Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mitch Haniger Is Back For Mariners' Exciting Series With Marlins

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

Hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode discuss the benefits of Mitch Haniger returning to the Mariners' lineup, how Kyle Lewis could boost the team's ceiling in 2022 and why you should get excited for their upcoming series with the Marlins.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/Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.Blue NileThis Mother’s Day give mom something she’ll treasure forever with fine jewelry from Bluenile.com, and LOCKEDON SPORTS listeners get $50 off $500. Use code LOCKEDON at checkout. BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts! 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.

After a frustrating series loss down in Tampa, the Mariners aren't going very far. They're now in Miami for a rare three-game set with the Marlins, which will feature some pretty great pitching matchups. We're excited about it. We're going to tell you how the M's can get back into the win column on today's episode of Lockdown Mariners. 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 Friday, April 29th, 2020, and this is the Locked-on Mariners podcast.

Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. We are free and available in all platforms. I'm your host, Tadian Gonzalez, reporter and editor over at all-seahawks.com. Join, as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode. Be sure to follow the show on Twitter at L-O- underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-E-P-E-E-E-P-E-E-E-E-C-P-A-T-1. Be sure also check out our Patreon.

we talk about the Mariners even more and also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week visit patreon dot com forward slash control the zone for more information on that if you are interested and want more of us and if this is your first time joining us here on the lockdown mariners podcast welcome to the show if you like what you hear give us a follow or subscribe wherever you listen to this and if you're watching us on youtube hit the subscribe button down below turn on the notification bell and give this video a thumbs up we greatly appreciate it so the mariners are kicking off a three games set with the Marlins down in Miami tonight and we're getting treated to some pretty sweet pitching matchups. We're going to be talking about the series. We're also going to be talking about

Kyle Lewis some because, hey, there are finally some updates on him. But first, Mitch Hanigar is back. Activated off of the COVID list. Matt Cook was DFA to make room for Hanager on the roster. Colby, Hanager was out for nearly two weeks and by his own admission was dealing with a pretty gnarly bout of COVID and his time away from the team. No rehab stint for him. He's jumping right back into the swing of things. What should we expect from Hanager in his return? Not much.

As we all know, Mitch Hanigar is highly overrated. Known Mitch Hanigar hater, Colby Patton, who is back in full force. Yes. No, but I would hope that Hanager would lengthen the lineup some. He was okay before he went on the COVID-I.L. You know, definitely hit some home runs, but he kind of looked like the same guy he was last year,

and that's a bit of an issue, at least for me. But hopefully he'll lengthen the lineup. He does add some more pop to it. Should push J.P. Crawford down a little bit. Should push Suarez down a little bit. It kind of adds some more probability because Hanigar's not going to strike out a ton. And you do have guys in your lineup right now that, are striking out a ton, namely Jared Kalnick and Julio Rodriguez.

So hopefully this lengthens lineup a little bit. It would be great if he could come back and hit 280 instead of 245 and put up a 340 on base instead of a 320 on base. But yeah, it certainly adds more power at lengthens lineup a little bit. I think it gives them some more options in the leadoff spot. That's something they might explore a little bit. Frazier has been okay there, but he has been kind of. up and down, hit or miss.

And, you know, I think one, I wonder if maybe against right-handed or left-handed pitching, maybe they're going to try Hanager in the leadoff spot or maybe they're going to try France in the lead-off spot. And it just gives you more options. And it also deepens your bench because, you know, Abraham Toro, probably the odd man out or Jared Kelnick on a day-to-day basis. So the bench gets a little bit better. The lineup gets a little bit longer.

You become harder to pitch to. And, you know, that's if Mitch Hanigur is only. an average bat and he's probably better than that. I feel like we have to assume that he's better. But also, I don't want to expect too much for Mitch right away. I think maybe it's going to take a week. He hasn't seen live pitching in 11 days. Like that's not something that you can just pick up again and do well.

So maybe it's going to take him a little while before we get to that point. I suspect he DH is quite a bit here over the next week or so, just to try and kind of ease him back in because he had talked about The reason why he wasn't activated in Tampa is that, you know, he just wasn't quite feeling physically 100%. He was fine. He was testing negative, but he just wasn't quite there physically. So I would do wonder maybe they just try and take it easy on him a little bit. Yeah.

Now, I believe you mentioned that, you know, DH in the National League. So you should be able to DHM here. I would recommend that to the Mariners, quite frankly, especially with that big outfield in Miami. But, yeah, Hanager, before going on the COVID list, 176, 20471 with a 100 WRC plus. So he was quite literally an average hitter before going on the COVID list. Obviously, that's just in eight games, so take that for what you will.

But obviously, a lot of power there, hopefully a bit more in terms of getting on base. Hopefully he gets the walks up because the walks were only at 2.9% before he went on the COVID list. But yeah, you know, the one thing that comes from this that I'm kind of curious to hear your thoughts on, because Jesse Winker continues to struggle. At least the results are not there. He's having good at bats, but the results are not really coming. You know, he's hitting the ball really hard. I think he had a, I think there was a stat that Aaron Goldsmith rattled off on the broadcast yesterday that he hit like six balls over 99 miles per hour in Tampa Bay and only two of them resulted in actual hits.

So, you know, and obviously he's taking his walks. He's one of the, you know, he has one of the highest walk rights in, in baseball right now. But would you consider maybe moving him down the lineup now that Hanager is back, go more Frazier, France, Hanager, Suarez, Crawford, and then maybe think about Winker like six or so until the results start to come for him? It actually might probably rather go the other way, moving Winker up in the lineup. because the only way he's going to get through this is just to continue to get more at bats. And so it's one of those things. Winker is still, even if Winker is going to continue to hit the ball right out people, if you put Winker in the leadoff spot, he's still a 333 on base guy.

It's pretty good for a guy who's not hitting. And when he does start to hit, if he's in your leadoff spot, you're going to reap the benefits from that. So at least against right-handed pitching, I might actually go the other way and try and jumpstart the bat by getting him a few more opportunities. It's not a ton more, if he's sitting first or third. I mean, it's roughly the same number of bats, maybe an extra bat or two in the week. But that can make a difference sometimes.

So I'd actually go the other way. I think if I'm moving anybody down in the lineup, it's probably Frazier. And I don't think there needs to be any drastic changes to the lineup. Not yet. It's still early. So I probably just rolled what they have, which I believe Hanager hitting. cleanup between Winker and Svarez is kind of how they've done it. So I would actually probably move Winker up if I was going to move them at all.

Sure. That's interesting. And the best, to me, the biggest benefit, rather, of Hanager coming back is that it does take some pressure off the likes of Jerich Kellnick and Julio Rodriguez a little bit here. And you're not going to have to play those guys as much. Now, of course, you don't really want to run an outfield out there. consistently where you have Mitch Hanager and Jesse Winker manning in the corners, especially with Hanager here in the early going, coming back from COVID and trying to recover physically

from that. But yeah, it also means that, you know, even if you're running Hanager in the, in the DH spot, that, you know, maybe there's some more opportunities here to give Kellnick and Rodriguez a break every now and then. So hopefully that that, that, that, that, You know, like you mentioned, it lengthens the lineup and hopefully it kind of eliminates at least a little bit of that void that's been there towards the bottom of the Mariners lineup where it's just, you know, 7, 8, 9. I mean, you're pretty lucky if you're going to get one hit or at least or even just one base runner out of that combo. And now, you know, getting friends back, getting Hanager back, being able to alternate those guys out of the DH spot. that's going to be a boon for this Mariners team moving forward and for this Mariners offense which you know has is overachieved a too strong of a word with no yeah because like

they've they've pretty much overachieved in Mitch Hager's absence and Louis Terence's absence you know they exploded for all those runs against the Royals took advantage of some bad pitching staffs yeah some mistakes as well a lot of a lot of a lot of the big scoring games most of that damage came in one or two innings and then the rest of the game they were pretty me so yeah i think overachieve is a fair word they're outperforming what should be expected of them in terms of like run per game sure sure yeah so it's um it just creates more length for this lineup it creates more possibility for this lineup more probability for this lineup as well more sustainability um it's good and uh And it's also, you know, just a great thing in general that, hey, the COVID outbreak, if you will. I mean, is it much of an outbreak when it was only five guys? We'll say it's an outbreak anyway, just for time's sake. But it kind of stopped there, right?

With Paul Seawald and the coaching staff, when those cases came through, that was it for the Mariners. So they dodged a huge bullet here. And that's huge for the Mariners as well. And now they're back to full strength. We'll see how, you know, Hanneger recovers and Paul Seawald, etc. But, yeah, this is good stuff for the Mariners who are 11 and 8, and they're going into a fairly favorable matchup with Marlins. We're going to get to that later on the show.

But now, speaking of outfielders, we finally have an update on Kyle Lewis from Jerry DePoto himself. We're going to get you caught up about Lewis's progress and discuss when we might see him in just a moment. But first, let's talk. about built bar summer is coming and with summer you're going to need some food on the go built bars are the perfect snack to take with you on family vacations just throw them in your bags in your kids backpack make sure that everyone has a bar so you are fueled for your summer adventures and the best part about built bars they are healthy and delicious so no more sacrificing delicious food for health with built bar you can have both and it's easy all you have to do is go to built

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check out the Lockdown Now podcast. There are recaps of MLB games with analysis from our local experts, taking fans through the season like no other network. It is free and available wherever you get your podcast just like us. So Colby, Jerry DePoto, finally had some updates on Kyle Lewis. Lewis was supposed to get in some spring training action towards the end of spring for the Mariners around the last couple games of spring for them. That didn't happen.

And then kind of just radio. silence for about three weeks on him. We had no clue what was going on. We had been asked what's going on, and we didn't have any information on that. But finally, Depoto speaking to the media the other day earlier this week, said that Lewis is in extended spring training right now. He is getting reps in. He's getting about four to five at bats per game down there, and he's playing some left

field and also deaching quite a bit. And it seems like he is getting closer to a rehab stent. Now, we talked about Jared Kellanick and Julio Rodriguez and some of their struggles. Last segment, if those continue, how much of a boon would getting Kyle Lewis back be? Yeah, it'd be pretty significant because, again, we're talking about lengthening the lineup and the bench. And he said he didn't get much, we didn't get much specifics about Lewis, just that he had been playing in games. He has played some in the field. He's DH some.

We don't know if that's necessarily center field or not. but Lewis is when he's healthy is the best center fielder you have and I'm not sure it's that close which seems like a problem but Lewis is okay enough out there that it's not detrimental and obviously then you can move Julio to left and you know winker or whatever like it's easier so I'd also lengthens lineup I feel pretty good about Kyle Lewis being at least a league average bat a 100 WRC plus guy the numbers back it up too. Again, he's a right-handed bat. You can platoon him a little bit with Jesse Winker. He's not bad against Dredes at all either. So you can have him play four times a week, three times a week as you kind of ease him in. He's a nice piece to have off the bench. He has some power. He has draw some walks. It just makes your entire team better because, you know, whether Lewis plays every day. And as a result, you have to send Kelnick down. Well, Kelnick is going to get, you know, valuable at bats down in AAA, and you probably aren't going to feel the need

to rush him, assuming that everybody else stays healthy. He can really work on some things down there. And if Lewis is the part-time player, well, then you have this great option off the bench. You have a tough lefties coming in, and Jesse Winkers do up. You can make that switch. If you need defense at the end of the game and you want to take Mitch Hanigar out, you can make that switch. He just solves a lot of problems for you. A healthy Kyle Lewis solves a lot of problems without having to be really anything more than he's been throughout his entire career. He just has to be average.

And he's taking the spot of Jared Kelnick, who's below average right now. He's taking the spot of Dylan Moore, who's, I mean, different topic. So, yeah, he's just better than those guys are. And he comes with a higher floor. And honestly, you know, still plenty of ceiling. You know, I think a lot of people will just assume

that Lewis is just kind of, you know, this fine outfielder, but there's still 30 home run power in there. There's still, you know, above average centerfield defense in there. And there's still a possibility that he hits 270 with a 350, 360 on base and a 500 slugging. Like that is not out of the question when we're talking about Kyle Lewis. So we've still. We've still never seen him for a full season. Yeah. Like he's been up for bits and pieces of three seasons.

Basically four months total. Yeah. Nowhere close to a full season's worth of games in his career in general, too. Yeah, there's still a lot to be uncovered there. And hopefully he can get back to full strength here and be able to stay there as well. That's the important thing, is staying healthy for Kyle Lewis and keeping his legs healthy as well. And I would assume that the way that they're probably going to go about it because they've been, so utterly cautious with him and you know they said during the off season then anything

Kyle Lewis can give us give us is a bonus and so going off of that I would think that we're probably not going to see him in centerfield as long as Julio Rodriguez is on the big league club I would assume that we're probably not going to see Kyle Lewis in center field unless there's an like an off day

for Julio here and there and maybe they try to put them out there but even then considering how cautious they've been with him I'm just not sure if that's something we would see right I I think if your outfield defense for the day is something like Julio and left, Lewis and center and Kalnick and right, that's a legitimate, solid average defensive outfield. So there's value if you can get that. Now, obviously that means Winker and Ann Hediger are either bolting the day off or one's deaching and the other one's getting the day off.

So, I mean, it's not ideal, but we have to get to that situation for that to even matter. So right now, for that to happen, Calnic or Calnic has to start to hit. And Lewis has to get healthy and stay healthy. And so I mean, that's, and honestly, Julio has to start to hit a little bit more. Definitely trending in the right direction, but still, you know, just the thing with Lewis is, I think people last year in just 36 games, 246, 333, 392, but he was trending up before the injury. He had five home runs. you know, the 36 games.

So it kind of looked like he was starting to hit with a little bit more power, getting into his pole side. Strikeouts were high. I mean, it's going to be a part of Kyle Lewis's game. Strikeouts are going to be elevated a little bit, but only 25%. So nothing that you can't that you don't already have in your lineup. And he was walking 11% of the time. That's really good.

So Lewis just makes everything else better because it makes it easier on every other player. And it's just you're getting closer and closer to that lineup of nine guys where everybody is at least an average bat. And that's an extremely difficult lineup to work through. And that's not even counting the bench where you're going to have guys like Murphy or Terens and Toro and whatever outfielers not playing for the day. Like Lewis just makes you that much better.

I think it might seriously be a two, three-win swing in the first couple months that Lewis is back. It might not look that way in war, but just what he allows everybody else to do and what he gives the Mariners off the bench or as a starter, I think it can add two or three wins to the team's total. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that because right now, this exactly shows you what we have been preaching over the last year.

So the Mariners don't have enough outfielders. They don't have too many outfielers. They don't have this logjam. Look, you know, Jared Kellnick still might be a really good baseball player. He still might even reach his relative ceiling at some point in his career. Julio is, you know, and he's been playing better as of late, but he might still take a while to reach his ceiling. These things don't just happen immediately in most cases, right? I know that there was a lot of expectations put on both of those guys.

But right now, as things currently stand, and if we're just talking from a defensive standpoint, right, you have two good defensive outfielders, like decent defensive outfielders where they should probably play, you know, Jared Jared's look good in rightfield Jared's look good at right field Jared is a right fielder And a pretty good one Yeah By the way, real fast on Kellnick

Since I know Guys, he has fewer career plate appearances Than Kyle Lewis Yeah And he's 22 years old Yeah 22 Take a chill pill

Yeah exactly Yeah I don't I don't get this whole thing That's been going on In the Mariners fandom Where a lot of people I've just written off Jared Kellnick

Oh it's a bust And it's like, really? All right, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like, we haven't even seen them for a full season's worth of games yet. And it's just, yeah, that's a whole other conversation. But the point is, right now, as things currently stand, Jerry Kalanick isn't really helping you much right now overall.

Julio is starting to help you a little bit more, but things are still a little shaky there. Mitch Hanigur is a, he's not a good defensive outfielder. He's a good hitter, but he's not a good defensive outfielder. And there you go again. I knew exactly when I said that that you were going to wait to do that. And then Jesse Winker, of course, has been abysmal in left field defensively. And right now, you know, the results aren't there at the plate as far as hits go.

So, yeah, you need more outfield help. And Kyle Lewis helps with that where you don't have to give up anything via trade. You don't have to spend any money. You don't have to do anything. He's there. This is a quality major league outfielder. who is in your system right now. And he is getting closer and closer to playing.

Let me ask you this, though. Obviously, you're, you know, we're not there. We don't know exactly what's going on with Kyle Lewis's health. But just going off of how these things typically go, when do you think, if depotos, what DePoto said is pretty much in line with what's going to happen and he does get a rehab stunt soon. When do you think we might see, Kyle Lewis?

Last week of May, first week of June. Yeah, it's going to be a pretty extensive rehab assignment. I think he gets 20 days as a hitter. So I would expect him to take most of that, which means to me Kelnick has about a month to start posting, more consistency. Kellogg doesn't have to hit $3.50 to save his job. John. It's not that by the end of May, Kellnick's average has to be all the way up to 250 or he's going down. It's just in the month of May, can you hit 240 with a league average on base? That's probably enough to keep him up.

And also, another thing to keep in mind here is the Mariners have their own grading system. They have their own grading system. They have their own grading system on swing decisions and all that stuff. So if they just see that there is better quality coming from Jared Kellnick on that front, maybe the results still aren't there. Maybe he's having kind of a Jesse Winker type of slump where it's like, the quality of the contact is great, but it's just he's not finding grass. Then, yeah, maybe he saves his job that way as well. So there's a bunch of ways like Kelnick can stay on this team. And there's absolutely ways to fit all these guys on the same roster as well right now. Right. And by the way, remember Kyle Lewis does still have an option.

Calnick has two. So like just because Kelnick or just because Lewis is like finished with his rehab, it doesn't mean Seattle has to calm up. If everybody else is playing well, just leave Lewis down there. Yeah, there's no roster crunch with the outfielders yet. It just doesn't exist yet. So when it does, we'll talk about it,

but right now it's a non-issue. No, they need more help is the thing. And hopefully Kyle Lewis can provide that. So let's turn our attention to this weekend series because we've got pitching matchups galore. Oh my, it's going to be amazing, especially Sunday. Oh, that's going to be a lot of fun. Let us get you set for a very exciting matchup between the Marlins and Mariners in just a moment.

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Bet Online is where the game starts. So tonight, we got Matt Brash versus Elizer Hernandez. Tomorrow we got Robbie Ray versus Jesus Lazzardo. And then Sunday. Oh, my Sunday. We have the American League leader in ERA Logan Gilbert against Sandy Alcantra. possibly NL. Sigh-Yung contender

Sandy Al-Contra and maybe A.L. Sy-Yung contender, Logan Gilbert. Probable A.L. Pitcher of the month, Logan Gilbert. Exactly. Yeah. It's, wow, this series is going to be a lot of fun. Let's start with Brash here, though. Brash is going tonight.

And he struggled with the control. That's being nice, by the way, saying that he struggled. That is being nice. Um, do you think there's, uh, the heat, there's hope for him to, uh, to get back on track here. And again, say, uh, a pretty decent Marlins lineup. Sure. Um, there's always hope because Brash is a guy who can basically throw no hitter anytime he's on the mound.

Like, like he's not got that kind of stuff. So, um, of course there's hope, but is it likely, uh, I mean, it's, it's not a, it's not a brilliant lineup. It, it jazz chishams off to a great start. I really like him. And you have Aguars, Salare, Sanchez, Garcia, some good players, some, you know, Brian Anderson, Joey Wendell, Miguel Rojas, and Jacob Stallings. It's not a powerful lineup. So it's kind of tough because we can't even sit here and say like, oh, yeah, Brash can just go out there and just, you know,

throw it down the middle, just be very aggressive. He's always aggressive. It doesn't mean he's going to throw strikes. We just don't know what we're going to get with Matt Brash. So, yeah, I mean, literally anything could happen. He could go six shutout innings or you can, you know, go two and walk eight and be out of the game. I mean, it's literally anything is possible, which had some excitement, but also some trepidation when you're out there. And like, you know, hey, we just had to have the bullpen cover a lot of innings a couple days ago.

Thankfully, flexing did a great job yesterday. we have some reinforcements and fresh arms in the pen now so yeah hopefully five innings two three runs I mean at this based on what we saw last time out I would even take the the Astros start just be competitive I think he will I think he's going to have a better day than he did last time out but again literally anything can happen yeah and look now you know he's got a few starts under his belt it's time to real things in a little bit here for him and maybe you know just calming down and focusing on his game plan and really hunkering down and executing that

we'll go a long way for him and maybe we'll see some better control out of him but it's a you know it's a it's a risky game that you play because like you said you really don't know you can get seven shutout innings from him or you could get you know like you said the seven eight walks and he's out by the third just that he's kind of a boomer bus guy right now as he's as he's currently constructed and that's why a lot of people like him as a as a reliever more than a starter right you kind of see that but I you know me being the Matt Brash stand that I am I believe and uh he's going six scoreless so you're calling it perfect game for Matt Brash yeah exactly exactly all right maybe not that

aggressive though but i'm going i'm going six scoreless from matt brash okay that'd be great uh by the way hernandez who's going for miami tonight interesting guy um gives up quite a bit of hard contact he will not walk you he's going to be in the zone um doesn't have tremendous stuff it's it's it's it's chris flexen esk maybe a little bit more strikeout in his game um and the uh the the metric say he's been a little bit unlucky is xera is two full runs lower than his actual ERA. But it's mostly fastball slider. So fastball is

91 miles an hour. It's gotten touched up pretty heavily. So he's going to be slider heavy. And the Mariners just dropped in a lineup. It is about what you would expect. Although Crawford remains ahead of Suarez. So, yeah, there's an opportunity

here for the Mariners to get on Hernandez. But he's better than his ERA would suggest right now. At least he has been. But it's going to be fastball slider. Get on the fastball, hunted early. And see you can come away with a game one win. Set yourself up to try and win the series over the weekend. All right.

So the Marlins have struck out quite a bit this year. Let me show their numbers real quick here. Yeah, they are fifth right now, or tied fifth with the Diamondbacks, 25.1% strikeout rate for Marlins hitters. So is tomorrow going to be finally the time we see a hundred, high strikeout performance by Robbie Ray. Because I've been waiting for it, man. I hope so.

Yeah, we just, you know, this is last start in April. We haven't seen, you know, we haven't seen even like non-Sai Young vintage Robbie Ray. He's never, he hasn't had a start where he struck out a batter printing all year. So that's, that's highly unusual. And we saw the velocity slowly start to take up his last start. I really hope the slider is sharp. I would, I would absolutely train. trade, Robbie Ray getting shelled for the slider to be plus again.

Like just one start just to see a plus slider, you know, more than once or twice. Like it jumped on but have the good slider. I would make that trade. But yeah, it's funny you kind of look at like the how these teams are built. I like the Marlins. I think they're a fun team, especially with the pitching. But when you look at the strikeout rate, that's where things get really crazy. because in the Mariners K percentage, there's a lot of red, which for hitters is very good.

When you look at the Marlins K percentage, there's a lot of blue, and that's obviously bad. So these are two teams. One team appears to have value guys who put the ball in play. The other team is like, yeah, whatever, you strike out, you strike out. So two kind of different, you know, two kind of differently built offenses. But I think this is going to be a really fun series. So hopefully Robbie Ray, who's been fine. I mean, it's not like Robert Ray's been bad, but he hasn't quite lived up to expectation yet.

And maybe the start is the one that kind of kicks him down that road. Yeah. Yeah, just says 639 case per nine right now for Robbie Ray. That is well below his career average, which is 11.10. That's his career average right now. Nobody in Major League history strikes out more batters per nine innings pitched than Robbie Ray. And he's at 6.9 this year. Something's got to give.

Yeah. All right. Let's not belabor this anymore. Logan Gilbert, Sandy Alcantra. I mean, and it's coming on my birthday, by the way,

folks. So this is just great for me. Nobody cares. I know. I know. I know. I expected that as well. It's just,

yeah, it's predictable. But there's a, there's another knock for, you know, the two people that go in the YouTube comments and say that you, you hate me or something or whatever. We actually really like each other,

by the way, guys. he won't admit it on on on on on record but yeah you didn't invite me to your birthday I mean hey you're welcome to pay the $800 to come up to Toronto see if we were really friends you'd pay that for me so so Logan Gilbert's been really good this year

obviously you know as I mentioned he's leading the American League in ERA you know O4 OERA right now basically a strikeout per nine, 8, 8, 7, case per 9 right now. So he could be better in that regard. And I think he will be eventually. But yeah,

you know, we've been talking about this Marlins lineup, all the strikeouts. What do you think we're going to see from Logan Gilbert in this, this matchup between potentially two Sy Young candidates? I was thinking about this the other day,

and I was wondering, do you think it's possible that Logan Gilbert just isn't like a match? massive strikeout guy. Not that he's not going to get strikeouts, but maybe instead of being like 11 or 10 and a half, he's closer to like 9, 9 and a half. Because he is up in the zone a lot and it's,

it's fly ball. It's kind of like Felix. In Felix's prime, he was like 8.5, maybe 9, K per 9. But it was just so much weak contact. And I mean, that it was just, you know what I mean?

He didn't have to strike guys out to be elite. And I wonder maybe Gilbert's going to be that way. But yeah, it's a really good matchup for him. A lot of right-handed bats, a lot of swing and miss. A lot of guys who try to do damage, a lot of big swingers. So the fastball up, and with Gilbert, it's all about the secondary. Does he have a secondary? If he does, he can dominate, if he doesn't,

probably still going to go five, six, and give up one or two runs. Because that's just who Logan Gilbert is right now. So, yeah, I would suspect that he pitch as well. Pitching in Florida, his home state, through very well. against Tampa. So I would think that he's going to be still pretty amped. And I think he's going to show out pretty well against a good but not great Miami Marlins offense. And then tell the folks about Sandy Alcantra.

You and I both love Sandy Alcantra. Unfortunately, he signed an extension with the Marlins this off season. So no hopes of getting him because that was a thought there for a second. Apparently the Mariners did check in on his availability. last summer but that didn't go anywhere of course but uh yeah alconra is sick he reminds me a lot of felix remandis he really just like young young philicamaniels he was throwing like 99 miles an hour um and he just has wicked off speed stuff and nobody can square him up doesn't get a tremendous amount of strikeouts only 38th percentile on strikeouts and doesn't

walk some guys on occasion 30th percentile walk percentage you know it's it's not it's abovely it's 10.1 this year major league average is 8.4 but obviously the year before it was 6% year before that 8.7 it's it's it's it's about league average it's so it's not great command young felix never had great command and to be fair old felix never had great command either um it's not like insane strikeout numbers although he is capable of you know putting up impressive totals now and then And it's not even like just insane spin rates or anything like that. It's just wicked nasty stuff that's all backed up by this incredible fastball. That's averaging 97.5 miles per hour this year.

He backs it up with a very good slider. The fastball slider are basically unhittable. The pitch he's had the hardest time with this year has been a sinker. And that was a really good pitch from last year. Alcantra is probably the best pitcher. nobody talks about. Yeah. He is a legitimate

Cy Young contender every single year. Absolute bargain for the Marlins. I'm mad. I'm jealous. And there were times where we talked about, would you give up Julio for Alconra? And I was like, probably not,

but I'd really think about it. Like, the dude is great. And we're going to see him on Sunday. And, you know, personally, I hope he struggles. Yeah,

but I don't think he will. I think that's going to be. going to be, you know, first team to score three or whoever gets to the bullpen first is going to have a good shot at that. But Alcantra is electric, guys. His stuff moves like a foot. Like his fat, you're just,

it's insane. Yeah, he's nuts. All right. So we, we've been kind of slipping as of late and not doing picks to click or takes to rake or what have you, whatever you want to call it. But let's... Crush. Okay. I like that.

Crush just to crush. I mean, We'll work in our live stream. Yeah. But let's do one for this weekend. So for all three games, who do you think is going to have the best series at the plate for the Mariners? I've done very well in these, so. I've actually done well.

I know. I'm trying to figure out who do I want to curse. I don't, this is a tough one. I mean, if you just want to curse someone, I mean, you're a Dylan Moore hater. I mean, I probably should take like Jared Kelnick because he's not going to do anything anyways. Who are you taking?

You go first. Let me think about this for a second. All right. So the Lazzardo matchup kind of scares me, but I'm going to go Jesse Winker. He's hit the ball really hard lately. I mean, it's going, like the breakout is going to come at some point. We know this.

We know this for a fact. It is going to come at some point. Why not now? Please make it now. Let's not, let's not in the month of April where he's still not getting the results that he, quite frankly, deserves.

So I think he, I think he finally finds some grass. I think he finally find some seats as well in this one. And he's going to have a good series. Maybe not tomorrow against Lazzardo, but against Hernandez and maybe Alcantra. I mean, if someone is, going to break through against Alcantra.

Might as well be one of the most underrated hitters in all baseball. I guess one of the most underrated pitchers in all baseball. Sure. I want to take Louis Terence, who is solid. I was actually kind of thinking Terence

as well. He's starting tonight in the dish. He's probably going to DH tomorrow against the lefty with Murphy catching and then hopefully Hanager and right field, but if not and see my only hesitation with taking Tiran's that there's a decent chance he only catches one game and so that point doesn't really matter.

I feel like France is the obvious choice here, so I don't want to do that. How about I'm going to say that J.P. Crawford, the P stands for power, continues to hit. I'm going to say JP hits two home runs this weekend. Yeah, all right. Two home runs for J.P. Crawford. It'll be the only two hits he gets.

And of course, in both of those games, he'll commit a really boneheaded error because that's just what JP does now. It kind of goes hand in hand, right? It's like if he hits a home run, the defense, the defense regresses by like a grade and a half. And then,

but if he doesn't hit a home run, he's like Gold Glover. I just remember J.P. Crawford, just power Crawford. There you go. Exactly. So I'll take J. You know, we're out of time.

Yeah, I'll just stick with it. No, do I want to curse J.P? I'm taking Mitch Annager. There we go. Oh, I mean, that's a pretty safe bet to curse him since he's uh you're still recovering you know so all right time also you between one through nine uh six okay you a eugenio swarise is my guy okay good vibes only oh no we cursed him though curse vibes only no adam fraser breakout series there you

go adam fraser is we're just we're just naming every player on the mirror i know all right All right. Seriously, seriously. Because I know we've got to go, and I know you want a real answer so you can make fun of me when it epically fails. I think Adam Frazier is going to get three-game series. I think Frazier is going to get six hits and two walks. All right. Let's do it. I would love to see it.

All right. Well, on that note, that's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Mariners podcast. For Colby Pat note, I'm Tiding Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L.O. underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dane Gonzalez. It's D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at C-P-A-L-E. That's C-P-A-T-1-E. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. And thank you again for making us your first listen of the day. Just like you do here every day. We greatly appreciate your support. Now make your second listen to the day. Lockdown MLB, that's where Paul Francis Sullivan and please call him Sully brings you his unique perspective on the major league's present and pass. It's free wherever you get your podcast just like us. So have yourself a beautiful baseball day and a beautiful baseball. weekend and we will see you on Monday. Peace, go M's.