Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Moore Offensive Output

Episode Date: May 17, 2021

The Mariners took the final three games of the four-game series over the weekend against the Cleveland Indians. Dylan Moore looks to have found his stroke and his timing, and his numbers have much improved over the previous few weeks. D.C. talks about Moore's improvement, and the improved offense at large. In addition, the bullpen had a much better series following a really bad road trip. D.C. dives into some pitching numbers, along with some offensive numbers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today on Locked-on Mariners, I move from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Cincinnati to take a job as the program director for a mismanaged, lowly rated radio station. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. It is an absolutely beautiful evening here in Spokane, Washington, ladies and gentlemen. I hope the weather is nice wherever you happen to be. I am D.C. Lundberg and welcome to Locked-on Mariners, parts of the Locked-on Podcast Network, brought to you by Belt Bar. Please remember to download, rate, and follow Locked-on Mariners on whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. That gets weirder and weirder each time.

Also remember to ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariners podcast or any program here on the Locked-on podcast network, or T-L-O-P-N, or T-Lop-N, or T-Lop-N, or T-Lopin, if you. if you will. Before we get to the conclusion of the weekend series against the Cleveland Indians, congratulations to two men are in order. The PBA playoffs concluded, uh, concluded, pardon me yesterday. Well, they continued and concluded, I suppose, at the same time. First of all, congratulations to the number 11 seed, Sam Cooley, who did not win, but he threw a perfect 300 game in the second game of the match. That was his only win of the day, however, as the title was taken by number one seed, Kyle Troop. Mr. Troop set a PBA record yesterday.

With the $100,000 that he won by winning the tournament, he set a single-season earnings record. By winning his semi-final match on Saturday over Francois Lavois, he ensured himself that the record would be his, as even second-place money, would have been enough to set the record. Mr. Troop beat Mr. Cooley three games to one. big congratulations to Afrofish on his win at the PBA playoffs yesterday. Now to baseball, and it was a good weekend of Mariners baseball.

The offense looked alive a lot of the time, which could not have been said a couple of weeks ago. The bullpen came through more often than not, and Dylan Moore is really heating up. Rather than going through the scoring recaps in each game like I've been doing on Mondays, I'm going to talk about some of the key points in the series at large. but before we get to any of that, there's some injury news, unfortunately. Prior to Friday's game, the Mariners placed two starting position players on the 10-day injured list. Evan White has a left hip flexure strain, and he could be out for some time. Ty France went down with left wrist inflammation, which might explain his ice cold bat.

I don't know. Up from Tacoma are infielers Jack Mayfield, who has yet to make his mariner debut, and Sunshine Superman, Donovan Walton, who started both weekend games. Now to talk about the previous series, and we'll start with Dylan Moore. I'm actually going to take you through his entire season thus far. He started this season with a one-for-three-day with two walks. Things looked good. At the end of the first homestand, he was slashing 22, 328, 389.

Not a good batting average, but also not alarming, especially given the on-base and slugging numbers. He had gotten a hit in four of the six games he played and reached base in five of the six. Then the mayors went on the road, and more went hitless in the three-game series in Minnesota and the first double-header in Baltimore. He collected one hit apiece in the two games of the second double-heder,

the second being a solo home run. His slash line for the seven-game road trip was 095-0-25-238, and it didn't get better until recently. He failed to get a hit in the following homestand, and his season average fell from 154 to 115, but that's not as low as it got. After failing to get a hit in the first two games in Boston, his average fell to 107.

He hit a second inning double in game three of the Red Sox series, but that was his only hit of the road trip. And on April 29th, he was hitting 108. And he was drawing a fair number of walks, but his on-base percentage was still a paltry 244. Then the Mariners met the Angels in Seattle. For the series, Moore went four for 11 with a home run, a walk, and five RBI, and he stole two bases.

His season average rose 38 points to 145, which still is beyond terrible, but way better than it had been. He failed to get a hit in the ensuing Baltimore series. The entire team failed to get a hit in the third game, but he did draw a base on balls in game two. His bat seemed to wake up in Texas like he did for many of the other Mariners. In the Rangers series, he went four for 11 with a double, a home run, and two RBI. Since the beginning of the Texas series on May 7th,

Moore has failed to get a hit in only two of the nine games, and in one of those hitless games, he still reached base with a walk. In those nine games, Moore is slashing 290, 353, 677, 9 for 31 with 3.3, 677, 9 for 31, with three doubles and three home runs and eight RBI. He also walked three times, and he's looking much better at the plate. He's jumping on pitches that he should, his timing seems to have been fixed, and his strikeout rate is down. Through May 5th, Dylan Moore was striking out 40% of the time.

After the day off on May 6th, he's striking out about 29% of the time. He's making more contact, he's making better contact, and he looks like the Dylan Moore we saw last year. And not only has he improved at the plate, but he's turning an outstanding defense at second base, with some highlight real plays thrown in for good measure. His defense has been so good that on Saturday, Donovan Walton DH'd while Moore played second.

Walton is a minor league gold glove award winner, who was an excellent middle infield defender. And Walton played third base yesterday, while Moore remained it second once again. It looks like Dylan Morris turned the corner gang, which this team desperately needs. He looks much better, and I think he can sustain what he's been able to do

over the last week plus. Before he hurt his wrist last year, he was hitting around 280 or so. So it's not inconceivable that he can maintain this 290 pace he's on now for a while, and he's driving the ball again. Looking at him, he doesn't look like he should have that much power, but he can put a charge in the ball.

And I think it'll manifest itself more in a gap power than home run power, but he can drive the ball out of the ballpark. He hit a ball into the bleachers in the upper deck and left field the other day. He reminds me a little bit of what the Mariners thought Andy Sheets was going to be about 25 years ago. A fairly skinny kid, but the ball just jumped off of his bat, leading to good gap power numbers in the miners. He hit 29 doubles and nine triples in 437 at match for the 1990. Tacoma Rainiers and 23 doubles in 401 at-bats for the Rangers in 1997, along with 14 home runs.

He was in the big leagues for much of the 1996 season, but didn't hit that much, though eight of his 21 hits in Seattle that year were doubles. I think Moore could have a better Major League career than Sheets did, who saw a fair amount of playing time in 1998 and 99, with the Padres and Angels respectively, but as a utility infielder, as a reserve, and only 102 games over the next three years with the Red Sox and Devil Rays to close out his career. Also in Moore's favor is that the Tigers are coming to town tomorrow, and they have the third worst team ERA in baseball. Their 495 ERA is only ahead of the Rockies and Angels, and their 632 Bowpen ERA is the worst in Major League Baseball.

that bode well for Mr. Moore, but for the rest of the lineup, as there are still some other members who continue to struggle. Time for the trivia corner, ladies and gentlemen, and today it will be a hall pass. Today's subject enjoyed a 21-year major league career in the 1970s, 80s, 80s, and 90s as an outfielder. He has a 279 career batting average, hit 438 home runs, 503 doubles, and drove in 1,591 runs. He stole 314 bases as well. He's a rookie of the year. He has an MVP award and placed in the MVP voting in nine other seasons, finishing second twice.

He's an eight-time All-Star, an eight-time Gold Glove Award winner, and also won four Silver Sluggers. Do those sound like Hall of Fame credentials to you out there in podcast land? I will let you know who it is after this word from Wealthfront. Decades of data show that investors that trade individual stock, underperform the market every single year. In fact, only 1% of day traders beat the market. The odds are not in your favor if you're doing it alone.

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and also a league leading 353 total bases. also a career high. In 1983, he led the NL and hits with 189, and also in total bases that year, with 341. Coming up, after an abysmal road trip, did the bullpen fare better against the tribe? Yes, I don't have to do that story now. Maybe I'll belch green grass in high tides instead.

But first, this word from the locker room. This episode is brought to you by the locker room, as I just mentioned. Locker room is the first social audio platform made for sports fans. The app is free to download, and once you're in, you can talk with me, yes indeed, other fans, athletes, and insiders in real time about your favorite team or sport. There's really no rhyme or reason as to when I open up my weekly room, so just follow me on the app and you'll get a notification when I do open. Locker room is the perfect place to start or join conversations about the league.

You can start your own conversations if I'm, not there. You'll find fans just like yourself on the locker room for watch parties, debates, post-game breakdowns, and of course reacting to big news or rumors. You'll have a chance to chat with me. I'll be doing one at some point this week. I am not exactly sure when. Follow me on the locker room

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Thank you very much, Mr. Joey Martin. Another element of the Mariners' success over the weekend was pitching. Over the three games, they limited the Indians to 8.000. runs. There were, of course, spots where they struggled, but at large, they did a fine job. Chris Flexion started Friday nights a game, and it went five and two-thirds, allowed five hits, only one run. It was earned, and walked one. He threw 85 pitches before giving way to Kendall Graveman with one-on and one-out in the sixth. Graveman allowed a hit, but nothing more in his

one-and-one-thirds. Eric Swanson came in for an inning. He's turning out to be a very reliable reliever. Another scoreless inning for Mr. Swanson, and only one. one hit allowed. J.T. Shagua, I think that's right. I'll just call him the avocado. The avocado struggled, unfortunately. He was brought in for the ninth with the M's up seven to one, hit the first batter he faced, then one out later gave up a two-run home run to Josh Naler. Jordan Loplow followed with a double, but then Jake Bowers struck out. Harold Ramirez reached on an error by Jose Marmonejos. J. P. Crawford fielded the ball and Marmo couldn't handle the throw over the first, and so there's an error on Marmo.

Raphael Montero was then brought in to try to record the final out with a four-run lead, but a man on base, and he did do that. As a team, the M's only allowed one walk and scattered nine hits Friday night. On Sunday, Justice Sheffield was on the mound to begin the game, and he looked pretty good most of the time. He went six innings, allowed two runs, both of them earned, on five hits and two walks. He struck out too. Drew Steckin-Rider and Will Vest both pitched a scoreless inning at peace, and he

while Anthony Masevich pitched the 9th and allowed one run on a solo home run to Harold Ramirez. The Mariners walked three men all game on Saturday and struck out seven. Shaggy struck out two of the three men to face him. Sunday was another bullpen game. Eric Swanson had been the usual starter for these bullpen days, but the start was given to Robert Dugger instead, and he delivered in a huge way. Three innings, no hits, just one walk and four strikeouts. He did need 49 pitches for those three innings, so he wasn't tremendously efficient.

But getting three innings out of a starter on a bullpen day is quite good. Next was Paul Seawald, not Seawald, as I had been calling him previously. I had to guess at his name, it's S-E-W-A-L-D, and I obviously guessed wrong. It is Seawald. So Mr. Seawald, I apologize for previously bushering your name. Like he's listening. Anyways, on the telecast, they post. a quote from Mr. Seawald, a 30-year-old veteran who's been in the big league since 2017.

Remember, he was called up on the same day that Logan Gilbert and Jared Kelnick were. He said, quote, looks like the Mariners are calling up their young and spry prospects from AAA. It's nice to see that the gentleman has a sense of humor. It can go a long way, gang, in any profession. His mariner debut was a good one. Two winnings, two hits, one walk, no runs, and four strikeouts. So the first five innings of a bullpen day were handled by only two pitchers. That's good news for the upcoming homestand against the Tigers, which begins tonight.

Raphael Montero was brought in for the sixth, and he struggled once again. Two thirds of an inning, two hits, two runs, only one of whom was earned, a walk and a strikeout. Will Vest had to be brought in to finish the sixth, which he did by striking out, pardon me, Austin Hedges. Anthony Masevich got the seventh, and he allowed two hits in a walk. but didn't allow any runs to cross the plate. Next was Eric Swanson. Scott Serves showing some faith in the young man by bringing him in late in a three-two game. And while he did walk two, neither of them scored.

Kendall Graveman came in for the ninth, the most reliable bullpen arm, and he allowed a hit and a walk but no runs, and he earned his fifth save. Graveman has yet to give up a run this season, earned or unearned. He's seen action in 14 games. He's finished five of them, and all five of those have been save opportunities, which he's converted successfully. He's pitched 16 and 2 thirds inning so far, allowed only six hits, walked only three, and struck out 17. His whip is a microscopic 0.540. That's astounding. And opponents are batting a mere 11 against him. The move to the bullpen may have been necessitated by very unfortunate circumstances,

but he's thriving there. I don't understand why Scott Service continues to give the ball to Montero in key situations. Montero should not be closing any more games. Graveman has proved that he is a more than capable closer, while Montero has squandered opportunities time and time again. But I'm going to keep it positive. The bullpen ERA in the previous three games over the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,

was 2.20. I included Robert Dugger's start on Sunday in that figure since it wasn't a real start. It was a bullpen day. They've been struggling as a unit prior to that series. On the previous road trip, the bullpen ERA was 11.65. And that includes Eric Swanson's start in the bullpen game last Sunday in Texas. It was a total mess. But they did much, much better in the Cleveland season. series, and I want to throw some praise Shaggy's way. Drew Steckenrider has been one of the more consistent and effective arms down there. His first outing was terrible, but since then he's appeared in 12 more games and only given up two runs, and he's struck out 18 in 16 and a third innings.

He's walked six, though, which isn't terrible, but it sure could be better. To highlight how bad that first game was, his season ERA is 265. If you take away that first game, that ERA goes all the way down to 1-1-0. Opponents are batting 167 against Shaggy, not counting the first game. And those six walks and 18 strike guns in 16 and the third, those also do not include the first game. Casey Sadler was also very good before he went on the DL. Robert Dugger had one lackluster game, but has been good in his other four. Will Vest and Anthony Masevich have been a little run.

lately, but they've also both been used an awful lot, and I think that they've simply been overworked, gang. The pitching staff has seen a lot of injuries. Once Marco Gonzalez is able to come back, that will be a huge weight lifted off the bullpen's collective back, as they'll no longer have to cover all nine innings of a game in his stead. This is a much improved unit over last year's disastrous relief core, and I think it'll get better once some of the injured pitchers return to Action. Have you got a question or a comment that you would like addressed on the show? If you do, please email it to Lockedon Mariners at gmail.com, and I will address it on the

air to future mailbag episode. Questions and comments on any subject whatsoever are encouraged and encouraged. I said that twice. I don't know why I said that was. Locked on Mariner's at Gmail.com is the email address. I'm losing my mind. Coming up, how is the offense doing? Yes, I know that.

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Bet Online, your online sportsbook experts, promo code Plurk Plac, Plac-Plicity Plac. No, promo code Locked On. Now back to Lockdown Mariners and your host, D.C. Lundberg. again, J.M. We talked about Dylan Moore in A-block. He's really turned things around after a very woeful start to his season. And before touching on the upcoming Tigers series, just briefly to close out the show, I'm going to go over some numbers from the other offensive players. This is the part of the season where teams are really getting a good idea of what they have. What's working, what's not working, and what changes are necessary. In the Mariners case, I think we've all

learned that the team's biggest strong suit is what had been a weakly. last season. That's relief pitching. The offense is not what it was last season, but Kyle Lewis missed the first several weeks, and the catching tandem is not performing up to its capabilities. The aforementioned that Dylan Moore started off as slowly as anyone can start. Evan White really hasn't found his footing, and Thai French was 0 for about 168 before going on the disabled list.

First person I'm going to talk about is France. He's collected two base hits all month, all month. On April 27th, he was hitting three, 25. Since then, 063, and a season average has fallen almost 100 points to 229. Maybe that bad wrist had something to do with it, but he sure looked out of whack before he landed on the DL gang. Hopefully this wrist problem was at least partially the cause of his batting problems, and maybe he'll come out of the shoot, you know, the way he started the season. We all know he can hit. He proved it last year and at the beginning of this year.

I'm not saying I expect him to hit 325 the rest of the way out, but his contact and gap power ability are both very good, and his strikeout rate this season has been a little below league average. League average, by the way, is 26.8 coming into today, that's the American League, and France was striking out in 24.4% of his at-bats. Kyle Lewis didn't play until April 17th, and he did not get off to a very quick start. At the end of April, he was slashing 161, 212, 387.

Three of the five hits he collected did go for extra bases, two home runs and a double, accounting for that high slugging percentage relative to his batting average. In May, however, he is slashing 313, 431, 396. And since the beginning of the Texas series on May 7th, that slash line is 367, 513, 400. He's found a stroke, and he's also taking an impressive number of walks. He got on base at least once in every game in the Cleveland series, collecting hits in the last two only. But he drew at least one walk in all four games. In Friday's game, he walked three times, and yesterday twice. His season slash line is 253, 352, 392, and a strikeout rate has a strikeout rate has a

improved over last year's 34.4%. He's striking out this season in 25.3% of his batts. And in May, 22.9. He's definitely on the right track. The Mariners obviously missed his bat while he was gone. And while the offense at large was still pretty terrible for a while after he returned, he has done his part ever since the calendar flipped to May 1st. And while Lewis and Moore were heating up as we got into May, the senior half of the Kyle Connection, action has been cooling off somewhat. In April, Kyle Seeger slashed 250, 307, 471, and was driving in some key runs. In May, he is slashing 191, 304, 468. His on-base and power numbers have remained good as his average has gone down, but he's striking out less. He's still got a huge split with runners on base

versus when the bases are empty. Maybe that's the problem, as the offense began to it's hibernation, there weren't as many men on base for Seeger. With the base is empty, pardon me, he's hitting only 169 on the season. Leading off an inning, he's hitting 0.95. With men on base, his average goes all the way up to 323, and with runners in scoring position, he has a huge average of 462 and a slugging percentage of 923. Given that he hits so well with men on base and has driven in a large, lot of runs. It's no surprise that in Meritor wins, he's hitting 299 versus 162 in losses. He also has a

nasty home versus road split. He's hitting 303 on the road, but only 160 at home. That's a problem, and that's in the exact same number of plate appearances. He has an OPS of over 1,000 on the road, but at home it's only 540. Finally, we'll talk about Mitch Hanager. He, like everyone else, had a rough home stand when the Mariners faced the Angels and Orioles capped off by being no hit. Going into that homestand, he was slashing 268, 305, 515. He hit 190 on that aforementioned homestand, better than most of the team, quite honestly, but since the part of that Texas series on May 7th where basically everything turned around, he is slashing 314, 385, 714, and his season batting average is back up to where it was,

268. His slugging and on-base percentages are both higher than they were prior to that enemic homestand as well. Until Jared Kelnick's arrival, Manninger had been hitting leadoff. His strikeout rate is right around league average, which is not real good for a leadoff man, quite honestly. I'm not sure I like Jared Kelnick as a leadoff man long term either, but he's as good a choice as any that the Mariners have right now, since I don't really have a bona fide leadoff man. I think that once he develops, Kelnick would make a great number two hitter. He's a line drive hiter who can hit for contact and power.

He doesn't try to pull everything, and I don't think he'll strike out a tremendous amount. He also has a really good batting eye from what I've seen, waits for his pitch, but isn't afraid to jump on a first pitch fastball if it's to his liking. He's got a great approach, and while the numbers aren't there yet, it's been four games. And Friday night was an absolute showcase for the young man. his first big league home run and two doubles. He's going to be a good one, gang. We saw a glimpse of the future Friday night with his family going crazy in the stands.

A wonderful sight. Speaking of the future, Logan Gilbert will get his second start on Wednesday, but tonight it'll be Yusea Kikichi versus Casey Mize to kick off the three-game series against the Tigers. Mr. Mize is a former number one draft pick, being selected first overall by Detroit in two, This will be his eighth start of the season, and thus far he's accumulated a 419 earned run average and a 1.267 whip. He's walking a few more hitters than he should, 16 and 38 and 2 thirds innings, and he's

also allowed five home runs. He's struck out 27, and opponents are batting 234 against him. That will wrap up this edition, ladies and gentlemen, of Locked-on Mariners. Tomorrow will be recapping tonight's game versus the Tigers. Joining me to do that will be Jennifer Lyons, Astro, and a Chocolate Milkshake. Please remember to download, rate, and follow Locked-on Mariners. Look for us on any podcasting app you can think of. Leave a rating and review if your podcasting app of choice, so allows.

Later on this week, ladies and gentlemen, we will be opening up the fan mailbag, something that I failed to mention in the email plug, probably on Friday since the Mariners don't have a game on Thursday, and they will be no game to recap on Friday. So I have basically the whole episode open. You know what? We will do it on Friday. We will do it on Friday.

Why am I talking about this? That will do it, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you again for listening to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope you'll join us tomorrow. Talk to you then. Get all the sports news you need in under 20 minutes with the Locked On Today podcast. Host Peter Bukowski will keep you updated on the latest news in every major sport with Lockdons team of local experts.

Follow the Locked On Today podcast on the Odyssey app or wherever you. get podcasts. This is Joey Martin speaking for Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.