Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners' Rotation Needs Lifeline, Can It Be Bryce Miller?

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Ty and Colby discuss Logan Gilbert's worst start of the year, Dan Wilson's decision to leave Casey Legumina in last night's 12-7 loss, and Bryce Miller's return to the Mariners' rotation.Check out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYTime to fuel up and turn it up with 5-hour ENERGY®️ Transfusion! Go to https://5hourenergy.com today and use my promo code LOCKEDONGOLF to receive 20% off your order. This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. The code is not good on subscription orders.  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!OpenPhoneStreamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at www.openphone.com/lockedonmlbGameday HueLet your colors talk—because colors speak louder than words. Right now, you can get 15% off with code MLB15 at GamedayHue.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 ONE HUNDRED FIFTY 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.

Well, Logan Gilbert got jumped last night. We'll discuss that as well as Bryce Miller's return to the rotation coming up here on the Locked-on Marriss podcast. 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 Tuesday, August 19th, 2025. This is Taddy Gazzalus and Colby Patnode for the Lockdown Marys Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team. every day. This episode is brought to you by Fandul. Football season is around the corner.

Visit the Fandualt app today and start planning your futures bets now. And as always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, you can check out our Patreon. All you have to do to check that out is click the link in the description of this episode. So on today's show, we'll talk about Logan Gilbert's worst start of the year. Dan Wilson's decision to leave Casey Legamina in the game last night and what to expect. return to the mound tonight. But the Mariners lose 12 to 7 in the series opener last night to the Philadelphia, Phillies,

in Philadelphia. Logan Gilbert only goes two innings. He needed, what, 65, 66 pitches to get through those two innings, gives up six earned runs on nine hits. The Phillies in total tally 21 hits on the night against this marriage pitching staff. The most of the marries have given up in a single, game since 2019 against the Astros.

Two home runs given up by Gilbert. Just the lone strikeout. No walks. Silver lining question mark. No. Gilbert was terrible last night. And this is what we have been fearing. This is what we were concerned about when we talked about how much he struggled to get guys out in a timely fashion against the White Sox.

What a week or two ago. And I know a lot of people in the comments were like, like, just enjoy the win. You're being too negative about this, et cetera. But this has been a concerning trend for Logan. And something that I felt and we felt would eventually go sideways for him. And it did. Because yeah, Logan is missing bats in general.

He's striking out a ton of dudes this year. But he's not missing bats in a timely fashion. It's been a lot of foul balls against him, you know, a lot of long at bat. and that's balloon the pitch counts and that's why he hasn't been able to get deep into games and eventually it just felt like a team out there was going to be able to get to him put the ball and play a bit more against him

and things would kind of unravel and sure enough they did against this buzzsaw of a Philadelphia Phillies lineup so the nightmare kind of realized here and it kind of feels like Logan's rough year that he's had overall all the numbers don't really tell that story when you look at them but when you actually watch the games this has not been a typical Logan Gilbert year I think we can all agree on that and it feels

like the year that he has had and obviously obviously he's dealt with the injury and all that stuff that has to be acknowledged here but it feels like the year that he has had rough year that he's had kind of came to a head with what happened last night colby yeah um It would be hard to deny that, you know, Logan's had a, you know, disappointing year, I think we'll call it. Not bad. Disappointing. This is the guy that you're expecting to compete for Cy Young's. You're expecting to go 200 innings and do all that.

And he just hasn't this year. And, you know, again, the injury is a part of it. And you do wonder if that is still a part of the equation as he's kind of trying to manage his way through this. But, yeah, he's not getting deep into games. he is not getting much value out of his fastball at all. And last night he got absolutely jumped, you know, and, you know, it's worth noting that for Logan, this isn't super uncommon, this type of outing,

in the sense that it happens two, three times a year. Last year, remember it happened back-to-back starts against, I believe, Minnesota and Boston, both on the road. So, you know, these blow-up starts are part of his resume, just usually there's only two or three of them and then the other 30 starts he makes he's a siont contender and this year he just hasn't been the strikeouts are there but who cares if the strikeouts are there if you're only going five innings strikeouts are a little bit overrated both in offense and in pitching so it's just one of those things where it's like

look it'd be tough to say Logan's having a bad year because the K-per-9s are there the the base on ball percentages there before last night i called i i called it rough for for a reason it's been a it's been a rocky road for logan right and it's only fair to judge these guys based on who they are right it's why you know we we we can't sit here and say Logan evans is like the worst pitcher we've ever seen because like he's a number five this is who he is you know this is this is what he is and and you look at Logan gilbert's track record he needs to be better than he has been this year period end of story so while most other pitchers we would look at that and be like you guys pretty good nope we have judge logan on a curve and he sets the curve and last year he was

great he was everything you could possibly want he had a couple blow-up starts but he was going deep into pretty much another start guys and now he's not getting deep into starts he's not giving you great chances to win. And you're just kind of stuck. I mean, like, there's not a lot you can do with Logan Gilbert, except hope he pitches better. Yeah. And, you know, this, to start like this felt inevitable, it felt like it was going to happen. You know, pretty good candidate for it to happen against all the lefties, they stack in there,

all the power they have. And if you don't have pinpoint command of your off-speed stuff and you're just laying in fastballs down the middle of the plate. they're going to destroy you. And that's what happened. Yeah. So unfortunately, I wasn't all too surprised by what happened last night. It's just incredibly disappointing.

And it comes at a terrible time where obviously you got two really bad starts out of George Kirby and Luis Castillo in the last series. And now you kick off this series with Logan doing this. And then tonight you got Bryce Miller returning to the mountain. And we'll talk about this later. But you really have no idea where you're going to get there and what that's going to look like. And so it really does feel like best case scenario on this road trip. You go three and six. You find a way to go in three and six.

And that's just not good enough. And yeah, like the Astros have lost a bunch. And you haven't lost a ton of ground on really anyone. Now the Guardians and the Royals picked up a game on you last night. But still, I don't look at that as necessarily a positive. I look at that as a missed opportunity for this club. I look at all these games that the Astros are losing. end coordinates with the Mariners losing

and I go man the baroners could be up a couple games right now in the division what Luis Castillo, George Kirby and Logan Gilbert did this turn in the rotation. It's kind of what I was talking about after the trade deadline. Like yeah, adding a Phil Maton or a Danny Coulomb would have been nice.

Adding a Randall Gritchick or a Harrison Bader would have been nice at the deadline. But ultimately the thing that this team needs the most and makes all that other stuff irrelevant is that they need Logan Gilbert to be Logan Gilbert they need George Kirby to be George Kirby and this turned through the rotation they absolutely weren't

they were terrible no way around it no sugar coating it but Louise Castillo George Kirby and Logan Gilbert put on the table this turn through the rotation is unacceptable cannot happen especially not in the same turn through the rotation. You need better from those guys.

You should absolutely expect better from those guys. Are they going to have blow-up starts here and there? Sure. But this has happened, not to this degree, but you have not gotten enough out of these guys too much over the course of the season. They have to be better. This organization was not on the wrong

to hitch their wagon to these guys either. They just have to perform better. you know what they can be you know what they have been it's not ridiculous to expect more out of them all right so the mariners were actually able to get back into that game a little bit last night with a three run bomb off the bat of cole young who man that guy can just hit some tanks apparently i guess he just has that in his bag uh but dan wilson stuck with casey lugamina and any hopes of the Marrers getting back into that one, even further, went away pretty quickly. So did Dan give up?

We'll talk about that in just a moment. But first a reminder, this episode of the Lockdown Marys podcast is once again brought to you by Fandul. August 26th is officially Fandual Futures Day, a brand new holiday for football fans who live for bold predictions and preseason hunches. For just 24 hours, Fandul is giving you deals on NFL season predictions. So whether you're calling your MVP, I'm a long shot division winner, or ready to crown your Super Bowl champ before week one even kicks off,

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Be sure to tune into the Marriss Postcast with Anderson Hurst and Christopher Crawford available on both the Lockdown Marrars YouTube and podcast feeds. So it was 7-0 at one point in the Phillies favor. It's very ugly. But the mayor's got a home run out of Mitch Garver to make it 7 to 1. And then they got a three-run shot off the bat of Cole Young, who again, he can hit tanks apparently that's just a thing that cole young can do cool glad that we've learned that that's a great development so it's seven to four at that point right and it's like okay

maybe the marys have an outside shot maybe the offense is starting to get it going never know what could happen now do i think that the mares would have scored seven had they'd been within striking distance here for the rest of the game. You know, and either Matt Strom or Yon DeRonn would have entered this one for the Phillies. Probably. I'm going to go out on a limb

and say that the reason that they got those three additional runs to get seven total on the night is probably because they faced former mayor's draft pick, of course, Nolan Hoffman. But still, you had a shot there. You had a shot to maybe get back into this game.

or at the very least, force the Phillies hand to use Duran or Strom and impact how they can be used for the rest of the series. Instead, the next half inning, Dan Wilson keeps Casey Legamina in the game, and yeah, things get out of hand pretty quickly. Dan was asked about the decision after the game and said, quote,

this comes via Adam Jude, by the way. quote those are always decisions that are difficult you've got to weigh it away everything that you can and i thought legs it's beans legs had a pretty good first inning and we decided to stay with him what happened to that first inning tie uh casea like amina gave up a solo home run to bryce harper which was 113 miles per hour off the bat on a hanging sweeper uh he also gave up a double to j t real muto and needed, what, 17, 18 pitches to get through that inning. I think Dan and I have very different definitions of what a pretty good ending is. Look, I get Dan does the manager speak.

He wants to try and keep things positive when he's asked about guys, no matter how bad things go, blah, blah, blah, blah. To say that that was a pretty good ending is just disingenuous. And, yeah, I can't. help but feel like Dan just gave up on the club yesterday when he like me to go back out there. Yeah. I mean, I think one thing to consider here, though, is that a big culprit in yesterday's game is George Kirby, who also wasn't able to go deep into his Mets start.

And so the bullpen was already running a little ragged. And I can understand Dan not wanting to. to waste, you know, quote unquote waste, Munoz, Brash, Spire. Known Dan Wilson defender, Colby Patnode. Yeah, sure. Sure. To me, it speaks more to the lack of bullpen depth than anything, which is why we were pounding the table for the Phil Matons and,

you know, all that. Because of situations just like this, because you just can't trust Casey Legamina and Jackson Co. are to go out there and throw. And Saucato had thrown a couple innings the day before. So he was down. So really all of your mop-up guys were either in the game getting used or that you were down. So you were going to have to use, you know, Bizarro or somebody like that, which by the way, Dan did in the start against the Mets when they were trailing similarly. And it worked out great.

And they were able to make the comeback because the bullpen threw up a bunch of zeros, aside from Jackson Co. And they won that game against the Mets. And that was a huge one because it avoided the sweep, you know, as it turned out. So it's kind of weird for Dan to do that against the Mets, but to not do it against, you know, the Phillies. Maybe because it was earlier in the game. I don't know. But yeah, to me. Maybe it's that.

Maybe it's just, you know, he looks at what this offense has done, you know, five of the last six games entering last night. Sure. I mean, he knows that he knows that they have strong and drawn still on the bullpen. Sure. This is a very unlikely situation for us to win this game. But again, that's kind of giving up on your ball club. I think that George Kirby deserves a big part of the problem pie here or whatever for dance decisions last night. Not as big as Logan Gilbert, who only went two freaking innings.

Yeah. And forced the managers to cover more. Let's not go any further without giving a huge shout out to Carlos Vargas, who threw. three innings last night, scoreless ball to really save the bullpen in this one. That was huge. Yeah, three, three in a...

No strikeouts, no walks, nothing like that. Only gave up one hard hit ball, though, and only three hits in total on the night. Yeah, I think you only threw about 30 pitches as well. Yeah, 30 exactly. So... So there's a... There's a non-zero chance he might actually be available

not tonight, but tomorrow. So you might not be down. you know, a bullpen arm for more than a day. But yeah, it does, like we know the Mariners are sending down one of these relievers. Probably,

probably CoR, or I mean, Legamina's got an option. So Legamina can go down and they're going to add Bryce Miller. That'll happen probably by the time you guys are listening to this. It could be sauce. If sauce can't pitch today, it could be him.

But there's, there probably should be another reliever move made as well. Coar and Legamina both have options left. Vargas does not. and I don't think you want to DFA Vargas. I know he hasn't been incredible. He had a really rough July, but it seems like he's pitching a little bit better now.

And he is a guy who on several occasions has had to come in and give the team, you know, two plus innings to kind of help out the bullpen. And he's done that very well. So, yeah, it's a very tough situation for Dan yesterday. Obviously, the results aren't going to do him any favors. and ultimately I just I do wonder like hey if Logan had given you four instead of two hey if George had given you six yesterday instead of what he did like how does that change the math but

you know so I don't want to say he gave up on it I but I also don't want to say like he made the right decision because I don't think he did I think you are in a situation where every game matters and if you have an opportunity to steal a win you need to take a it. And being down three, you know, with only six outs to go, it was not a good opportunity to win a game. I understand that. But your team just scored four. Yeah. If you could post a zero, you could throw out there. You got Ranger Suarez out of the game. And again, at the very least, you can go out there and you can, you can force the Phillies to kind of use some of their leverage guys. And maybe you can knock them out of knock them out of the rest of the series or at the very least you can knock them out of Sunday or

Wednesday's game if you know they're used tonight as well and now there's both of those guys are probably available both tonight and tomorrow more than likely. And so there's a long-term plan here but I mean there's also a long-term plan of like hey let's not earn our high leverage guys in a game that we have probably a I don't know, big 7% chance of winning. Yeah, I get it. It just, it feels like there gets to a point in a game where just Dan's like, we have no shot of winning this. I mean, and maybe he's justified in those moments. I don't know. But still, it's just like, there's been a few times over the course of the year where the Maris have actually, they've gotten a couple of runs later on. And now they're within, you know, one or two or three. But then Dan goes to, you know, the Casey Legaminas of the world, the Jackson Coors of the world. And then things go sideways. I get, but also your offense is significantly better now. Your lineup is significantly better now.

And so while, you know, in April, being down three with six outs to go, the game's over. Maybe not April, but like, you know, June. Whereas now, like, no, it's probably over, but you can't say for sure that it is because your lineup's so deep. And so, yeah, it's weird. I mean, Scott Service used to do this all the time. Like he would punt games, quote, unquote. Yeah. you understood the assignment and he played the long game all the time.

And it was one of the things Scott did well. I thought Scott managed the bullpen relatively well, especially, you know, after the first three or four years where he kind of found his groove. So again, I don't want to, I don't want to give Dan too much grief for this because I do, I think I understand the rationale. Like, do we really want to use brash or aspire here when we're down by three? And it's, but also, I just feel like there's,

no situation that he could be placed in based on where the roster was at after the game yesterday and Logan only going to today. I think it's a lose-lose situation for him. Yeah, no, because we could easily get up here and be like, why? Why did you waste Matt Brash when you were down three? And now you might not have him for the rest of the same, whatever. So I get it. It's just watching those series of events play out and calling back to some other moments over the course of this year. It just, it did feel a little bit like, yeah, we have no shot. I, well, yeah, but I think this is also one of those situations where Dan is not going to go

up there and be like, what do you want for me? Our two best pitchers gave me six innings total over the last two games. I don't know. Yeah. What am I supposed to do? Like, and he's not going to throw those players under the bus. It ultimately falls on Logan and George. Yeah.

And like, I mean, he needs to pitch better. But like, yeah. And also a little bit on the front office for not going and getting Dan another freaking arm for situations just like this. But yeah, so it's one of those things where it's like, again, I'm not phrasing Dan. I think he was a lose-lose, no matter what decision he makes, unless the Mariners come back to win, he looks like an idiot. And so it's kind of one of those things.

It's a little Monday morning quarterbacking and it's a tough spot. But again, it's just kind of one of those things where, yeah, we can blame Dan, but we should really be blaming Logan especially, but also a little bit of blame goes to George last night. This is why we talk about you need your starters to go deep because it's not just, when they don't, it's not just a one game problem. Usually there's a spillover effect into the next game or two. And now back to back guys haven't gone deep. And now Bryce Miller's starting this game.

And he's probably going to be on a pretty severe pitch count of about 80, 85. So what if he only goes for? And that's probably factoring into Dan's decision yesterday too. Like, look, I have a starter going tomorrow who might not be able to go five, even if you pitch as well. So I'm going to have to cover four innings tomorrow on top of this. And so, yeah, there's a snowball effect. When your starters don't go deep, it can ruin weeks for you, not just a game or two.

So we'll see how it goes. They do have that off day on Thursday. But man, just right now it looks like they're hurtling towards a two and seven road trip, which would basically get back everything they earned on the nine and one road trip, which is brutal. And no, it doesn't make me feel better that the Astros are also. struggling and all that. I don't care about that. All right. Bryce Miller is making his return to the mountain tonight.

We'll talk about that in just a moment. But first a reminder of this episode of the Lockdownerrors podcast is brought to you by Price Picks. This episode of the Locked on Marries podcast is brought to you by Price Picks, the Daily Fantasy Platform that lets you turn your football predictions into real rewards. Preseason is already heating up and college football isn't far behind. It's the perfect time to lock in your season long, more or less picks for the 2025 football season all before week one kicks off. Whether you've got your eye on big name quarterbacks or breakout running backs, price picks makes it easy to get in the game.

Download the price picks app today and use the promo code locked on MLB. That's LOC, KED, ON, MLB to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's promo code Locked-on MLB, L-O-C-K-E-O-N-M-LB to get $50 in lineups after your first $5 play. Price Picks, run your game. And you're listening to the Locktime Airs podcast. Bryce Miller is making his return to the mountain night for the first time since June 6. He had obviously gone on a rehab assignment recently down in AAA, made three starts with the rain nears. his last one against the Las Vegas Aviators,

who we obviously talked quite a bit about yesterday for other reasons. Went pretty well, four strikeouts, one walk, two run runs on two hits, give up a home run in five and two thirds. Ennings had a little bit of a home run problem over the course of his rehab assignment, gave up four home runs in total, including the one that I mentioned. But it's the PCL, so who knows, whatever, not a huge deal. I'm going to hyper focus on that. The actual important things here,

like he actually, he got through his starts feeling fine. He didn't report any sort of discomfort or anything like that. Though I think it's safe to assume, given what Bryce has said in the past, that he's still pitching through something. He said that, you know,

he didn't feel like it was something that was going to go entirely away until he got the surgery, which is, I assume, still the plan to have this winter. But the Velo stayed pretty much where you want it to be, again, he got through these starts without really reporting much of an issue, so that's all good news.

But he does not get a soft landing spot here whatsoever. Now he's got to face this Philadelphia Phillies lineup, which again just smoked the mayor's pitching staff and especially Logan Gilbert. So

expectations, if any, for Bryce? Good one. ones. It is a very difficult lineup. And, you know, it'll be interesting to see how much does price use his split? Because, you know, we've noticed that since George came off the IEL, he's using the split a lot less. You know, Logan's still using it. But, yeah, like, the split is kind of Miller's weapon against lefties. He really needs that pitch. And the most dangerous bats in

this Philly lineup are mostly left-handed. So it's kind of, it's kind of. kind of one of those things where I don't think it's particularly great matchup, and not for nothing, but we still haven't seen a really good, well, we've seen like one or two really good Bryce Miller starts this year. And he hasn't pitched in the big leagues in over two months. So I don't really think it's fair to have high expectations. If he can give you five innings and keep you in the ballgame, I think that's a really good job by him. I don't know what his pitch count's going to be at. Probably 85 would be my guess. How many outs can he get you on 85? but also there's the up down.

Like can he get up and down five times, six times? Like hypothetically, if he's at 74 pitches after five innings, do they try to push him for another one, even though he hasn't gone six yet in any of his rehab starts? I don't know. Yeah, so Bryce went 76 pitches his last time out. So I'm thinking probably 85, 90 on his pitch count tonight, depending on how he looks and all that.

The VLO was in a really good spot his last time. He went out back. on August 13th, average 96.7 miles per hour on the heater. His slowest pitch, his slowest fastball of the night was 94.9, so we'll round up to 95.

And he even had a career high on his fastball vlo, 98.1. So that was nice to see sub 1,000 RPM splitter in that game as well. Had a low 765, so that's good.

Do we know how many he threw. 13. So the 76 pitches. So it's over 10%. It was 4.41 4 seams.

13 splinters. That's 17% by the way. On the splutter. Nine sliders, five knuckle curves, five sinkers. This is primary secondary pitch. So that's good. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, again, that's a very important pitch for him.

So if he can find that pitch, which he really hasn't had all year. then he might be able to get through this lineup a couple times. So we'll see how it goes. But yeah, Bryce hoping he's back and this is it. Like he's finally healthy. Well, as healthy as is going to be this year. And he can give you something down the stretch because, again,

he is significantly better than Logan Evans. Even Bryce Miller at like 85, 90% is going to be better than what you've gotten out of the number five spot in your rotation for most of the year. obviously Bryce or Logan and Emerson both had their moments and they both had stretches. We're like, oh, wow, this is pretty good. But ultimately, we saw what they are against major league hitters. And it's just kind of a dude. All right. That is going to do it for our show.

Thank you so much for joining us here on the lockdown Marreras podcast for Colby Padnaud. I'm Tadon Gazzalas. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Tadangazales and Colby at C-Pat 11. That's C-PAT-1. We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB Colby, and the show at Lockdown Mariners.

You can also find us on Instagram at Lockdown Mariners. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you next time. Peace.