Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Ride Dylan Moore, Julio Rodríguez to Big Series Win in Minnesota

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

The Mariners back to two games over .500 with a big 8-7 win against the Twins Wednesday afternoon. Led by Julio Rodríguez and Dylan Moore, Seattle jumped out to a large lead early on and was able to hang on despite some shaky pitching from Bryce Miller. Colby and Ty discuss it all, as well as the Mariners' trade for Blue Jays reliever Trent Thornton, on this postgame episode of Locked On Mariners.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don’t miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.SleeperDownload the Sleeper app and use promo code LOCKEDON and you'll get up to a $100 match on your first deposit.  Terms and conditions apply. See Sleeper’s Terms of Use for details. Currently operational in over 30 states. Check out Sleeper today! DaveDownload Dave today at Dave.com/mlb. You could get up to $500 in 5 minutes or less! No credit check. No late fees. 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) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Folks, the Mariners back to two games over 500, that is. Our thoughts on the big win and the small trade Seattle made coming up here on the Locked on Marriors post game show. Colby hit it. You are locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked on podcast network. Your team every day. Ahoy, sailors.

It is Wednesday, July 26, 2023. This is Tedding Azales and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdowne Marries Post game show brought to you by Sleeper. Swing for the fences on Sleeper picks and you can win up to 100 times your money. Download the Sleeper app and use promo code locked on and you'll get up to $100 matched on your first deposit. Terms of conditions apply. See Sleeper's terms of use for details currently operational in over 30 states. Check out Sleeper today. Thank you so much for making us your first listen after the game. Subscribe like and turn on alerts if you're watching on YouTube or subscribe and leave a five-star review on your preferred podcast platform if you like what you hear.

And if you're part of the crew and rock with us every single day, Let us know in the comments below. And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon. You can now get a free seven-day trial to check out the show. The link as well as our social accounts is in the description of this episode. 8 to 7, the final score from Target field, Dylan Moore and Julio Rodriguez. Do the heavy lifting as the Mariners get back to two games over 500 with a big, big, big, big win

over the Minnesota Twins. So naturally, Colby, the Mariners, of course, should now trade. Cody Bellinger. Is that right? Do I have that right? Right. Right. I mean, yeah, obviously. They're clearly a very good team. They, right. If they had Bellinger, they sweep these last two series and all of a sudden they're, what, four or five games over 500 and very much in the race. And, you know, they are also very much in the race right now. So yeah, go get them the help they've earned. So, yeah, you win back to back series against good playoff teams. You've earned some help. Go get it. you know, all due respect to Trent Thornton, that's not help. So go get real help. Like Cody Bellinger.

We will talk about the Trent Thornton deal later on in the show. We're going to spend like two minutes on it just to make that clear. But yeah, we will talk about it. All right. So Dylan Moore, like I said, had a big day. And you sent me a very, very interesting message while we were both watching the game about a couple hours ago. after he hit his second of two home runs today. You said,

Dillamore, quote, is a god. You heard it here first, folks. Colby Padnode has seen the light. Yeah, back in 2020, when I was the first one to actually say Dillamore should get all the playing time at second base. And you and Joe Doyle, friend of the show,

sat there and told me, no, no, no, you should go get Colton Wong instead. Well, well, well. I did. not well well also i believe it was john trooper not joe doyle no john joe was there joe was there okay maybe it was both of them yeah uh you're probably right but joe was definitely there and i say that just to point out the fact that i beat you again joe again right colby colby says that he knows more than joe doyle that's right oh absolutely i think that's

been proven over and over again locked on mariner's exclusive yep yeah all joe is is like what the process I don't know what his title is, but he's like the expert at like at future star series, uh, which is, you know, probably the best, you know, uh, prospect service, uh, in the country right now. So, yeah. Yeah. No, I got like I like, you can give me a call. I'll teach you anything you want to know.

Yeah. Well, all, all of that support for Dillamore in 2020 was undone by how, uh, you felt about him last year and what you said about him all of last year. Sure. So there you go. You know, but me. my belief, it never wavered. You never had any to begin with.

Not one bit. No, no, no, no. I was Dylan Moore's biggest fan. I was, I was Dylan Moore's biggest fan. I totally did not get on this show two weeks ago and say, you know, they should go silo him or, you know, send him down to AAA because he clearly cannot hit major league pitching. Definitely did not say that. I'm pretty sure your exact words are he should be the starting center fielder and they should bench Julio.

I'm pretty sure that's what you said. That's actually what I said. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, Dimo. is seven for his last 16. He has, I don't know, six extra base hits during that time,

including the two home runs that I mentioned today. That includes a big three run home run that gave the mayor some much needed insurance because the pitching today was not particularly great. We will talk about that a little later on. But, I mean, at least for now, we got the deadline coming up in, what, six days? Should Dillimore be playing every single?

day for the Mariners right now more or less i mean there there's really no reason to we don't know exactly how he feels physically um you know he appears to be fine but we haven't seen him play you know i don't think we've seen him play more than twice in a row so um yeah well i mean i don't know how he's feeling physically but yeah in theory you should because he's a hot bat right now and you have the at bats to give i mean i know colton wongs looked a little bit better um as of late but you're not letting that stop you from putting your best guys out there. So, yeah, and kind of the beauty of Dillamore because of the versatility is that you don't even have to take away more at-bats from anybody else just to get Dillamore his at-bats

because you could just on a day off, just a scheduled day off, Dillamore could be in the lineup. And this is a good way. We've talked about this, right? How the Mariners, starters played so many games. They had so few days off. And it's because the Mariners weren't utilizing their bench. Now they can. If Dillamore is going to hit like, you know, Dillamore did, even.

in last year where it's mostly on base driven and he's got some pop. That helps you a tremendous amount because, yeah, it would be nice to give JP more than one day off every, you know, six, seven weeks. That'd be nice for JP too, I'm sure. It'd be nice to give Gino a day off. It'd be nice to give, you know, Julio a day off. And now without Jared Kelmick in the mix, you kind of need that platoon bat to go up there against lefties.

And, you know, that's always been Dillon Moore's, you know, bread and butter. So yeah, I think more should be in the lineup a lot going forward. There's really no reason for him not to be unless, you know, of course we see what they do at the deadline. So but until then, yes, you should be in the lineup as much as he can physically handle it and as much as the matchups allow. There are just some pictures where Colton Wong is going to be a better matchup. And it's not necessarily lefty righty.

It's just stuff, you know, all that stuff. Sure. There are going to be times where Moore's going to have to sit on the bench, sure. But yeah, if it's a toss-up, you should probably give it to more at most positions. And just write out this hot streak as much as you can because you don't know when it's going to go away. And I know that writing streaky bats is not the best way to go for the long term. But, you know, you wrote out the Mike Ford hot streak and he kept you afloat as a result. And so you're kind of hoping to do the same here.

It's not the best plan in the world. But I think it's based on what you have on your roster right now. It is the best way to go. it's all you can do right now really it's your only option so yeah uh so it's been a nice little stretch for demo who's playing a lot more often now too so and uh the merits have reap the rewards of that so far uh julio has had a really nice two game stretch here obviously had the big game last night with two home runs including a clutch two run home run to tie the game that's how did that taste coming out of your mouth by about damn time is what i'll say oh okay okay sure about

damn time. Yeah, very, very excited about that. And then he came back today and picked up right where he left off. Lead off double in the first, scores. Home run, his next time up. Had an awful at bat with the basis loaded, nobody out, but we'll ignore that. He had a hustle double the next time up.

I think he scored after that, right? Yeah, Gino drove him. Yeah. Geno drove him in. Yeah. So, yeah, really nice two days here for Julio. So is he back? Is he back? Man, I hope so. It is, it was nice to see Julio back in the leadoff spot. I do think ultimately that's where I want him to be.

But he has to earn it. And today he was there because JP was scheduled to get a day off anyways. But he also did take a pitch right off the side of his knee yesterday. So I'm sure there's some swelling there. But he was there kind of by default, like legitimately, if not Julio, who hits leadoff? It might have been Colton Wong or Dylan Moore. So, yeah, Julio, he was great today. I think the rule is if you go three for five with two doubles in a home run,

you're not allowed to pick apart the bases loaded in the fourth inning at bat. I think you just give him a pass on that one. But, yeah, no, I mean, it's been great the last couple days. You know, it's pretty interesting. Julio's strikeout rate is steadily going down. And it's back to where it was last year. His walk rate is what it was last year. So there are some signs that Julio is starting to turn the corner already.

But yeah, you know, obviously games like this help, games like last night help. And they just kind of get rolling in the right direction. And momentum is something else. And it's fun, you look at Julio the last two days and the Mariners offense has exploded and scored what, 17 runs in the last two days. Yeah. Gee, I wonder why. It's because Julio looks like a superstar again.

Yeah. So I sure hope this is I sure hope he's back. Yeah. And we talked after the, the Blue Jays series when, you know, he had a couple of chances late in games and he didn't come up. That,

you know, it's just, we're waiting for him to actually be able to come through in these moments and just get one. Because I think once he gets one, he'll start to get rolling here. And I mean, lo and behold,

again, he picks up right where he left off today and has a huge game. So hopefully he keeps that going. Marries get a much needed. day off tomorrow before they face the Arizona Diamondbacks. You can catch that series on the Marri's hometown broadcast with Series XM via the XXM app. So we're going to talk about the Mariners pitching today, specifically Bryce Miller.

It was a weird day for Miller. So we're going to go over that in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown, Mariner's post game show is brought to you by Sleeper. Are you using the Sleeper app for daily fantasy baseball, one of times your money by 100? Sleeper is now offering up to a 100 times payout for up to eight-pick contests. Choose as many as eight players that you like and pick more or less on your favorite baseball stats like home runs, strikeouts, hits and more.

Get your picks right. You can win big. If you think Julio's going yard like today, add him to your lineup. If you think Luis Castillo striking out six or more, add him to your lineup. Making your picks is easy and takes only 30 seconds or less. And if you win, you can withdraw your payouts safe and quickly. Use promo code locked on. That's L-O-C-E-D-O-N.

and you'll get up to $100 matched on your first deposit. In terms of conditions apply. See Sleeper's terms of use for details currently operational in over 30 states. Check out Sleeper today. And you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners Postgame Show. Thank you again for making us your first listen after the Mariners 8 to 7 win over the Minnesota Twins. Again, they have an off day tomorrow. They'll get back after it on Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks down in Phoenix.

You can catch all the action on the Marriss hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app. So weird day for Bryce Miller. He started out really well, but then gave up four solo home runs, six earn runs in total, eight hits

over five and two thirds innings pitched. Struckout seven, zero walks. Before we get into the struggles here, Colby, we saw a little bit of a wrinkle from Miller today with the changeup, and it actually worked pretty well for him through eight changeups, not

Not a whole lot, but on those eight changeups, half of them resulted in a swing and a miss. So what did you think about that again before we get into the negatives of his day? Yeah, it was actually a really good pitch, and it was kind of surprising to see him use it because we have heard about Bryce Miller's changeup, but he's really stuck to fastball slider even against the lefties. And Minnesota's stacked lefties in their lineup the last two days. And part of that is just roster construction. They have a lot of lefties.

But the other part of it is a legitimate game plan. And we saw it work against both Kirby and Miller today. They got the fastballs in the zone and they were aggressive with them. But the counter that Miller came up with, it was a really good change up, the best changeup we've seen for Miller. And he's flashed it once or twice. I remember him throwing a couple good ones against the Braves and whatnot. But for the most part, it's been fastball slider. And today it was just a really good changeup.

It was between 83 and 87 miles an hour. hour, you know, average of 84.6. The fastball was, the average fastball was 96 today. Or, yeah, 96 today. So it's a pretty good difference. And we saw some fade and some good tumble to the pitch, too. And we saw a lot of bad swings, which tells me that he's, he sold it really well to the hitters. Same arm speed, same, you know, same arm slot and all that stuff.

So, yeah, it was a pretty interesting pitch to see him use. It was probably his best pitch, although the same. slider wasn't half bad either. But yeah, it was, it was interesting to say the least. And, you know, it was probably borne out of necessity. But it is nice to, if he could consistently have that change up going forward, Miller's like a number two starter at some point in his career. Because he throws plenty of strikes.

And yeah, the fastball, again, it's a really good fastball, but he has to have a slider and a change up if he's going to be a, you know mid rotation or better starter and today he had both he just you know a little bit unlucky it seems like every time he was in the zone it got hit hard um so you're kind of a weird day for brys miller yeah so he had one two three four five six seven eight nine hard hit balls given up today um thankfully all the home runs again were solo shots so they didn't do a ton of damage but they did help the twins get back into this game even when it looked like the mirrors were going to cruise to a win and that ultimately made today's game pretty interesting when it really didn't need to be but uh you know that's that they still won the game um so yeah just you know kind of a bump of the road for for miller or something you know we should be concerned about um

i'm a little concerned that he seemed to to wear down a little bit in the fourth and fifth inning uh i he's had he had a long break with the blister in the first two times out the mariners were really careful with his pitch count to try and, you know, make sure the blister didn't open back up again. So, yeah, I do wonder, you know, innings-wise, he's fine, but at some point you still hit a wall. And so I do wonder maybe we're getting to that point with Miller, but he'll have an extra day off now between this and his next start, which will be against Boston, which is, you know, pretty interesting and tough, you know, tests for him, but he'll be back at Team Mobile, and I think he'll be fine going forward.

Like, I don't think that this is Miller, like, running out of ammo, right? I think this is just general wear and tear of a full season. And sometimes pitchers, they just, you know, they got to push through some stuff. So not overly concerned. The fastball velo was good today as well. And like I said, the slider, it generated plenty of whiffs. It was 44% whiff pitch.

It just, you know, not a ton of called strikes. He threw it a lot. So, yeah, I think teams are just going to be very aggressive with him like they are with Kirby. And it's going to be his job to make sure that he gets chases outside. of the zone so he can expand it. So Andres Munoz redemption this afternoon. Kind of he did give up the single to Vasquez, which by the way, Christian Vasquez, seriously, like hasn't hit at all this year. And then he goes three for four today.

He was just kind of a pest all series long. Artine Maldonado. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Also Vasquez, former Astros catcher, of course. Michael A. Taylor advances to second. But Munoi is able to hold him there.

So nice to see. Nice little confidence boost. And obviously, you know, the mayor is again playing 13 straight out of the break. You know, and their bullpen being in complete disarray with how much guys have been used. I mean, Paul Seawald's been just run into the ground here. Use five out of six days before today.

Thankfully, got a day off today finally. But, yeah, they were able to manage because you and I, again, we were talking amongst ourselves during the game. and we're like, this bullpen with where it's at right now,

having a hold of one run lead against this offense. There looks like they're using the bouncy balls today too. Like it's just like, it's 80 degrees and sunny and it's just like, this is the perfect. Yeah, it was basically a home run derby today. Yeah,

yeah. And so you're just kind of sitting there like, ugh. And to our credit, Munoz gave up hard contact, like a lot of it. Sure, sure.

Three of the four batters he faced. Like absolutely crushed. the ball. So yeah, sometimes it better be lucky than good. But yeah, Munoz is struggling lately. So at the end of the day, he got three outs and didn't give up a run. And that's really the only thing we care about. But yeah, it is something. He's hanging that slider a bit. He is. He is. He's kind of Darren teams. her hitters to just drive that ball 50 million miles up to the moon. Yeah. No, it was interesting about today's outing though. Didn't throw it. Typically, he's 65, 66%

slider today was the opposite. He was 66% fastball. Now it was 33% 4 seam, 33 2 seen, but it's a lot of fastballs for Andres, which might tell you how he feels about his command of the slider right now. Yeah, that's what I was going to say is that he probably doesn't have a ton of confidence in that pitch at the moment, right? Probably doesn't last that long because again, like I said the other day,

Munoz is a great pitcher, right? This is going to happen. You're going to hit bumps of the road. Whatever. He'll work through it. But yeah, right now, we saw it last year too. I don't feel super confident when he takes the mound at the moment, but he'll get there. He'll get back on track. So not something to be too worried about. It would be really nice if somebody could step up and kind of take on a high leverage role situation. You know, and maybe that's Baroa when he comes back up.

Maybe the Mariners go and get a guy. And I mean, I'm not talking like, go get another Andres Munoz, but can you go get another Justin Topa at? least or do you have that guy already and can you just get him to the big leagues already? But yeah, you know, it's kind of a rough day for the bullpen and very brash was actually okay. Didn't have great command of the slider, but, you know, if Teo makes a pretty routine catch out in right field, he gets out of that, giving up just the one inherited runner and nobody cares. And he didn't give up a hard hit ball today. No. Yeah.

He's looked a lot better lately. I don't think we've really talked about that on here. We talked about it on our Patreon, but yeah, Brasches looked a lot better as like for the last month or so. Yeah, a lot fewer walks. You know, it just brash is a time bomb. At some point, he's going to walk three guys in a row. Like, it's going to happen. And I'm not saying you have to live with it.

It's something he has to fix. But dude's still pretty good. You know, got three whiffs today. Four called strikes. So seven of his 14 pitches were no damage strikes. So yeah, he was fine. just some bad luck, bad defense more accurately. But yeah, Brash was fine today.

Not super sharp. The slider, he couldn't really, he threw a really good one to Correa to end the inning. But aside from that, the slider was just kind of, it was okay, but it wasn't anything special. But hey, you know what? A quick shout out to Gabe Spire and Justin Topa, who have also been used quite a bit recently. And they both came out and they were really good. In particular, Gabe Spire, who went against the heart. of the uh the twins lineup with all those lefties and just dominated them so uh yeah spire

will see if he survives the deadline i bet there are going to be a lot of teams interested in him but him and topa again kind of the unsung heroes of the day they they kept the score where it was and the mariner's offense unfortunately was not able to add on but they scored eight so like kind of hard to be too upset about that you're listening to the locked on mariner's post game show thank you again for making us your first listen after the mariner's beat the twins eight to at Target Field to win the series two games to one again they have an off day tomorrow but on Friday you can catch them playing the Diamondbacks on the Mariner's hometown broadcast with Sirius XM via the SXM app so speaking to the bullpen the Mariners made a

trade today very very small trade but a trade nonetheless it is chill season after all so we are going to talk about it we're not going to spend a ton of time on it probably. But yeah, they got an interesting arm that that might factor into the bullpen at some point here. They acquired right-handed pitcher Trent Thornton from the Toronto Blue Jays for infielder Mason McCoy, who we've talked about. He has had a decent year down in AAA, but it doesn't get a chance to make his major league

debut with Seattle. So maybe he gets an opportunity in Toronto will see. but yeah, Thornton's kind of interesting, former starter, high spin rate guy, very high spin rate guy, both on the fastball and the curfball, has a sweeper that has produced some good results over the last few years.

He's thrown like five innings this year, one six ERA, somewhere in that ballpark, but obviously very small sample size on that front. But what do you think about Thornton? Something interesting here or just another dude? it's it's the Mariners in a pitcher so there's always something interesting here but actually you know thornton does have some pretty decent track record of some success at the big league level um you know he made 29 starts back in 2019 he was okay kind of number five

stuff um and then yeah it's been hit or miss with with him but there are a lot of things to like here including you know high fastball spin which is nice, obviously. And good curp ball spin, which is always nice. Again, typically the better the spin, the better the stuff. But that's not always the case. And yeah, like you mentioned, there was a sweeper that he threw a lot last year, and it was actually his best pitch.

So I'm thinking that they might see him as, I mean, it'll look different, but essentially Justin Topa, because I think it's going to be 92 to 96 with good run on the fastball in kind of a sweeping slider. And he does have a curbaal, a hammer that he can drop on hitters on occasion. So I think what this is about in particular, what their thought process is with him is let's simplify the repertoire, right?

Like, let's get him to. I mean, you had some stank on that repertoire. Yeah. Let's get him, let's get him to the three pitches. Like, because right now he throws,

he throws four pitches. Let's cut it down to two. Let's get him fastball. It's going to fastball sweeper and then occasionally drop the curle on them. I think that's kind of what they're going to do. You know, the curveball and the fastball have been hit hard this year. But again, it's only been like eight innings or something like that. Five.

Yeah. I mean, so the sweeper is probably the best pitch. And the curb ball was okay last year, but it really is when you look at the numbers against last year, his best pitch were sinker and sweeper. And the curveball is okay. So to me, I think this is kind of the idea here, like let's just get another Justin Topa where it's going to be a running two seamer in, the sinker, and then the sweeper away and then occasionally drop the curable.

That is my guess for how they plan to use them. But the fact that he does have starter, you know, experience, it could be that he is down in AAA and they're going to try and stretch him out in case they can't get to a price they like in the number five starter market. But I think this is just good, good quality depth and you got him for basically free. Yeah, pretty much. And let's just say it. The Blue Jays not particularly the greatest organization when it comes to developing pitching.

So, yeah, maybe there's something there that the Marys have identified that the Blue Jays just could not. So again, we say it time and time again whenever they had a reliever, even when it's guys like Zach Muck and Hearn, you got to at least not completely discard it because they've earned that reputation. And Thornton's better, better stuff than Muck and He's better than sweet. like he's a legitimate I think he's a legitimate middle relief option at the big league level he might be better than Festa like but it's just about depth right just building depth

and again anytime you can get an interesting arm for free but no offense to Mason McCoy you should do it because Thornton's going to help the Mariners more than McCoy ever could right so you know best to Mason McCoy he might be able to get a major league shot because of the defense obviously the bat

has been virtually nothing but defense is really good. And he's had a pretty good year down in Tacoma on that front. So, you know, best to him. And we'll see how that goes. And we'll see how, or what they do, rather, with Trent Thornton for the rest of the year and see if he gets a shot at the major league level at some point with Seattle as they continue to churn their bullpen. And, you know, maybe if they make a trade here with one of their relievers, spot opens up for Thornton. So yeah. All right.

anything else before we get out of here, Colby, as you are frozen on my end. And it looks like you were completely frozen on my end. So that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marreras postgame show. For Colby Padneode, who is frozen. Look at that face. Look at that face.

I'm Tiding Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalas. It's T-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-Pat 11. and that's CPAT 1-1. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok as well over at Lockdown Mariners. That's one word, Locked-on Mariners. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode.

Thank you again for making that your first listen. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll catch you next time. Peace.