Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - MARINERS POSTCAST: Seattle Mariners WIN OPENING GAME against St. Louis Cardinals

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Chris and Anders break down the first of a three-game series between the Seattle Mariners and St. Louis Cardinals. Brian Woo has made one mistake, but the Mariners' hitters have made many, many more against a bad starting pitcher, but they get the job done against the Cardinals bullpen. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Trade CoffeeRight now, Trade is exclusively offering our customer 50% off your one-month trial at drinktrade.com/LOCKEDONMLB. OpenPhoneStreamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at www.openphone.com/lockedonmlb 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/lockedonmlb 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. You guys missed me scramble at the top of this show to close my door behind me. But you would never know because of the magic of stream yard. Welcome into the Mariners Postcast, Anderson Hurts, Chris Crawford with you. Mariners get the dub. Seems like, you know, not a perfect baseball game by any stretch of the imagination.

not even a pretty one, to be honest, but you did what you needed to do to win today. And as long as you keep doing that, you will not hear any complaining from myself. We'll talk about Brian Wu's start on the offense, a little bit iffy in the first six innings of the game. And then you finally woke up, or about five, I should say, yeah. And then you kind of woke up in the second half of things. So it was good, like as Chris so eloquent. puts on our background there.

Better late than never is definitely true. We'll do our unsung hero. But first, I want to hear the thoughts of one, the only Christopher Crawford on this game tonight. I mean, I've been doing this a long time. And I don't know if my mood has changed more over one inning than it has than watching this game. Because for five innings, I was miserable, miserable, miserable,

miserable one of my least favorite moments of the year happened during that game and we'll talk about it okay and then that same player had one of the maybe the biggest moments of the year as well so it's amazing how your mood can change based on that brian woo was fantastic the bullpen was awesome today i thought the bullpen usage was solid today i kind of liked how dan went about doing that stuff Credit when credit is two, you have to win these types of games. You just have to. And you can't help but note that the Texas Rangers beat the Milwaukee Brewers today. And you've got to stay ahead of them. I know the division is the most important thing. And the big thing here is you're just two games back at that division now, guys.

It's two games back with the Houston Astros taking on everyone's favorite baseball team, the Toronto Blue Jays. We're always talking about how much we love the Blue Jays and their fans and how we just love how they take over. They just, we love them. We love them, folks. This is fun. This is fun. And this is also the reason I feel so angry about the first five innings and so relieved for the next four is because this matters.

It's matters. And I have watched so much baseball of this baseball team, not really in the last few years, but, you know, over my livelihood, where these games didn't mean jack squat, just didn't mean diddly bubkus. And to have games that matter is a lot of fun, but they also infuriate you. They could absolutely drive you insane.

For five innings, I was pissed off. Didn't matter. Didn't matter because the thrill of victory beats the agony of defeat in this one. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, I mean, you're going to have these types of performances. one of those where if you end up getting the result that you want, you did your job today.

Yep. Like even if you can have complaints about some of the individual moments, at the end of the day, you did your job. You're not going to have, you're not going to score 18 runs every game. You're not going to have seven innings and eight innings of runs in one game, or sorry, seven runs in a inning in very many games like they did in the Brave series. So just the fact that you did what you needed to do to win today. Let's start with the start.

I want to give a quick shout out to James, who's an everyday listener. Really appreciate you. You say your wife is going back to the hospital tonight. We are praying for her, hoping everything's okay. You're in our thoughts. You're in our prayers. Appreciate you, my man. Yeah.

But after that, that is more important. Second, let's get to starting with the start with Brian Wu. It's just good to be able to lean on starting pitching once again from the Seattle Mariners. So I lied to you, Anders. I said that Brian Wu made one mistake today. He made two. And they just happened to be in a row. He gives up hard contact Yvonne Herrera and then a pitch that's supposed to be on the outer part of the plate,

leaks into the inner part of the plate. I didn't think that Burleson got enough of it. I thought that was going to maybe get to the warning track. I certainly didn't think that that was going to be a homer. But it was a bad pitch and credit to Burleson for taking it out. Outside of that, Brian Wu was fantastic. I also, to bring this up, and this is more of a long-term thing, this could just be me. I don't have a lot of fun watching Brian Wu starts.

Really? They're never bad, right? Very rarely, I like seeing secondary stuff. I like seeing sliders. I like seeing changeups. I like seeing curveballs. I like seeing. You're going full aesthetic here.

Yes. Okay. So I like the, it's totally the aesthetic because I'm confident that Brian Wu's going to get the job done, more so than any Seattle Mariner pitcher. I'll do respect to Logan Gilbert, all due respect to Luis Castillo, Stans a month of start, Kirby, Bryce Miller, Greg Hibbert, Dave Fleming, Chris Bosio, all those guys. There's just something that is not all that fun to watch. And by the way, anyone who says bad take, this is the most subjective. freaking thing I've ever said in my entire life. There's no such thing as a bad subjective take.

So thank you for your opinion. But he was fantastic. The only my, here's my one complaint. Can you please get 10 strikeouts, Brian Will? I think this for so long, so long. It is just, I feel bad for him. I want him to get the double digits. And as Claire points out, and this is extremely important,

My God, is he handsome? That is a objectively beautiful human being. So from that point, yes, his stuff's just not my favorite to watch. And that's okay. That's okay. He is allergic to 10 strikeouts for sure. He just can't get there. He just can't get there.

I personally like watching the Randy Johnson's and the Felix Hernandez type of dominance. That's just me. Yeah. It was just something that kind of came to my mind as I watched him throw fastball after fastball after fastball after fastball. He's really good, though. And Seattle Mariners fans should be super excited to watch this guy, not just for the next 18 games because he's going to get three or four more starts.

But long term, that guy's going to be really, really good. Yeah, yeah, I will say I kind of feel the opposite about Brian Wu. I actually think aesthetically he's my favorite pitcher to watch of all the Mariners. Totally true. I really like the kind of three-quarter arm slot. I like the run on his fastball. I like him be able to throw that to every part of the plate. To me, having such command over, you know, yeah, two pitches,

if you really include the fast fall in the sinker as well. I love seeing one guy just dice people up with that. And I just, that's so aesthetically pleasing. And he looks so in control every time that he throws. For Logan, it looks like he's trying to get the full extension. For Luis, he's kind of rear him back and then pulling through. Brian Wu is just in complete control the entire time, and I absolutely love that. Yeah, my pushback for that would be sometimes that guy doesn't actually know where that fastball is going.

And that's part of the game plan. That's the other thing for me is like I also like seeing that spot hit perfectly. Like, for instance, that slider that he threw to Sagasy to get him there, if he threw that more often, he'd be my favorite pitcher to watch because that is, that was built, a perfectly located slider. Maybe it just frustrates me, too, that he does have good secondary stuff and he doesn't use it more. This is all very much a sidebar type of thing. But brass fan straws here.

Yeah, it's for, it's not even that. It's just, hey, I just kind of noticed that I prefer watching some other pictures on the Seattle Mariners. Who do I trust the most on the Seattle Mariners? Oh my gosh. It is absolutely Brian Wu is the starter right now. If you say anything else, you just haven't watched this season. Like, let's be honest. So, all right.

But thank you, spinning wheels. I really appreciate it. But no, I am not going to say the word you keep saying that I am going to say. Okay. On the other side, let's talk offense. You go from a very frustrating offensive day to actually a pretty good inning. A couple weird moments in between. We'll get to those.

We'll get to our unsung hero. You're listening to the Mariners Post, Gass. You're on the Lock on podcast. network really appreciate everyone that's hanging out with us all 249 of you please like the video if you have not already mergers get the dub today 4 to 2 win over the st louis cardinals in game one of the series we'll talk to you about the offense on the other side of the break most people can't name all their financial accounts or even what they're worth whether it's 401k's properties or investments and when you don't have the full picture you can end up leaving money on the table

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promo code locked on. Zip more, smoke less with Zippix toothpicks. Welcome back to the Meredith Postcast. Really appreciate all 247 of you guys hanging out with us. We're going live right after every single Mariner baseball game. If you're listening to us on the podcast forum as well, a little bit later, whether it's later tonight or tomorrow morning. Love everyone, however you consume us.

It's awesome. Really appreciate everyone who consumes us however. However you do so. We like being a part of your guys' lives. Mariners win this one, four to two against the St. Louis Cardinals. Game one of the series goes to Seattle. First half of the day offensively. That, Chris Crawford.

I was really frustrated because, you know, the Aaron Paul, he can't keep getting away with it thing, that was what was happening there. And I knew there was going to be some regression when you score 10 homers or score 10 homers, when you hit 10 homers and score 28 runs over two games, there's going to be some offensive regression. It does not excuse having no runs over five innings against Timu Mario. That's just not okay to me. And that's what I'm going to call Miles, Michael. for the rest of his life.

He's Timu Mario. Oh, man. He is, if you get that in your Christmas stocking, you wonder, oh, man, my parents really don't like me all that much, do they? The least favorite moment of the season for me looked like it was going to come. The Mariners load the bases, and Josh Naylor comes up, and he hits a little tiny ground ball and into a double play. And Josh Naylor basically walks to first base.

and I'm not going to lie to you, I had a boomer moment among boomer moments, among boomer moments. I was furious. I was absolutely furious that he made zero effort on that ball when you're down by two runs in a every game now is must win. Every single game, you're not going to win them all, but every game has unbelievably strong ramifications, whether you win or you lose. And I was pissed, absolutely pissed off that he didn't at least fake hustle there. You never know what happens. Bad throw.

First baseman slips off the bag. You know, throw to second base. The guy doesn't get there. You have to at least try. And that was a case where Josh Naylor didn't try. Let's fast forward one inning. Okay. Let's do it.

Then, first of all, terrific at bat from Luis. I almost called him Leo Rivas, not Luis Serious. He did not have a good at bat today. He gets to first base on that walk. He then has a terrific read, terrific reed on a ball hit up the middle by Randy Oroz Arena. He gets the third base. Big Dumper, you bring in a righty to face Big Dumber.

I'm still confused what the hell is going on there, but OK-dokey. And Big Dumber doesn't try to do too much. Instead of trying to play hero ball, instead of looking for that 54th Homer, instead of looking to tie that record, he draws that walk. And then Julio, gosh, dang Rodriguez with a massive base hit to make it two to one.

Josh Naylor. Josh freaking Naylor drills that double. And it scores what I thought was going to be three. By the way, totally their correct call. We can have a conversation about how bad Dan Wilson is. It challenges right now. Why they challenge that? I don't know.

Once the guy has the ball, he can block whatever the hell he wants. It's absolutely his right. The role is that when you're waiting for the ball to come in, you can't be blocking the play. But once you get it, you can stand wherever you want. Stand wherever you want. That was a horrible challenge on that play. Even if Julio slides, by the way, he's not safe. He's not safe.

It was a terrific throw, terrific throw. And some people pointed out that he may have ran a sign that was said stop. I can't get too mad about it. I just can't. I'm sorry. If it was, you know, they end up losing this game, we can talk about it. Yeah. But why real quick on the negative?

And I know I've talked too much. I'm sorry, Anders. Why are they not challenging the catchers interference two winnings before that? What is the deal with that? That was blatant. That was absolutely blatant. That scores a run. It scores.

Why would you not use the challenge there? I don't think Dan Wilson is comfortable, guys. I'm sorry. I don't think Dan Wilson. is comfortable in doing what he's doing right now. And boy, oh boy, did it almost cost him big today. Why would you not challenge that? So the only thought, I'm with you and all, like, I'm not trying to disagree because I agree

with everything you just said. But the only thought I can sort of justify it for Dan is that he didn't, he maybe was thinking like, did you think it hit you or something? And then they just looked at it real quick to see if the ball hit him. Because that's what Goldsmith was thinking at first, too. And then they didn't realize they were looking for catchers, interference. Like, maybe it was just a miscommunication.

And then once, like, they replayed it after Dan said to continue playing on, it was like, oh, crap, maybe we should have challenged this sort of situation. Whatever it is, you're right. You need to be able to realize what's going on there. Maybe it's a little bit of Josh Naylor to, hey, catchers interference, challenge that. Like, communicate like that. But still, replay guys, Dan Wilson, whoever's looking at that, they need to know what's going on.

regarding the Julio blowing the stop sign I'll take to go with the bad at this point I realize he has some blunders on the base pads the other thing to think about that situation he was on big dumpers

Dumper rounding third base Negron has to wave Dumber in but then also stop Julio at the same time It's really hard You look at the video He puts up the stop sign

As Julio's like passing it So it's like Yes. And now that's a great point. That's a really good point. And people will blame McGowan. I'm not blaming him either. Julio has to have the wherewithal to realize, hey, I'm probably not going to make that. I should probably slow down here. But again, I will take the good with the bad. It's aggressive. It's aggressive. And when you run like Julio does, we were just looking at sprint speed stuff. And Anders and I. And that guy's really freaking fast. And it took a really good throw to cut him down. Yeah. Yeah. But what's back to Naylor, who, They'd be so mad with that double play and not because he's up for it.

Because of the fact that there was a lack of effort there. Yeah. Well, guess what he does? He gets to second on that double. Yeah. He steals third base and then he scores on the sack fly. And that is my unsung moment of this game because, sure, they end up winning by two. The run actually didn't mean anything.

Yep. It's such a different ball game when it's one run versus two. It's just a completely different. Your offensive approach changes. Blup and Blasb becomes kind of your attitude more so than we just got to get one run, right? That was a massive moment and terrific heads-up play by Josh Naylor and more than made up for the anger that I had from that at bat. Yeah, completely agree. And, you know, I put out a tweet in that moment, I give bunting a lot of grief every time it happens.

But that's the small ball that I enjoy, right? where you steal a base and then you hit a sack fly and Polo was close to hitting that out. I thought he got it. I thought he did too. I think Polo thought he got it too. Yeah, he had a double today too. Polo is hot right now. He is like 1,400 OPS in his last 12 memes or something like that.

Shout out to Dan Wilson for making the lineup change. Yes. Putting Polanco fit the head of Suarez up. Swariz has been good. Swar's has been fine. But Jorge Polanco needs to get more plate appearances right now. I might even switch Polanco and know it. I was going to say.

I was going to say I might put him up before. He's been really freaking good. And can I just do one negative thing? Okay. The J.P. Crawford at bat where he got two pitches down the middle of the plates. He's lost. He's just lost offensively right now, guys. He needs to be hitting ninth.

That you can't afford to have him hitting in a spot where you get a chance to drive in six really good players. it just doesn't make sense to me. Have him be that second lean-off guy. Hopefully he starts drawing some walks and being worth the not-so-great defense that he's playing at shortstop right now. It doesn't make sense for him to hit seventh. It just doesn't. I know you don't really trust Leo Rivas all that much. I do.

The Seattle Mariners clearly don't trust him as much as those other guys. I mean, the fact he's in the lineup means they obviously trust him a little bit, but they're not going to hate him seventh. give him the chance. He's deserved the chance to hit higher in the lineup. Victor Robles should be seventh or ahead of him as well. Like one of those two, J.P. Crawford has to hit ninth until he starts figuring some stuff out. Totally agree. I'm just going to kind of piggyback off your unsung moment. You went kind of with the jock and their steel. I went with the polo sack fly because again, I just love what he's doing at the plate right now. He looks so comfortable. He might be your best hitter right now, which is weird, to think about in terms of like,

who do I want up right now in like if we're tomorrow if I want a leverage spot I think I think I'd take Jorge Polanco. Julio's up there too. You know, but it's good. You have a lot of guys that can that can do that right now. It's great. Then the bullpen closes it out. Munoz, a couple weird slider pitches, but ends up figuring it out. And you close the door. First time pitching in what, eight days, nine days? Since August 31st, first time pitching in September. I really liked what I saw from him, especially considering the long layoff, Bizarro was awesome.

Matt Brash was really good. I will be honest, Matt Brash scared the crap out of me because he goes to 3-0 on that very first batter, and I, you know, there's still moments, as much as I love Matt Brash, where I think, oh, man,

this command can really get away from him sometimes, but he's settled down and then some, getting that big out. Nice play by Leo Rebus on that play as well, to get the range and to go make that play. The bullpen was fantastic today. Also, we'll talk about it more on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Cardinals stink.

That's a bad offensive baseball team, man. That is a really, really bad team in a city with really, really bad pizza. Fair enough. Number one, I love Leo Rivas. I'm going to continue to sing his praises because I just love watching his A-Bs. He plays great defense, runs the bases really, really well. I think he needs to be in the line of every day. I think that's fair.

He should be playing over Cole Young. That's for dang sure. Yeah. He should be playing over JP too. Probably. We'll kind of leave it at that, kind of admitting that that's not going to happen. You mentioned it earlier.

Really, really quick, like super, super fast, not like a long discussion here. But I like the way they use the bullpen today. You know, we've talked about Dan Wilson and managing the back of the baseball card a lot. They go to Brash in the seventh inning.

I think maybe earlier version of Dan Wilson waits to the eighth inning. but he realized that it's the top of the order in that seventh inning that he needs to his second highest leverage guy. It goes to Matt Press there and then Bizarro in the eighth inning to deal with the bottom of the lineup. And then Munoz obviously stays in the ninth inning roll. He's going to stay there. But it seems like everything leading up to that point, Dan's willing to kind of shuffle around based on the leverage situation. A thousand percent.

And I think the big thing there was, and I'm not completely given up on Caleb Ferguson. and Caleb Ferguson has had some decent moment since being acquired here. But as soon as they took the lead, Dan Wilson said, go home, Caleb Ferguson. You're not pitching in this game. We're bringing in Brash. We're bringing in Bizarro to face the righties. I thought the bullpen usage today was absolutely outstanding. Yep, totally, totally agree.

Mariners win this one, 4 to 2, get the first game in the St. Louis Cardinal series. We'll talk to you guys again tomorrow, another 640 starting pitch time. I believe it's Logan Gilbert, if I remember correctly. Or George. It's Logan or George. I can't remember exactly who. I'll have to double check that. But really appreciate you guys hanging out with us.

Mariners win this one, 4 to 2. We'll talk to you guys again tomorrow. Thanks for listening. Please like the video if you haven't already. Have a good night. Go Mariners. And I hope the Astros lose every game. Last word, Chris Crawford.

Prevelle cheese is gross.