Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mistakes Were Made as Mariners Drop Series Opener to Brewers

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

Well, last night sucked. Chris Flexen struggled in the second inning and Eugenio Suarez's base-running blunder killed the Mariners' best shot to get back in the game. Colby and Ty discuss Suarez's mistake and whether or not Julio Rodriguez may have turned a corner last night. Plus, the guys focus in on the Mariners' lineup issues and what to expect from Logan Gilbert in his fourth start of 2023.We’re raising money for Feeding America! 34 million Americans are food insecure, including 9 million children. Feeding America turns every dollar raised into 10 delicious meals to feed the hungry. We have set up a direct donation fund you can access by heading to https://teamfeed.feedingamerica.org/participant/13390 If you can’t donate, remember that we are donating 10 cents for every new YouTube subscriber we gain in the next month. By hitting the subscribe button, you’re donating one meal to somebody suffering from hunger!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 | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/Ultimate Pro Baseball GMTo download the game just visit probaseballgm.com or look it up on the app stores. Our listeners get a 100% free boost to their franchise when using the promo LOCKEDON (ALL CAPS) in the game store. 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.

Last night, the Mariners lost in a fashion we've seen far too often to start the year. Let's talk about it here on the Lockdown Mariners 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. It is Tuesday, April 18th, 2023. This is tiny Azores and Colby Patnav for the Lockdown Mariners podcast.

Brought to you by Ultimate Baseball GM, ever dreamed to becoming an MLBGM and manage your baseball franchise then this game is definitely for you to download the game just visit ultimate baseball gm.com or look it up on the app stores our listeners get a 100% free boost to their franchise when using the promo code locked on in the game thank you so much for making us your first listen 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 listen to us every single day say what's up in the comments i want to see all of our everydayers going strong even after a tough mariner

And if you want to hear from us even more, please consider signing up for our Patreon by scanning the QR code right above my head. The link as well as our social accounts. It's also in the description of this episode. And on today's episode, we'll take a look back at the Mariners 7 to 3 loss of the brewers last night. Talk some Chris Flexen. Talk more about the Mariners horror DH situation. Julio looking a bit better at the plate. And we'll wrap things up with a look at tonight's matchup between Logan Gilbert and Colin Ray.

first pitch is at 640 tonight and you can catch all the action on the mariner's hometown broadcast with serious xm on the s xm app so as i said seven to three the final score last night at tmobile park brewers take the first game of this three game set chris flex and struggled a little bit once again mariners made some costly mistakes let's start there let's start with the one that really sticks in my mind that was a eugenio swara is getting picked off um with Jared Kellnick up to bat, a chance for the Mariners to at least tie the game, maybe even potentially take the lead. Kellnick's obviously been the Mariners best hitter so far, at least through the last week or so.

And Corbyn Burns, gaming the pitch clock a little bit, waited into the last second, turned around, caught Gino slipping, and that ends the inning. And that really, I think for me, killed the Mariners' threat of winning this game, ultimately. So let's start there. What were your thoughts on that play and just the Mariners performance overall last night? I knew exactly what Burns was doing once the clock got to about six and he wasn't budging. I was like, okay, he saws a pickoff left. He's going to let this thing get down to one, see if you can get Gino thinking he's going to, you know, time it up perfectly and pick him off.

And Gino fell for it, which is unacceptable. And the level of Mariner fans who are just like, no, well, you know, that's a mistake. It'll happen. What if Colton Wong had made that mistake? Would you have had the same reaction? No, but Gino gets a pass. because he's Gino and he's awesome. And he is. That's unexcusable. It's unacceptable. It's not okay. It's not a physical mistake. It's not a throwing error. That is a mental mistake from a veteran on your ball club against the ace pitcher of a really good team who you finally have a shot to scratch a run or two across in that moment with your best guy at the plate. And you gave them an out. They didn't earn that out. You gave it to them. It's a catastrophic mistake. And of course, the Brewers. score another run and then, you know, the bullpen just really can't, can't keep them down for too long.

And you just sacrifice your entire shot of winning that game. Why? To get one step closer to home plate on a three two count. Yeah. The cardinal rule of base running, three, two count, two outs, you know you're going. Everybody in the ballpark knows you're going. It's not a steel attempt. You have to make sure the pitcher is going to home plate.

And that means you stand there and you get a half a second or a full second late of a jump because you're making sure the pitcher is going to home. That's part of the tradeoff. You cannot get picked off in that situation. You have to force Corbyn Burns to throw a strike or throw. You have to force Corbyn Burns to get Jared Kellnick out. Not you. You did your job. You got on base.

You have to force him to get Kelnick out. And Kellnick right now is the hardest out in the Mariners lineup. And you didn't force him to do it. You let them off the hook. And when you're going up against aces like Corbyn Burns is and you have an opportunity, you probably only get one per game. You cannot make that mistake. So it's not okay.

It's not like, oh, you know, accidents happen. Sure, they do. But accidents have to have consequences. I don't think Gino should have been back in that game. And I know that's not Scott's way. Scott doesn't do that. He doesn't hang guys out to dry. That's not hanging guys out to dry.

That's holding a player, a veteran accountable. for a boneheaded mistake that he should know better by now. He should know not to make that mistake. It's unacceptable. And it's kind of, you know, been a running theme in a lot of these ugly mariner losses. It's not that they just get hit around the ballpark. It's not that they can't score runs. It's that they make stupid, idiotic decisions on the bases,

or they don't cover the right base on defense or, you know, they drop an easy pop-up or, you know, an easy relay throw and they drop it. Like, these are the things that the mariner are causing the mariners to have these kind of ugly losses, not because they're not talented, not because they're not hitting. It's these little things. And they're starting to stack up, and they're really annoying. Hopefully, Gino learns from it. There should be, I'm not saying you should pinch Gino for a week.

But he didn't even go back up. Clearly, Jake Lamb should get more at bats than Gino at this point. Yeah, that joke never gets old. So, yeah, I just, to me, he should have been out there. Put Cabiero out there. Cabiero's not going to make that mistake. He's not going to get on base, but he's not going to make that mistake. And then Gino followed it up with some really good at-bats to end the game.

So at least he made up for it, right? Oh, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, it's just, it's getting really annoying to see absent-minded baseball. Not bad baseball, absent-minded, just lazy, sloppy baseball is the worst. And that's what that is. Yeah, it's very sloppy. Pretty much in every loss the Mariners have had, they've had a key blunder, whether it be

on the base pass or defensively or both, right? there's been a lot of the times where it's been both questionable management decisions questionable management decisions just really overall just the mariners shooting themselves in the foot beating themselves and you know obviously when you lose a baseball game there's going to be some of that there's going to be a little bit of that every single loss but there's some pretty glaring mistakes that have happened over these nine losses that they've suffered to start this year and it's and there's a good reason for them being eight and nine and And, you know, they've also been able to survive a couple of these mistakes as well and be able to win and overcome those, which, you know, you're going to have to do, right?

Things like this are going to happen. Even veteran players like A. E. Johaniosaurus are going to make blunders like this, but you got to learn from it. You can't do it again. And thankfully, this happened in a relatively meaningless game on a Monday in the middle of April instead of, you know, September or October. Still got to be held accountable for it. Absolutely. my opinion. Absolutely. I think Venture Gino in that situation sends a message to the ball club that this is just enough is enough guys. Yeah. We know Scott is, you know, the ultimate dad energy and like he's just,

Gino knows that he messed up. Like, I'm not saying that Gino doesn't know that he messed up. Of course Gino does. And I'm not saying you should punish him any further. It's not really punishment. It's just accountability. Gino, you messed up, my man. And we've done this enough this year that I got to put my foot down here. And I think if you're going to do it to a player, Gino's a pretty good player to do it to because he gets it. He understands. He's not, you know, he's not a young kid who doesn't understand why he's being picked on. Gino understands that he messed up.

Yeah. So to me, holding him accountable is the least you can do. And, you know, perhaps he did privately. We don't know what those conversations are. But it's unacceptable. It just flat out at the end of the day, it's unacceptable. I mean, on the flip side of that, though, like with Gino, you know, knowing that he messed up, shouldn't that be enough?

Like he should know better. Like you should move like can't you just move up? Because like look hindsight of how the rest of this game went and how the rest of this game went for Gino specifically is 2020. But at the time it was a 3-1 game and he gives you a better chance to win than Jose Cabiero does. Like doesn't the fact that he knows that he messed up, isn't that just good enough? Because you know that he's going to be able to get better for that.

Be accountable. You screwed up and you're going up. I mean, but I think there's way. that you don't know that you can be accountable. You also don't know that Burns is going to get pulled in five and two-thirds because of a chest injury. You have one shot against Aces every time, one shot. If you're really lucky you get two, that was their shot.

They could have tied the game. They could have put more pressure. They could have gotten the pitch count up. Gino Blewett. At the end of the day, Gino blew it. Now is Gino the biggest reason they lost that game? No. No, no, no, no.

No. Again, by the way, I don't want to sound like, like, oh, Scott has to take about like to me i would i think there is something to accountability but scott's different you know like scott scott does thinks his own way and uh the results speak for themselves so i'm not i'm not jumping on scott too hard here but just like for me i think he needs i think he needs to find the bench after that like you have to send a message somehow some way this is unacceptable like this level of sloppiness this many times this early in the season not going to fly to me, I just think there was maybe a way to hold him accountable without having to bench him

and without basically taking away any other chance that you had of coming back in that game because Gino gives you a way better chance of coming back in that game than Jose Cabrero does. You took away your best chance to win last night, so. I know, but there's still five more innings to play in that game. You got another, you know, a couple opportunities for Gino to, well, all right. Game over. The game was over the minute Gino took that step towards third. Let's be honest about it.

game i mean it did it did really uh take the heart out of the man shot you had to win that game man come on well the the issue too right i'm not sugar coding and i'm just i'm saying realistically he does give you a better chance i'm just saying that he does give you a better chance of trying to come back in that game than than cabbiero does so maybe there's a different way of holding him accountable than just ripping him out of the game but um that said you know it was i thought the game was over as soon as they gave up three runs in the second inning because you got Corvin Burns on the mound. This is one of the best pitchers of baseball. And I was, I was surprised that they actually, you know, they were able to score three runs over the

course of the night that would have been good enough to make a comeback. But Chris Flexen wasn't able to hold it at three and then the bullpen wasn't able to hold it at four either. So let's talk about flex and let's talk about this bullpen in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder, this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Ultimate Baseball GM. dream to becoming an MLBGM and managing your professional baseball franchise well your dream can come true and this game is definitely for you manage every strategic aspect of your team play through the season and lead your team to glory you're responsible for hiring the right coaches and staff managing team finances scouting and drafting players managing difficult personalities navigating your franchise through free agency

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Thank you again for making us your first listen. And a reminder that tonight's game between the Brewers and the Mariners starts at 640. And you can catch all the action on the Mariners hometown broadcast with Sirius XM on the SXM app. And guess what, folks? People are hungry. They need meals. And we're trying to do our part to get those meals to them through Feeding America. That's our current fundraiser that we've had going on for the last few weeks.

And we're about a little over halfway to completion, actually a little more than halfway to completion of this fundraiser. And I haven't checked it today. So, Colby, I don't know if you've checked it. Do you have a status report for us on how we're doing on that front? Yeah, we are at, I thought I had it. Oh, there we go. Yeah, we are at 5905. Ooh, almost at 6K.

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And we've raised a lot of meals so far. And we want to continue raising as many meals as we possibly can before the end of this month. And if we get to $10,000 raised, I will be getting a tattoo. So look forward to that. We'll be doing some content with that and all that. All right. So Chris Flexen, not as bad as he was against the Cubs. Not as good as the Mariners needed him to be, though.

What did you see out of him last night? It's about what you'd expect from Chris Flexen. You know, five, six innings, three, four. runs. That's pretty much who Chris Flexen is. Yeah, he threw the ball pretty well for a majority of the night. The second inning got away from him. Let's stop the lazy like, oh, that's kind of like what Robbie Ray does. No, no, that is stupid. No, stop it. No. In my spray bottle, no. That's the dumbest thing you could possibly say because Chris Flexen is nothing like Robbie Ray. And hey, remember all those people who are like, oh, Robbie race sucks. Chris Flection should be in the rotation and said, feeling good about that, are you? Hmm, didn't think so. Flexen was okay. He was okay. You know, he filled

in at a replacement level, which is who he is. The Brewers were really aggressive last night, which could have been really nice for Flexxon. You know, you could have, you know, gotten six, seven innings. Have you had been a little bit more better at pitching?

Sure. Yeah. He gave up a lot of hard contact. That's some good analysis here. in the Locktime Mariners podcast. Like, what do you want? Like, he's not very good. It's a pitch that Chris Flexen has that is an above average pitch in Major League Baseball right now. Well, and the thing is, too, he took advantage of their aggressiveness at the plate in the

first inning, had a really clean first inning, very quick first inning. I think it was like only like nine pitches or something like that. Because it was insane. Yeah. And I was like, okay, here we go. We're going to get something that was closer to the Angels start than, you know, the Cubs start. Very low bar to clear, obviously. But yeah.

Yeah. He did clear it. So good for him. But then the second inning, no, they just, he caught a lot of play. A lot of play. I don't know if you saw the screenshots of game day of the pitch tracker. It was just right down the pipe, right down the pipe every single time. And they took advantage.

Roddy Tiles had a little flare into left. And then I forget who had the second hit. And then Luke Voight was able to drive in the first run there. And they just created too much congestion on the base pass for flex and to overcome. And he ends up giving three, giving up three. Thankfully, it wasn't more. There was a pretty real chance that it was going to be more than that. But yeah, just not a not a good night for Chris Flexen once again.

I'll say this though. Chris Flexen has in two of his three starts giving you a chance, albeit a small one, to win a game against Shel Hey Otani and Corbyn Burns. Yeah. Yeah. He hasn't been good. Certainly hasn't been great. but that's not nothing.

He was really good in the Angel start. Yeah, he was very good. So, you know, flexen is who he is. Like I think anybody should look at a Chris Flexen start and look at it and say, hey, we win this game. That's a real bonus. Because he's just, he's a number five starter, number six starter. Like, Fritt, he's a, you know, he's just a dude.

There's nothing special here. The stuff is very ordinary. Command, kind of 50 grade most nights. nights. If it's a 55 or 60, he might be able to go six, give you, you know, two runs and six and something like that. But the stuff just hasn't ticked up like maybe we were hoping it would after his first year. He's just, he's just a dude that's really all there is to it. And I think to expect a lot more than what you've gotten so far, it's probably being way too optimistic. And it's probably going to be a while that flexin's going to be in this rotation. So he's got

to find something that works. But I think if you're the Mariners and you say, hey, you know, every time flexing goes out there, or let's say 90% of the time flexing goes out there, he's going to go five or six and give up three or four runs. I think you probably just have to take that. And, you know, the one other time out of the 10, he'll be the worst pitcher we've ever seen. So I feel like you just kind of have to take that right now because it's not like you even have somebody in the minors who's like pushing flexing out of this rotation right now. So you're kind of in between a rock and a hard place with Chris.

Yeah, right now the expectation should be heading into every Chris Flex and start it. The bats are going to have to show up to the party. You're going to have to score runs. You're going to have to score five, six, seven runs in order to win that game most likely, especially because this bullpen is starting to figure things out, but there are a couple of pieces that are still in it right now that are a little bit shaky. Like Diego Castillo, who had one of the worst scoreless innings you'll ever see last night. He's not good.

it's bad it's rough i i it's it's hard to see it getting better honestly it it's like it sucks and it feels like you kind of i don't know it just it it feels bad having to think about moving on from someone like diego castillo knowing what he has been in the past but he's just he's a different guy right now and he's just not competitive at the moment no got to do what you got to do so yeah yeah so I mean, I don't know. Like the bullpen's in pretty good shape right now in terms of, you know, available arms and whatnot. So maybe you can carry him for a little while longer, but he doesn't have 20 outings to figure this thing out. He's got like two or three at most.

And, you know, when you look at guys like Sassado, who's throwing the ball really well in Tacoma, we know that the Mariners, you know, they're really good at finding these reliever types. And we know they really like AJ Puckett, who, was a minor league signing. He's already a AAA now. Juan Tane looks like he's back to what we thought he could be out of the bullpen. Like there's just a lot of options. And Diego,

by the way, there's a really strong chance if you DFA, Diego, nobody picks him up and he might actually be able to send him to AAA. Yeah, but Diego right now, you said it. You know, he's got a couple more innings, maybe if that, right now, at least that's what I would think from the outside looking in.

He's basically auditioning every night now for his Mariners career. Yeah. And by the way, Matt Festa, Velocity's starting to get back up for Festa. There we go. Still some command issues, obviously, that he needs to work through. And that's the big thing. But, yeah, reports are right now that he's back to 92, 93, which is about where he's at normally instead of 90, 91. So we'll see. Yeah. You know, eventually, I think they're going to get the spulpin figured out. Like I said yesterday, I think they're going to end up finding their eight guys that they roll through the season with at some point.

here but right now is just kind of the filling out period and right now it just doesn't seem like Diego Cascio is going to be long for this bullpen but hopefully it turns it around because we have seen Diego at close to his best we haven't really seen the peak Diego Cascio that we saw in Tampa Bay but we've seen a really good pitcher still there so maybe he's still in there somewhere but he's got to find him pretty quick or else he's he's going to find himself either in Tacoma or somewhere else in major league baseball. All right. Julio looked a little bit better last night.

Not amazing still, but a little bit better. Hopefully that's a sign of him turning the corner. We're going to talk about that and preview tonight's game between the Mariners and the Brewers in just a moment. But real quick, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by So Rare. Our new sponsor, So Rare, is a revolutionary fantasy baseball game and marketplace transforming fans into owners.

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That's spelled SORA-R-E dot com to draft your team a free player cards. Set your lineup and start competing today to win epic rewards. again, that's so rare.com slash locked on to start playing today. And this is the Lockdown Mariners podcast. Colby, we talked a lot about Julio Rodriguez yesterday during our mailbag episode. We were asked if we were seeing glimpses of a sophomore slump, if we're concerned about that happening.

He's not looked particularly great at the plate the last seven to 10-ish days. But he did have a little bit of a better night last night. He had a home run and basically garbage time in the bottom of the eighth last night. What did you see out of Julio? Did you see some promising signs out of him last night? No. Pretty sure he sucks now. He had another ball that he squared up pretty good into the outfield, unfortunately.

Like most of the balls that he squared up lately, it was caught. So the home run was certainly nice. It was to right field. I think it was off Matt Busch. I'm not mistaken. Am I remembering that correctly? I believe so, yes. Yeah.

Bush, you know, not a pushover, not a great pitcher or anything like that. It's not like it's David Williams, but whatever. It was to right center field. He certainly still has power to all fields. And so, yeah, he missed a few cookies again, you know, but I think he did look a little bit more comfortable. It looked like he was really focusing on kind of staying within himself and, you know, just trusting his back. speed and trusting his strength and all that stuff and just letting that play. So yeah, overall, it's a pretty good night for Julio.

You know, at some point, we know Julio's going to get hot. We know he's going to catch fire and he's going to carry the offense for a few weeks. It's going to happen. It's just, you know, right now, it's one game. It's one swing, right? So we don't know if that's going to turn everything around for him. But sometimes with guys like Julio, that's all it takes. Just one good swing, one good at bad.

and all of a sudden you kind of feel like you found yourself again, and then you go out there today against Colin Ray, maybe you slap a double, hit another ball hard, draw a walk, something like that. And all of a sudden you're feeling like you found your swing again, you're right back to where you need to be. And, you know, sometimes you get in these big spots or sometimes you kind of slump for a while and you think you can get it all back in one swing.

And that's just not how baseball works. Right. It takes time. How long it took you to kind of crater your numbers, that's how long it's going to take it to climb out of it. And the only thing you can do is try and win the next that bat, the next pitch. So I think Kulio's, I don't think Kulio's in a bad space, like in a bad head space, right? Like right now I think Colton Wong is in a pretty bad head space.

He's really, really pushing to try and figure this out. And sometimes in baseball, that's, that's the opposite. Yeah. Right? You grip the bat harder. It doesn't help. So you're kind of, I don't think Kulio's there. I think, like I said, Julio's slump is still him hitting like 250.

right now, 240, with, you know, three home runs and four doubles, 16 games or four stolen bases, you know, 17 games into the year. You can do the math on the pacing on that. Like, that's still a really good year. So it's nice that Julio is slumping and he's still putting up numbers that like, if the Mariners DH was putting up, we'd be like, oh, wow, that's really good. Good job, Mariners, DHS. Yeah, speaking of that, this has been well documented on Twitter, but right now, I'm already tired of it I know but it's a problem right now the roster right now

as things currently say in the D.H spot is a really it's a massive problem no no no let's be clear the Mariners aren't a D.H short though the Mariners are a bat short they're a bat short it's just yeah it's so happens that it's being it's that the lineup's not long enough

it's just it just so happens that it's being reflected out of the DH spot right now right and so you know just to me I was talking to someone on Twitter about this earlier today if Tommy Lestella and Cooper Hamill and

all all these guys that have filled the DH spot were the plan after all this why didn't you just sign re-sign Carlo Santana you know what I mean like why didn't you just do that I know that they were in June yeah which I honestly kind of feel like they might end up doing yeah they want Santana makes a lot of

right now. He's also off to a pretty decent start last time I checked. Is he? In Pittsburgh? Yeah, yeah. He's last time I checked, he had like a 121 WRC plus. I don't know if that Pittsburgh's off to a pretty good start, I think. Yeah, they've been pretty good. Yeah, yeah. They've been a lot of fun and they've been doing most of this without O'Neill Cruz too.

He's overrated, but okay. But not to get sidetracked. He is, though. Admit it. But not to get sidetrack, I mean, there's a lot of swing and miss in this game right now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. I still like him, though. He's a lot of fun. No, he's fun. But, you know, like you do one fun thing every week and everybody acts like he's Shohei Otani. By the way, can we talk about Shohei Otani struggling with his jacket and that being the lead story on Sports Center? Is that really the lead story on Sports Center? I mean, you sure seemed like it. Yeah. All right. Anyway, you were doing what I said we should not do. And that's, you got me sidetracked.

It's more fun than talking about the Mariners' D.H. spot right now. Anyway, I know that they were pretty in on Brandon Belt at some point. So I know that that wasn't actually the plan. And even before Belt, I assume that Belt wasn't even plan A with the DH situation either, because the Mariners, I mean, their philosophy with this spot has been getting someone

that can play in the field and you just rotate guys throughout that spot. So eventually, I assume it got to a point where they were like, okay, we'll look at first base slash DH types because there you go Brandon Belt. And they had Carlos Santana last year. But this,

I mean, this is a disaster right now. The guys that are filling out one of your spots in your lineup, doesn't matter that's the DH or whatever. It's a black hole. Guberamil is not a competitive major league hitter. Tommy Lestella is not a competitive major league hitter. We've talked about this. We've gone over that. We're not going

to beat a dead horse here. But really the key for me, I mean, the last shoe to drop for me before I'm starting to hit the panic button a little bit and looking outside the organization for an upgrade, Taylor Tremel. And if Tremel isn't healthy or isn't a viable option once he gets healthy, you got to go add someone because this can't last. This can't last for too long. It's still really early, but it's what you're getting out of Hummel, Lestown. Stella and even, I mean, right now, like the answer to me, just let AJ Pollock play every day. I've said this over and over again. And yeah, we've talked about how worried we are about him getting over exposed.

But this is the position you've found yourself in. AJ Pollock gives you a way better. I feel way more confident in AJ Pollock and his track record than anything Cooper Hamill and Tommy Lestell could get me. Somebody hasn't seen AJ Pollock's numbers this year. Don't look up Tommy Lestell or Cooper homels. button. Yeah, yeah. No, Pollock has not been very good either.

And that's the problem too. So again, you need to, this is going to end up with Mariners having to look outside of the organization and add someone unless Taylor Tremel just pops off. They were probably going to do that anyways. But yeah. Yeah. I think you were hoping at the very least that those guys could get you to July, you know, the break, at least not being a black hole.

And unfortunately, they have. And obviously, Lestella gets hurt in spring training. and then all of a sudden, like, that one thing you were trying to avoid, the guy who can only play DH like Nelson Cruz or J.D. Martinez, you've got them, just the one who can't hit. Yeah, the guy that doesn't hit for power. Yeah, cool. It's kind of funny that, you know, they wanted to avoid that,

and that makes sense, right? You don't want a full-time, like you can only DH. That's not the way most teams do that. The 27 teams don't have a full-time DH. So that part's fine. But then, you know, you accidentally ended up. up getting the worst type of that guy because Lestella got hurt and now he's not hitting. So he can't play the field and he's and he's not hitting.

So he kind of ended up with that anyway, just a bad version of it. So yeah, we'll see. Tramel should be in the lineup here in the next few days in Tacoma starting his rehab assignment. Same with Dylan Moore. Both of those guys could really help the Mariners right now. You know, assuming Dillmore ever gets healthy, which I'm still skeptical about. We need to see him actually play and play consistently and, you know, not. show yeah yeah not show any pain on back to backs all that stuff so a lot of questions still need to be

answered on that front this bat this bench though for the mariners is a mess right now sam harritie landed on the seven-day concussion iL uh yesterday wasn't very good anyways he hasn't been yeah no he hasn't he hasn't yeah no uh it's just the the the bench is it's bad it's bad it's a black yeah it's really bad it's really bad right now and like you mentioned, you know, Colton Wong's also not giving you anything out of, you know, offensively out of second base. You know, I'm willing to wait a bit

longer on him because he has the track record, right? That's the difference between me getting impatient with Cooper Hummel and Tommy Lestella and then, you know, and then on the flip side of that, Colton Wong, or me waiting on Colton Wong a little bit more because he has track record. Tommy Lestella

has track record in 2019, but the last three years he's been hurt. And he's been bad when he has played, when he's been healthy. And so. Bad, but he just hasn't played a lot. In San Francisco? Do you want to look at the numbers?

He was pretty bad. You look up last year's numbers. Pretty bad. I think it's still like a 90 WRC plus. If the mayor's had a 90 WRC plus in the 38 spot right now, nobody would be complaining. So, okay, people complain all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, yeah, but, you know, Wong on the flip side, though, posted 100 plus WRC plus the last few years. Like, I'm willing to wait on that guy to hopefully figure it out. Plus, he's one of your bigger additions of the off season. You kind of need him to figure things out. Plus, there is a lot at second base on the market. Plus, you literally have

no backup plan right now. Yeah. Because Moore is out. Accurdy's out. So it's Cabiero is your backup middle end feed. He's your utility guy right now. Yeah. By the way, we'll probably see Cabiero in tomorrow's game. Getting a start, I would think.

against Lauer the lefty. I do wonder if maybe the Mariners just need to pick a guy and roll with them for a week consistently, whether it's Hummel or Lestella, like it's tough to get into any kind of rhythm when you're getting one start every three or four days, you know. So if they're going to go that route, I would give those at-bats to Hummel.

He carries a significantly higher upside. But we'll see what they decide to do. I imagine that they're going to stick to the status quo right now. which is less than ideal, but they also don't have a ton of other options. For me, it would be Mike Ford. I'd just call it Mike Ford and say, hey, you're the guy until Taylor's healthy.

Yeah, call him Mike Ford. Call up Call him around. I don't really care. Anybody who can grab a glove and throw without, you know, blowing their shoulder off. Yeah. Is an upgrade over Tommy Listella right now. And even without the elbow shoulder thing with Lestela,

like, was he even going to be able to play the field with the two Achilles injuries that he's coming off of either? I think they were feeling good about that. Yeah. defensively. All right. Lastly,

Mariners Brewers tonight, again, you can catch that on the Mariners hometown broadcast via Sirius XM on the SXM app at 640. What do you think? Logan Gilbert, Colin Ray.

Gilbert, we've seen a really good start out of him, really mediocre one. and then a really good start out of him again in Chicago. Do you think the trend continues, or what's your confidence levels that Gilbert can give another, can provide the mirrors with another quality start tonight against first? Pitching a no-hitter tonight. All right.

All right. Heard it here first, no hitter. Is that betting device? Six walks, but no hits. So, no, I think Gilbert will be, I think it'll be pretty good. It's a right-handed heavy lineup. So the slider will be, you know, pretty big. weapon. We'll see if Winkers

in it tonight. He was not out, he was out yesterday with a little bit of a oblique or a shoulder or something like that. Clearly he's scared to compete, Colby. Sure, he doesn't want to get booed by the 11,000 people. Which who would booed Jesse Winker? Like, yeah, what? Didn't work out, but like

don't hate the guy. I don't have any hard feelings towards him. No. I think it's not like you're giving him a standing no either. Just like, oh yeah, Jesse. Okay, cool. Thanks, man. For me, it's more just like, oh, hey, it's Jesse Winker. Yeah.

Like I mean, I'd be like, Jesse Winker. Like if somebody was like, yeah, I'd be like, okay, yeah, cool. Mm-hmm. That's fine. It's kind of the same reaction

when Kind of Trey's Morales would come into town. Like, okay. My favorite thing, though, about Kendrius Morales, we're getting sidetrack it again. But like,

I love when, you know, Jack Sorenzik tried to resign him. He ends up going to Minnesota. And he's like, all right, you know what? No,

you're coming here anyway. I'm trading. Like, you weren't going to be a Seattle Mariner. you like it or not. Remember how bad he was for Minnesota? It's because I slapped the qualifying offer on him and nobody wanted to give up a first round pick to sign him. And he was, he got really bad advice from whoever his idiot agent was. And I was like, I can get you more

than that. No, no. And he couldn't, he didn't, he didn't sign until after the draft and then like a one month in Minnesota, he was a mariner again. So, um, no, I think anyways, because we got to go. We do have to go. Yeah. I think it's fair to expect, you know, six, seven innings out of Logan tonight, you know, give up two or three runs, keep your team in the game. Ray's off to a pretty nice start, but he's certainly no juggernaut pitcher. The Mariners should be able to score a few runs, and you kind of have to. You really don't want to mess around with the back end of this Milwaukee bullpen. So we'll see.

It's a bummer they couldn't get, keep the game close last night because apparently Devin Williams was not available. So he will be tonight, and you do not want to face Devin Williams in a tie game or trailing by one. Oh, you mean diet? Devin Sweet. Yes. Yes. The rich man's Devin Sweet, as I call him.

So, yeah. So let's get a lead. You know, let's hold it. And by the way, we haven't seen Brash in a few days. So either he's been demoted from his role or they're working on some stuff and maybe we'll see it tonight. But I think Gilbert's going to have a pretty good outing. The Mariners can score four runs tonight. I feel really good about their chances to win.

I do too. Column Ray has been pretty good, though. He's kind of rehabilitated. himself. He was working over at, I think, drive line, one of those places. And he was posting some pretty good videos of himself during the offseason. And the breers were the ones that ended up

taking a shot on him and it's paid off and then some for them so far in the early going. He's only made two starts, I think. But it's been pretty good so far. So it's going to be tough, a tough challenge for the Mariners' offense tonight. Hopefully the bats show up and hopefully Logan has a feel for his secondary. So that's always going to be the thing

for me. Every single start for for Logan until he shows that he can consistently do it. All right. That's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. For Colby Padneode, I'm Tadangazolus. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-Rerriner's.

You can follow me at Dan G-N-ZL-Z and Colby at CPAT 11. That's C-PAT-1-1. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok 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. and thank you again for making us your first listen. Catch us after tomorrow's game for another post-game edition of the Lockdown Mariners podcast.

But for now, have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you tomorrow. Peace.