

not the end of the world. We've got to go and win the White Sox series coming on Monday. But appreciate you guys tuning in. Remember, after every single, Mariner's game you can tune into the Locked-on Mariners postcast with me and myself and Christopher Crawford remember to catch Ty and Colby every Monday through Friday on the Locked-on Mariners podcast so they kind of give a 30,000-foot view a little bit bigger picture of what's going on with the Mariners and Chris and I react to every single game right after it happens live on YouTube. So if you missed any part of this show, you can always just rewind it to the beginning. That's one of the great things about on YouTube.

But it will also be available anywhere you get your podcast as well. So maybe you're on the go and you can't watch us. You can pop in the audio, get your little postgame show from Anderson Hurst and Christopher Crawford. But until tomorrow, let's go win the series against Padres. We'll talk to you guys then, all right? Good stuff. See ya.