Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Suffer a Twin Killing

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Another rough one for the Mariners, another rough outing for Marco Gonzales, another weak performance by the offense. D.C. talks about this game, but highlights some of the bright spots for the M's, including Jose Marmolejos and Ty France. There's also injury news, and it's not good news for James Paxton. However, the news is much better for Evan White and Jake Fraley. Jonathan Miller joins D.C. to talk about the catcher's interference call from Wednesday's ballgame, and the two also talk generally about how umpires, blown calls, and players. Jon also gives his thoughts on the first week of the Major League Baseball Season. 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.

Today on Locked-on Mariners, I bring some brownies into the squad room to share with my fellow detectives, not knowing they had been laced with hashish. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you very much, J.M. Yesterday was not the best day to be a Mariners fan. We'll talk about it today on Locked-on Mariners. Part of the Locked-on podcast network brought to you.

the locker room. Please remember to download, rate, and follow Locked on Mariners using whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked on Mariner's podcast or Locked on Open Bracket, team name here, close bracket, podcast. Gang, I wish we could wrap up the week on a high note, but it was another rough game for the Mariners yesterday in Minneapolis, and also some pretty bad injury news, I'm afraid. John Miller will join us later, and we're going to try to wrap up the show with something fun.

Don't know what that's going to be yet, but we'll figure it out as we go along, I am sure. Yesterday was not fun, really at all, in terms of the Mariners baseball. John Schuster and his crew played much better against Denmark than the M's played against the twins. And in the evening draw, they beat the Netherlands to clinch a playoff spot. Congratulations to John Schuster and crew. Good luck in the playoffs coming up in just. a few days at the World Curling Championships. Marco Gonzalez had another rough outing yesterday.

It was worse than his first start. The twins hit a few fairly well-located pitches early on, maybe caught a little bit too much of the strike zone, but Marco also hung quite a few pitches, got hit very hard and left with one out in the fifth after throwing 100 pitches in that short time frame. More on him a little later on. Mariner's offense was anemic against twin starter Jose Barrios for the most part.

He looked like he's back to his 2018-19 form, which is bad news for the rest of the American League. He goes five and two-thirds innings, gives up both Mariner runs, strikes out eight. He does walk three and allow five hits, including Jose Marmalalejos's first home run of the season, which came in the sixth after the game was already seemingly out of reach. Barrios was tiring at that point, and he hung a breaking ball to Marmo, about belt high on the outer half of the plate. Marmo pulled it pretty much to dead right field over the big wall and into the second deck. Kudos to Marmo for not only being able to pull such a pitch like that, but also kudos to him for not posing or flipping as bad or hot dogging really at all,

especially down six runs at the time. He hit it, he knew he got it, and admired it while, trotting to first base, and then when it left the yard, kind of picked up the speed and jogged around the bases. He did it the right way. I was very impressed with that. That was one of the lone bright spots on offense for the Mariners yesterday afternoon. Luis Torrens had a good day, collecting three hits. And Ty France, I'm going to have to do a whole segment on him at some point, probably early next week. If I didn't have a guest on the show, I'd probably do it today. Maybe we'll talk about him. I have no idea. We don't have a plan, quite honestly.

Man, can he hit? He's got a great approach. He puts good swings on the ball, uses the whole field. On the TV broadcast, Dave Sims asked Mike Blowers which of his contemporaries would be a good comparison to Thai France, and I don't think he came up with one. I don't know if there is one really since strikeout totals have gone way up in recent years, but his numbers are somewhat similar to the type of numbers that Craig Beggio put up. Good batting average, good home run total, quite a few doubles. Good batting eye, pretty good on base numbers. Getting back to yesterday's game, other than Torrens and France, only two other Mariners collected hits,

one apiece from Mitch Hanager and the aforementioned Jose Marmalejo's home run. Sam Haggerty tried to get on via a pushbutt between the pitcher's mound and third base, but Burrios got off the mound pretty quickly and made a good play on it. Telegam Sam was hustling down the line, but he was still out. Only one player managed not to strike out, and that was Marmo. Mariner's struck out 10 times overall. They've been having strikeout problems lately, gang.

Both Taylor Tremel and Dylan Moore struck out twice. Judging from this past week, the Mariners have trouble on breaking pitches and off-speed stuff late in the count, and you can get them to wave over the top of pretty much anything that's moving if it's down. That's what I've noticed at least, especially in the White Sox series, where there were a lot of hard throwers who were getting the Mariners to chase sliders low and out of the zone. And pitchers are starting to develop a scouting report on Taylor Tremel, where he looks to be

susceptible to off-speed pitches low and in. The Mariners have faced some good pitching thus far, gang. Let's face it. San Francisco's bullpen may be pretty terrible, but their starting pitchers did well against the M's. There's certainly no slouches. The White Sox has some very good pitching, and Burrios was very good yesterday. And Saturday they'll be facing former mariner Michael Panetta, who was also absolutely no slouch.

This is not an easy schedule to begin this season, and I hate to keep harping on the following point. But this is a team in development. And while Ace Fraley filled Kyle Lewis's stead best he could in the lineup, he's not Kyle Lewis. And Trammell is off to a pretty rough start. even though he has showed good patience and he won't swing at fastballs out of the zone. Tremel also made a pretty bad base running mistake yesterday. He misread Barrios's move and he took off for second without a pitch being delivered. Barrios picked him off. He was a dead duck between second and third.

Another blunder came from veteran Mitch Hanager, who had taken too much of a secondary lead off second. Berrios quickly turned him through to shortstop Andrelton Simmons. Manninger was originally called safe, but upon review, it was called out to end the inning. You know, Tremels can kind of be chalked up to a rookie mistake, but Manninger is a veteran. He should not be making mental errors like that. At the same time, though, everyone makes mistakes. And I'm sure that that is not going to become a habit with Manninger.

As for Marco, there's really not much to be said that I haven't said already. He just wasn't sharp. He threw 38 pitches in the third inning, after which Berrios came out in the fourth and put the M's away very quickly. The home plate umpire also had something of a tight strike zone at times, but with both teams. Marco again simply hung too many pitches. He was hit hard. Mitch Garver's home run was crushed to dead center field. This home run reminded me of a Jose Kinseko-type blast from back in the day.

Not only was it smoked, but the bat-furt. flip that followed, was reminiscent of Konseco, as were the forearm baches to his teammates. Buxton's home run was another Konseko-esque blast with all the trimmings. The only thing those two gentlemen were missing were the Popeye physique and the 65 IQ. I swear that there are golden retrievers who could kick Jose Kinseko's ass on an IQ test. Drew Steck and Ryder pitched one inning, and I knew that he reminded me of someone, and I originally thought it was Jay Boehner with hair. But he also kind of reminds me of Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. Maybe if Shaggy and Boehner somehow managed to have a child, it would grow up to look

like Steckenrider, but anyways, he now has a nickname, I shall from here on out refer to him as Shaggy. On a serious note, I liked the looks of the curveball he was utilizing yesterday. L.J. Newsom pitched the final two and two-thirds innings in his season debut. He's not generally going to be finishing ball games, but just up from the taxi squad, he needed to get some work in. And it looks like that he's going to be at the big league level to stay, as there was some not good news to break during the sixth inning yesterday. I'll get to that soon, but first in the trivia corner and this trivia question. We'll throw some more love, Ty France's way, try to keep things positive, off whom did he

collect his first major league hit? Answer following this word from Bet Online, the fastest, and easiest way to bet on all your sports action. Football might be over, college basketball might be over, but the NBA, the NHL, and baseball are in full swing, not to mention bowling and curling, of course. Bet Online even covers awards, TV, shows, and reality TV. Real-time updated odds and props on almost anything you can imagine.

Bet Online has you covered for all the news, scores, and odds. It's the best way to place your bets, and it is absolutely free to sign up. Head on over to the website or use your mobile device, to sign up today and receive your 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit. Bet Online, your online sports book experts promo code. Locked on. Answer to the trivia question, Tai France collected his first big league hit in his first big league at bat on April 26th,

2019 in Nationals Park. He pinch hit for the pitcher's spot in the eighth inning of that day's ballgame and singled through the hole at short against Nationals reliever, Kyle Barraclaw. Two pitches later, Fernando Tetti's Jr. hit into a force play to erase him. Coming up, what will John Miller have to say

about the way the season has progressed thus far? I'm guessing it won't be blurgity, blobbly snork. Welcome back to Lockdown Mariners. Here once again is your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you, Joey. Get all the sports news you need in under 20 minutes, and the word all

is in caps. Host Peter Bikowski hosts Locked On Today to give you the latest news in every major sport with the help of our local experts. Follow the Locked On Today podcast today on the Odyssey app or wherever you get podcasts. Odyssey is A-U-D-A-C-Y. Going to get to some injury updates before we bring in our guest, but there's some good news and some bad news. I'll begin with the latter, and that is, it's been recommended that James Pax and underco Tommy John's surgery. Nothing official has come from the club as of yet,

and Big Maple will seek a second opinion. But as of right now, it appears his season is, for all intents and purposes, probably finished. That's probably the worst news that could have come. There's not much to add other than that, you know, we obviously wish him the best. I'm sure that Mariners fans everywhere are very disappointed that his return engagement turned out as it did.

The news is better, though, for both Jake Fraley and Evan White. White had an MRI and Scott Service said that he was quote, going to be okay, end quote, and that he most likely would be able to avoid a stint on the injured list. He'll be re-evaluated, pardon me, today during the team's off day. Ace Fraley also might be back sooner rather than later. He was diagnosed with a mild hamstring strain, which was better news than what service had been anticipating. There was no timetable for his return. reported, but that is certainly very good news for Ace. Kyle Lewis also may be back rather soon.

It was reported during yesterday's game that the M's were hoping to get him back on the field mid-month, maybe even in time for the upcoming homestand, which begins on the 16th versus the trash can bangers. The Ms could sure use his bad in the lineup. It's been rough going. And here to talk about that and a whole lot of other things, or maybe a few other things, I don't exactly know. Lockdown Mariners' control.

John Miller. John, how art thou today? Thou art doing quite well. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. It's nice to have you on a mid-season show, instead of just helping me answer emails, which is, I think that's the last few of your appearances in any case. John, before I ask you about the team at large, I want to ask you about a bit of umpiring that I actually talked about on yesterday's show, and I know you listened to that segment. Since you are an umpire, I just kind of want you to touch on how the umpires handled originally missing the catcher's interference call and the way they, and basically

the way they handled it. I thought they handled it as well as they could. What say you? They handled it fantastic. The big thing that was drilled into us at the Harry Wendlestead School, and this was coming from guys that either still are major league umpires, including the late Harry Wendlestet, or coming from guys who are now major league umpires who have made it up there guys like trip gibson and john tompane and you can look them up and they're having great MLB careers as umpires

but the big thing they drilled into us and i know they still follow is they care more about getting the call right yep and if any of you have listened to jerry davis's podcast he has talked about that and that's why or the main reason why the umpires were in favor of instant replay is because they would rather have the call right than they have that high of standard and yeah i may miss it but then i can look at a replay and get it right but even with going to the replay even if a play is not reviewable as the radio announcers did not think that the catchers interference call was reviewable, it was Nick Marley, I believe. He went to his colleagues to get help.

And even if a play isn't reviewable, that's still doing the right thing. He did what he should have. That's exactly right. That's what I, as, yes, I've umpired for around 20 years. No, I've never done it at the level where we have the luxury of instant replay, but it's always something you can do when asked or if, If you're not sure, you go out to your partner or have them come into you, you meet up and you have a discussion about it, ask them, hey, what did you see? Did you see this?

Am I seeing this clearly? And they can make sure that you guys get the right call and don't look like bums. This just popped into my head, John. The batter on this play was Tom Murphy. He does not beef with umpires, or at least I don't recall him. doing so before. Would you take a guy like that a little bit more seriously rather than a guy who does complain and nitpick on a regular basis? Umpires definitely take that into consideration.

Okay. And like, well, this is a Mariners podcast, so Edgar Martinez. Someone who was kicked out twice in his illustrious career. And I remember both games very well. Yes. If he actually turned and said, said something to an umpire. You can look back on that and see that even if the umpire had it right, it was a close call.

Yeah. And there's a reason why Edgar questioned versus some of these guys and most of them are so well known that just they will jaw at umpires all the time whether the umpires right or wrong. The pitch could have been the dead center of the plate and they didn't bother to swing and they will say something. Yeah, I mean, there were a few players like that that I remember growing up. I've seen to remember Paul O'Neill having a few, not necessarily run-ins with umpires, but a few arguments.

He was one that would maybe question umpires decisions more than others. There are two other names that I want to bring up specifically because they did not fool with umpires too much, who absolutely erupted. One of them as a former mariner, David Bell, the last game of the 1999 season. I think it was a safe call at a base, and I'd never seen him so animated towards an umpire

until he started managing. But as a player, he was very mild-mannered and kept it within himself. And a player like that, if he erupts at an umpire, you have to figure that the umpire may have blown the call. The other one also involves the Mariners, but it was on the other side. and this clip is on YouTube, and I do suggest, gang, that you go look this up because it's actually quite entertaining. The pitcher was a man named Todd Froworth. He has since passed away.

He threw a slider to Edgar Martinez, bringing up Edgar Martinez again, which was called a ball. Should have been strike three. The umpire dead missed the call. And then the next pitch, Froworth hung a pitch to Edgar, and he took it into the left field seats for either a grand slam or a three-run home run. to put the Mariners ahead. I also believe that strikeout would have ended the inning, and Froworth erupted. And on the broadcast, Joe Angel called Froworth a gentleman's gentleman and a very mild-mannered man. His words, and I have to believe him, since I'm not all that familiar with Froworth. I'm familiar with his pitch repertoire and whatnot, but not him personally. Froworth went off. He threw his hat, submarine style like he pitched, threw his glove back onto the

field and when a mild-mannered person just goes off like that you have to figure that the umpire did something wrong do you not yeah yeah there there is something to that you generally can watch the demeanor of a player and you look at how much he does or does not argue and then when he finally snaps yeah when edgar snaps david bell snaps froworth throws his hat yeah and when he was described as gentleman's gentleman type of guy who wouldn't harm a fly and he's going to do that, there's something to it. It almost sounds to me like the way they were describing Mr. Froworth would almost be like Jamie Moyer having a tantrum like that. Just to kind of give Mariners fans kind of a perspective on what type of individual we're talking about. And Moyer was never one to

be with umpires either and neither was the late Mr. Froworth. But we got way more out of this than I thought we were going to, John. I am fine with that. I love talking about umpiring. But I got to ask the listeners if they have a question or a comment to send it on into Locked-on Mariners at Gmail.com. I'll reply to it on the air. Questions and comments on any subject are welcome.

Highly encouraged. And it doesn't even have to do anything with baseball. Just, you know, remember to keep up appropriate. That's pretty much the only stipulation. Coming up is a member of the twins coaching staff leading. a double life as adult film star Harry Mansfield? Of course not. Why would you think such a thing? What gave you that idea? Now this from Belt Bar, and it's time to play my favorite game, guess the language,

and rather than rely on the plethora of linguists at our disposal here on Locked-on Mariners, I'm going to try to attempt this language on my own. Wish me luck, gang. Bilt Bar is the amazing protein bar that's low in sugar and calories, while also being high in protein and fiber. They taste as close to a candy bar as a protein bar can get. But don't take my word for it, eh? Try some out for yourself.

I like to have one after an afternoon of fur trapping before hitting the bar for a mousin golden. Oh, geez. Today's language was Canadian in honor of the World Curling Championships taking place in Calgary. Again, US moving on to the playoffs. The ad, of course, said,

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I've picked up a little Canadian from Kevin Martin while watching curling. They do taste great. Trust me, I wouldn't be this silly during these ads if they weren't as good as they are. Go on over to BiltBar.com and order some for. yourself. You can even compile a box of the flavors you'd most like to try. Use promo code locked 20 to get 20% off your order and if you buy one box, you can get a second for the exact same price. Builtbar.com promo code locked 20 for 20% off your order. That's L-O-C-E-D-2-0. Built Bar, always fresh. Now back to Locked-on Mariners. Here once again is your host, D.C. Lundberg.

Thank you once again. Joey Martin. You are a gentleman and a scholar. I don't know. Be a waiver-wire winner with the Locked-on Fantasy Baseball podcast. It's a daily podcast hosted by veteran fantasy analyst Bill Cullen. Nope, Scott Cullen, who uses data in nearly two decades of fantasy baseball experience to offer the strategies and waiver-wire pickups that will lead to league wins. Follow Locked-on Fantasy Baseball on the Odyssey app or wherever you choose to get podcasts.

D.C. Lundberg and John Miller back here on Lockdown Mariners. John, are you a waiver-wire winner? Is that a tongue-twister? Yes, it is, and I can't say it any faster than that. I am not yet a waiver-wire winner. Well, something to aspire to at the very least. What are your thoughts about this iteration of the Mariners team? I know it's only a week, and I know it's early,

but what are your general thoughts on how things have been shaping up so far? My general thoughts. This is about what I am expecting for the Mariners this year, around 500 ball, give or take, five games. So I won't be too concerned if they get five or seven games under. At some point, I don't expect this team to, I would love it if they were a playoff contender, even for a second wild card spot.

Yeah, I honestly, I think I see them finishing fourth. I think the angels are going to be better than they were last year. And I don't know if there's going to be two wild cards coming out of the West this year, I don't think the angels are that good. One thing that's semi-concerned me, again, it's early, so I'm not sounding the panic button yet, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to wait a few more weeks before I do that. The Mariners seem to be susceptible to hard throwers

with good off-speed and breaking pitches, and that's pretty much the profile of most bullpens these days. That tells me that they've got to get to the starting pitcher. They've got to, and we may have to write this off to some of these guys' lack of experience in the big leagues. Yeah, I mean, that's for certain. I mean, Taylor Tremel, I mean, he looked good on opening day. I like his approach at the plate, but he's also susceptible, as I said, to off-speed pitches low and in. He'll get fooled on those, but he won't swing at fastballs outside of the zone.

that's almost half the battle right there. And before Jake Freyley went on the disabled list, he's all of a sudden developed a very good batting eye. That's great to see. Yes, it is. If we can get last year's rookie of the year to come back, we do have the makings of a good team. The makings are certainly there.

It's not going to come all together this year, I don't think. I'd be very surprised if it did, actually. Young teams such as this tend to be really streaky. So I'm just going to say that they're starting off on a down streak right now, especially since they have faced some pretty good pitching to open things up. They're going to Baltimore next, I believe. Maybe that's a team against which they can get their footing. It certainly could be.

Baltimore is not expected to be good. No, and I forget who's starting for the twins on Sunday, but on Saturday it's going to be Michael Paneda. And the season that he was with the Mariners, he was an All-Star, did very, very well. So the Mariners are going to face another tough starter. On Saturday, they've just run into some very, very good pitching. But at the same time, the starting pitching has not exactly been there for the Mariners at times. Marco Gonzalez, two rough outings.

Again, I'm not sounding the alarm on Marco Gonzalez. It is two bad starts. That is all. Remember his last start last season, it was awful. and then he wound up having a very, very good season. He'll come around. I'm not worried about him. Justice Sheffield was facing a White Sox team that not only hits left-handed pitching very well,

but they're just overall a very good offensive team. I'm not worried about him either. Justin Duns another situation, eight walks and his history of control problems. That does concern me, and Nick Margievich has yet to make his first start of the season. So the jury really is still out on the starting rotation. and the bullpen's been a mixed bag too, John. Yeah, they have. Yeah, I mean, there's not really much more

that we can say about that particular subject. How are your Dodgers doing? I know that you are both a Mariners and a Dodgers fan. How do you like in the looks of the... I almost said the Boys in Blue, that's the umpires. That's your other team. How are you liking the Dodgers chances? The Dodgers are looking good so far.

if they can keep it up. I remember a few years ago, we were talking about, well, Kershaw's getting older, they may not have. They've come up with some really good young guys. They have, and it seems like for the past five or six years going into the season, Kershaw's over the hill, Kershaw's over the hill, Kershaw's over the hill. He dominated the Oakland days. Totally. Yeah. Although the Dodgers did allow the A's to. get their first win of the season. So, you know, right there, that's trouble.

I mean, I feel bad for the Oakland A's. I feel bad for Jason Burke, the Lockdown A's host. He's still managing to put out a very fun and entertaining show over there on Locked on A's despite the athletics woes. The A's are going to be better than they've showed. Aren't they going to be, John? I've got them winning the West still. Yes.

Much to the Mariners' chagrin, yes, I see them at the top. I'd rather see them at the top than the Astros. Man, if they started like a house of fire, I didn't see that coming. Certainly not. I mean, Bregman had a down year last year. Altuva had a really down year last year. And I know that those may be aberrations, but I also kind of felt like their time may have passed

because Yuli Guriel also had a down year. And, you know, the great pitching, the outstanding, almost elite pitching that they had a couple of seasons ago, is it there anymore? It's still very, very good, but not at the level that it was. It's obviously proven to be good enough. Yeah, I'm wondering what their secret is. Maybe we'll find out in a few years and be pissed off again. Who knows? No, no, no, no, no. I don't read anything into that gang. That was just a joke.

On that joke, John, I think that we're going to call it a show. See, I knew we'd end up on something fun, ladies and gentlemen. John, where can the people on Twitter find you? Should they still be there? If you are still on Twitter, I can be found at Seattle Pilot 69. Very good. Thanks again for joining us, John. Hope to have you again pretty soon. Maybe we'll do this every couple of weeks or so.

Get a state of baseball, so to speak, from you. What am I saying? Got to come up with a better name than that. I look forward to it. All right. Join us on Monday, ladies and gentlemen, to, well, we recap the final two games of the twin series and also set up the next series in Baltimore.

They're the cult, right? Anyways, I will be joined by Bubba Higgins, Flipper, and a mango. Download right and follow Logged on Mirrors. Look for us on any podcasting at the springs to mind. I have a good time doing this show, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks again to John Miller for helping me close the week out on a high note. I am D.C. Lundberg.

a great weekend. This is Joey Martin, speaking for Locked-on Maritors, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.