Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Waste Luis Castillo's Brilliant Start With Offensive Dud in 2-0 Loss to Rangers

Episode Date: June 3, 2023

The Mariners' offense continued their three-game skid, this time getting shutout by Jon Gray and running their total to one run scored in their last 23 innings. Luis Castillo silenced the best offense in baseball but takes the loss thanks to an offense that could only muster just three hard-hit balls all night. In addition, the Mariners' rotation has suffered another loss as all signs point to a lengthy IL stint for Marco Gonzales. The Mariners will turn to top pitching prospect Bryan Woo in his absence. Colby and Ty discuss what to expect from Woo tomorrow.Help us out by filling out our survey!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 | @CPat11GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. 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.

Luis Castillo was great, but the Mariners' ways to start with another disappointing effort at the plate. Let's talk about it here on the lockdown Mariners postgame 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 Friday, June 2nd, 2023.

This is Tonya Gonzalez and Colby Pat. For the lockdown Mariner's post game show brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app. Create an account and use promo code locked on MLB for $20 off your first purchase. Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Thank you so much for making it to your first listen after the game. Subscribe, like, and turn it 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. 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 to nothing the final from arlington mariner's lose their series opener with the rangers just three hits against john gray and the rangers pitching staff colby let's just address the offense now and be done with it three hits like i said on the night one of them tay oscar nanda is wasted by trying to run to second on adelaise garcia who has arguably the best arm of any out for fielder and all of professional baseball. The other was a soft hit ball. They only had three hard hit balls in total on the night.

Just terrible stuff. I mean, John Gray's been awesome. He's been on an absolute tear. The last few starts, as they noted a couple of times on the broadcast, but still the offense has to be better than this. Well, first of all, Ty, I would like to tell you that every little thing is going to be all right. So buck up, buttercup, grow up.

baseball game be a goldfish all that stuff sure but yeah the offense tonight was it was terrible i mean if you're looking for any positive whatsoever they didn't really strike out so that's something they didn't walk either or hit anything hard so no yeah it's almost like strikeouts yes they're annoying but they're you know just because you cut down on strikeouts doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be a better offense but uh yeah it was uh frustrating because it felt like you knew i felt like i called like every single pitch that gray was going to throw that entire game like just got into a very obvious rhythm you could tell when sliders were coming you could tell when fastballs were coming um and the mariners just had no answer for it so yeah offense was terribly disappointing uh you know

tie franz continues to do this thing where he thinks he can drive a ball that's six inches outside and and you know have success with that and the fact that he's still hitting two is an utter embarrassment because he's been your worst hitter the last week or so. So that's bad. But hey, Mike Ford based knack, Mike Ford. So that was good. You know, it's already more than you've gotten from the DH spot in the last week or so. So there's that.

Yeah. But yeah, overall, it was just an awful night. And, you know, when you're a team that's struggling offensively and you're also going off, going up against a pitcher that's, you know, on an absolute heater, you can't make mistakes. You just can't do it. And, you know, we saw a mistake in the first at bat at the game. J.P. Crawford was up 3-1 and he swung at ball four, four or five inches outside. You can't do that.

You're J.P. Crawford. Like your whole value is just walking and getting on base. The only pitches you're hitting hard or pitches that are on the plate, you can't chase. And it started that way. And, of course, the big one, Teo, you know, idiotic decision to try and stretch it. You know, Teo, he's had a few of these just really dumb lapses where he gets himself into trouble. And obviously Cabiero gets, you know, picked off after getting hit by a pitch. His dissension in terms of value continues, really, over the last week or so, he has not been very good either.

Which, surprise, I feel like somebody predicted that. But, yeah, you're just not getting it from the bottom of the order today. You didn't get from the top of the order either. It's just a mess from top to bottom. There's really no way around it. And like you said, it's a bummer because you waste a really good pitching performance. And, you know, just this game, it was it was right there to win. You know, Gray was really good, obviously.

Not going to take that away from him, but, man, you know, you talk about the two base running mistakes. You talk about terrible at-bats after terrible at-bats, how many soft pop flies did they hit in today's game? It was a ton. And then, you know, not all of these came back to hurt the Mariners, but you had a couple past balls. One of them proved to be pretty huge because it allowed Seeger to score or not Seeger, Simeon in the ninth, whatever. Eighth, bottom of the eighth, yeah. It allowed him to score on a ball he otherwise wouldn't have. Cal had another pass ball that eliminated double play possibility.

Jared Kelnick came up firing a home on a ball. He had no chance to get Simeon on for the Rangers first run. And that allowed whoever was on first to move up to second and eliminate that double play possibility. So yeah, it was just it was just bad sloppy baseball and not something you want to see to open up a road trip, particularly coming off a day off. So just a bummer all the way around. But yeah, the offense, you know, despite all those little tiny mistakes, you only gave up two runs. But you never even really mounted a serious threat the entire game. At no point did it feel like you were going to score a run.

Yeah. And that's a problem. We've now gone 19 innings and we scored one run. And that was the run that was, you know, off of the runner on first or the runner on. second automatic runner. Yeah. Not a great look for the Mariners' offense recently. It's too bad because, you know, prior to the Yankee series, they were starting to swing the bat

pretty well. But today, nothing, nothing even close. There weren't, they didn't get robbed. They didn't get Babbip. They, they just sucked. Like at the end of the day, the offense was straight up terrible. Yep. All right.

That was more airtime than that offensive performance deserves. So we're going to move on. Talk about Luis Castillo, who was actually really good tonight. So at least one. silver lining from from this otherwise rough rough one for the Mariners first so before we get into that this episode of the lockdown errors podcast is brought to you by game time buying tickets to your favorite events shouldn't be stressful game time is a fast and easy way to buy tickets for all the sports music comedy and theater near you will killer deals on last minute tickets in their best price

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locked on MLB for $20 off. Download game time today. Last minute tickets, lowest price, guaranteed. So game two between the Mariners and the Rangers. And by the way, thank you so much for tuning in here to the Locktime Mariners Post Game Show. I'm making us your first listen after the Marries to nothing lost to the Rangers.

Brian Wu is going to be starting tomorrow. We're going to talk a little bit about that whole situation a little later on in this show. You can catch his Major League debut on the Mariners hometown broadcast of Sirius XM via the SXM app tomorrow night. But let's focus now on the guy who took the bump for the Mariners tonight.

That's Luis Castillo and he was excellent. Seven in each pitch. Just five hits allowed. Didn't give up a hit until the first. fifth inning, just one earned run on a sack fly. The top of the order for the Rangers finally got to him, Simeon and Seeger stringing it together a couple of hits to mount their first run scoring inning of the night.

Six strikeouts, just one walk for Castillo, five, six rather hard hit balls. What did you see from Cassio tonight? Yeah, it was pretty interesting because I don't feel like he had great command. of the strike zone tonight. He missed arm side and glove side. Pretty bad at times, but, you know, overall he threw 99 pitches, and I think 62 of them were strikes.

So that's a ratio that you'll certainly live with with from Luis Castillo. The good news is that the velocity that we saw in his last outing, it was back yet again. Average 97 on the four seamer, topped out at 99. And it was a fastball slider night tonight. I didn't really throw the two seamer all that much. interesting choice there.

But the fastball was pretty effective. 10 wifts on 22 swings on that pitch. And the change up also pretty good swing and miss pitch. Three whiffs on nine swings. The caught the called strike. He was able to get three more called strikes on that. So it's a pretty effective pitch when you have your fastball at the top of the zone. And Castillo did.

It's just, you know, it's got to be frustrating with Castillo when you pitch this well. and essentially the only shot you had to win this game was to be literally perfect. So, yeah, it's frustrating. It's hard to stay in it at times like that. He had an opportunity to go even deeper into this game, but unfortunately, the sixth inning there kind of got a fifth inning, six inning. Either way.

His last thing kind of got away from when pitch count got cranked up a ton. So he was not able to go seven. He certainly looked like he was on track to do that. But yeah, overall, good night from Castillo. He did go seven. Did you mean eight? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. Nights like this against, you know, the best offense in baseball, or at least the one that has been for the first 60-some or 50-some odd games this year. This is the kind of performance that shows that Luis Castillo is and probably should be an all-star this year because this, again, this is a Texas lineup that it's just roasted everybody. And the Mariners, to their credit, their pitching has handled it pretty fine in the first four games of their season matches. They've only given up bade runs.

Yeah. So it's just a bummer that the offense can't carry the load. And the Mariners aren't. Manor's pitching isn't even asking the offense to be good. They're asking them to be mediocre. And so far, they haven't been able to do that against Texas. And that's a frustrating thing. And that includes tonight.

So, yeah, overall Castillo, I thought was, you know, I thought the stuff was pretty darn good. thought the command was it was okay uh but the ability to throw strikes uh certainly uh was there tonight and uh kind of the it was an it was a little bit short of effectively wild did that makes sense uh didn't run a ton of deep counts but man when he missed he missed by a lot and when he didn't miss it was like right on the corner so it's kind of a weird night for him uh command wise but yeah you'll take that uh every time out from louise he's uh he's back you know There were a lot of people who were panicking about the bad four-game stretch that kind of culminated in the horrible outing in Boston. Three times in a row now, he's been really good.

So I think it's safe to say, Louis Castillo's back. And that's good because you're going to need them, certainly, because you just lost one of your, well, one of your innings eaters in the back end. And that's, you know, somebody's got to pick up the slack. And thankfully tonight, Castillo was able to pick up the slack. and not only keep the Mariners in this game, but also kind of preserve the bullpen a little bit. So overall, a pretty darn good night for Luis Castillo.

Yeah, Castillo, 1.1 miles per hour up on his season average on his four seamer tonight and 1.7 miles per hour up on a season average velocity on his sinker as well. 37% called strike plus whiff rate on the four seamer tonight. Pretty good stuff. 35% on the changeup as well. So, All right.

So yeah, you mentioned it. Marco Gonzalez stayed in Seattle. He did not make the trip with the Mariners down to Arlington. He's getting his left forearm checked out. And that has now opened

the door for Brian Wu to make his major league debut tomorrow night, which again, you can catch on the Mariners hometown broadcast with SiriusXM via the SXM app. So that part of this news dump, is exciting, but for Marco, this is a huge bummer.

Obviously, don't want to jump to any conclusions here, but when you hear left forearm, that makes you pause a little bit, especially for someone that has had Tommy John surgery a few years ago. So what's your reaction to just all of this, really, to the news about Marco, to the decision to go with Brian Wu here instead of, you know, Tommy Malone or someone like that. What do you, what do you think? Yeah.

So obviously, you know, first things first, you hope Marco is, is okay. He's doing okay. Absolutely. You know, left forearm tightness or fatigue or sort whatever, whatever, you know, adjective they decide to use is not good. It's the same thing they initially diagnosed, you know, Robbie Ray with and we hear it all the time. Left forearm tightness or right forearm tightness.

whatever usually means that you're missing at least a month, probably multiple months, and there's a fairly high possibility that you're going to undergo some serious surgery. So hopefully it's nothing too serious for Marco's sake and for the sake of the Mariners because Brian Wu can't cover all these innings for the rest of the year. He's just not prepared to do that physically because of his own injury history. So, you know, obviously again, really hope Marco's okay. you know if it only needs a month that's that's fantastic but situations like these you're usually looking at multiple months and and it's not uncommon at all for this to lead to major surgery in

particular Tommy John so keep an eye out for that that's that's a bummer for Marco I believe that would be his second Tommy John surgery which is is problematic so hopefully Marco is okay first and foremost the decision to go with Woo to me tells me that the Mariners do think this is a long-term issue with Marco. They don't think that Marco is going to be back in the rotation in a week or two, and they only need Wu to make a couple starts. Because if it did, then I think you would just go with Malone and say, you know, we'll see what Marco does next time.

But Wu is the higher upside play here. He is, you know, probably the best pitcher in the minor leagues right now that you have since you've called up Bryce Miller. And he's having a really nice season. Also kind of a bonus, you know, he's in Arkansas, you're playing in Texas, it's right there. So it's a pretty easy call up to make. So yeah, obviously, you know, it's a bummer that Wu makes his debut because somebody gets hurt,

especially somebody who's as important to the Mariners, you know, as Marco Gonzalez. So that's always a bummer, but I'm excited to see Brian Wu pitch. It's really fun stuff. And there's a lot of upside here. The only unfortunate thing is that Brian Wu, again, cannot cover the rest. rest of this season. He's not going to run out of bullets. He's only thrown, they can only throw like 50 innings last year somewhere in that range. They're not going to ask him to go 120. They're probably going to tap them out at 90, I would guess, around that range,

and he's already at 30. So you can do the math. Not a lot of starts here, but it could be enough to get you to the point where you can go trade for another number five and then either move Wu back to Arkansas, where you can much, you know, spread out of starts a little bit easier, manages any needs a lot more or slide him into the bullpen where the stuff will play up so yeah a bummer for marco certainly and it's not the way you want to see a guy make his major league debut but uh it i'd be lying if i said i wasn't excited to see brian woo tomorrow so for those that are listening that are not too familiar with brian woo we have talked about brian woo a lot on this show we're big fans of brian woo but uh yeah for those that haven't heard us talk about him can you give us a quick little scouting

report just what to expect to see from him tomorrow yeah uh so first thing about brian woo is uh he throws a lot of strikes so that's good obviously it's not an issue uh now again keep in mind real fast scouting reports awesome scouting reports on a guy's very first major league start kind of throw them out the window because there's a lot of adrenaline going on we don't know how he's going to handle that but for the most part it is a it is a plus fastball it's you know not quite brice miller level but it's really close. It's 94 to 96. He can touch 98 at times.

Has life up in the zone. It's a really repeatable delivery. Tons of strikes. And he's got some pretty good off-speed stuff. So there's a shot here that Wu is poor man, George Kirby. But that's probably a real stretch here. So it's a fastball. It's a pretty good change up.

It's a breaking ball. And it's a lot of strikes with a very repeatable delivery. He's a good athlete. and he understands how to pitch. So he's definitely got major league quality stuff. That's not the issue. Again, the issue is just that he doesn't have a ton of innings under his belt

because of his own injury history in college and the Mariners bringing him along slowly. So, yeah, you're going to see a lot of fastballs tomorrow. I would imagine top of the zone on the corners. Again, very good control and command when he's feeling good. And just overall, he will miss bats. But it's a really tough.

lineup. You know, it's his major league debut. So we'll see how he manages those expectations. It's not going to be easy for him. It's a really rough landing spot. But the numbers are there. The stuff is there. The control is there. The command is there. Everything you need is there. And I think, you know, I have a note here. It's a 15 inch vertical break and a 10 inches of run. So it kind of stays at the top of the zone, kind of like Bryce Miller. It doesn't sink quite as much. So it's a pretty good fastball with armside run. And that is going to be his bread and butter pitch this year.

If he's going to have success against this lineup, he has to have the fastball going. Because, again, while the off speed stuff is pretty good, it's like Bryce Miller's. It's still a work in progress. Wu, a sixth round pick of the Mariners in 2021. one he was coming off of Tommy John's surgery when they signed him and the initial thought there was reliever, right? Reliever profile and maybe that is what he ends up being when it's all said and done. But he's completely shifted the narrative on him here. Pretty short order as well. He has, you know, he only started throwing for the ball club,

for the organization, rather just last year, started out in the complex lead. He threw I believe 57 innings down there or throughout the course of the 2022 season and then in 2023 he's thrown 44 innings thus far posted a 205

ERA down in Arkansas 283 FIPP 375X FIP averaging 1207 KS per 9 with a 245 walks per 9 so Cole tell me what you think the the upside of this move is for the Mariners and then the downside of this as well.

The upside is that Wu is the best, best pitching prospect in the organization. There are some legitimate debate you could have about whether or not he should be ranked ahead of Bryce Miller, even. He was turning in that direction before Miller was called up. So, yeah, the upside here too is also the upside. There's a good possibility that Wu, is Major League ready now and he's in middle of the rotation order as opposed to somebody like Tommy Malone,

who we know we know who Tommy Malone is and we know who he isn't. The only other option that really made any sense right now, Hancock really struggled and he also pitched yesterday, so that wasn't going to be an option. And Wu was ahead of him either way. And the only other real option is Chris Flexen, but Flexen isn't stretched out. The Mariners haven't used him enough to keep his arm to where it needs to be.

So Flexen really wasn't an option either. So when you're looking at who they could have called up, it's pretty much Brian Wu was it or they were going to make the move with Tommy Malone. And why not go with the higher upside? Because you have a room on the 40 man. You could just slide Robbie Ray on the 60. You could put Easton McGee on the 60. It's not a big deal. So they'll be able to make that move.

It's not going to create any kind of issue with there's no 40 man mess to fix. So yeah, I think the upside. is that Brian Wu is just the best arm you have in your organization who's not at the major league level right now. He's the one who's most prepared to go out there and throw 90, 95 pitches, and, you know, Wu's done that. This is a guy who the Mariners have been kind of careful with. They're trying to bring along a little bit, but he's gone out there. He's thrown 95 pitches in an outing before. I don't think there's going to be really any restrictions on them tomorrow. And that's just not something that could be said for Chris Flexen. So I think that's the upside.

the downside is that again, you're kind of putting Wu in a position where he may have to cover more innings than he's physically capable of. But you also, the Mariners, can go out and they can acquire a number five starter if they need to. So we'll see how long Mark was out for. But my guess is that Wu is going to be the guy for at least a couple of weeks. And then the Mariners will attempt to go find a number five starter because I don't think they want to push Wu to a, to a physical limit here. I think they want to be pretty smart with him because he is a part of their long-term future

and either via trade asset or being in the rotation next year and they don't want to risk damaging that. So they're going to be a little cautious with him just in terms of how many starts he makes, but on a start-by-start basis, he should be fine to go, you know, 95-100 pitches, no problem.

But yeah, there's probably going to be some quicker hooks than you would like. There's probably going to be a little bit of strain on the bullpen on the day. AC pitches. And, you know, just because he's a prospect, you don't know what you're going to get. You really don't. Regardless of if he struggles now or if he comes up and he's Bryce Miller right away, I don't know. But the future is very bright for Brian Wu and they don't want to burn that. Just chasing a couple of extra starts here. So we'll see how long he's up. But he is the best

choice, really bar none. I don't think anybody else is even close to where Brian Wu is right now. so like you mentioned you know hoping for the best for marco wishing him you know a speedy recovery if this is something that is unfortunately long term uh just again hoping that he's doing okay obviously physically but also certainly mentally this is uh this could be a tough and long road for him um up ahead if uh you know if if if it is what we're thinking it might be um but fingers crossed that it isn't and uh hoping for some good news to come down here in the coming days regarding Marco and looking forward to Brian Wu making his Major League debut tomorrow night.

All right. So I think that's going to do it for us unless there's anything else you want to add before we get out of here. No, you know, just the minor news. You know, Moore, Dillemore and Andres Munoz, apparently both on track to join the Mariners in San Diego. We'll see, as always, with guys who are rehabbing. we'll see about that. Taylor Trammell sent down yesterday on the off day. Mike Ford, who had opted out of his minor league deal with the Mariners, was added to the 40 man. Obviously, you guys saw him today. Looked fine at the plate. It looked like, you know, a guy who has 500,

500, 600 major league played appearances and got one of the big hits. So, you know, yay, I guess. But Mike Ford up. So anticipated moves, my guess would be, you know, Haggerty goes down. but we'll probably talk about this on Monday during the off day. I imagine they'll make those moves, and hopefully that means more is up, and hopefully that means Munoz is up. But we'll see. We'll see.

And also one other thing to keep an eye on, the date where the Mariners can theoretically, DFA, Chris Flexen and keep him in the organization, put him down in AAA, is apparently June 5th, which I believe is Monday. So a couple things to keep an eye on there. We'll see, you know, if that logic comes to fruition.

But yeah, also, you know, Jerry talked a little bit today about or yesterday about the trades and all that stuff. Pretty much everything we've always heard. And finally, yeah, the Mariners probably going to have to go out and get at least a number five starter, which not difficult, but certainly not ideal. And we'll obviously cover that much more when we know more about, you know, how Marco is and how long Marco is going to be out. for sure all right well that's going to do it for our show thank you so much for joining us here on the locked on mariner's postgame show for colby pat note i'm tina gonzalis be sure to give us a follow on twitter at l o underscore mariners you can follow me at dan gnzzz and colby at c pat 11 that's cpat 1-1 follow us on instagram and ticot as well over at locked on 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 us your first listen and again you you can catch the Mariners and the Rangers on the Mariners hometown broadcast tomorrow night with the Sirius XM app. That's the XXM app. Have yourself a beautiful baseball weekend.

We'll see you next time. Peace.