Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Offensive Explosion Keeps Mariners Alive in Playoff Hunt

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

Locked On Mariners hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode discuss the Mariners' 13-4 win over the A's, why starting Tyler Anderson in place of Yusei Kikuchi is the right call and what the future holds for Luis Torrens.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] TWO TICKETS TO THE MARINERS-ANGELS GAME ON SATURDAYFollow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: patreon.com/controlthezone/BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. 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.

You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, your home for Daily Seattle Mariner's News and Analysis, brought to you by Rock Auto.com, amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. Visit Rock Auto.com and tell them locked on sent you. It is Tuesday, September 28, 2021. Thank you so much for making us your first listen of the day. My name is Tiding Gonzalez. I am joined as always by my co-host Colby Patnode. You can follow us on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-N-S-R-N-Rer.

You can follow me at D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and Colby at C-P-P-E-P-A-T-1-1. Be sure to also check out our Patreon where we talk about the Mariners even more and also get into some non-baseball talk twice a week. Visit patreon.com forward slash control the zone for more information. On today's episode of Lockdown, Mariners, an offensive explosion when the Mariners absolutely

needed it a 13 to 4 win over the A's last night. The M's improving to 87 and 70 on the year. Just a game and a half back of the Red Sox for the second wild card with five games to go. And don't forget, you can support this team for free by entering our giveaway that we have going on right now. We're giving away two tickets to Saturday's game against the Angels. There will be a link to that in the description of this episode. We're also going to talk about the decision to start Tyler Anderson tonight on short rest rather than giving the ball to you say Kikuchi or Matt Brash. Though it does seem that we will see Brash at some point tonight.

Colby's going to tell you why he really likes the decision to go to Anderson here. And finally, we'll talk about a hero from last night's game, Luis Terens. Where does he fit in the big picture moving forward for this team? We're going to be talking about his future defensively because it seems like we have some clarity on that. If you like what you hear, give the show a follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to this. We'd greatly appreciate it. Colby, man, Cole Irvin, you had to eat a slice of humble pie last night. You know, he talked about how the game of baseball humbles you, more like the Mariners humbled you there.

Cole. Once again, even though the A's got out to an early 3-0 lead, Seth Brown with a three-run shot off of Chris Flexen, who kind of fell apart after getting two strikeouts to start the game, gave up a pair of singles and then Brown hit the home run. But Irvin, with that 3-0 buffer, allows five earn runs and just three innings pitch, six hits, four strikeouts, three walks, this team loves, loves, just absolutely loves to face Cole Irvin. And I'm sure they're probably a little bit sad that they're not going to be able to do that again this year. But hey, there's always next year. I mean, until the Mariners acquire Cole Irvin, because against everybody else, Cole Irvin is really good. That's true. Yeah, it's kind of funny how that all worked out.

But, I mean, it's pretty bad to have those numbers. against a lineup like that. So it's, it's, uh, it's an unfortunate end to Cole Irvin's season. Um, I suppose he'll have one more start in the last game of the year,

but Oakland season is done at this stage. They have to run the table and, well, you know, so yeah, it's, it's funny that, you know,

Irvin talked to smack after his first start and nobody would have thought anything of it if he hadn't said anything. It just, oh, you know, Mariners had a good day. He didn't. But,

uh, it's just, it's also weird because you look at like Cole, and statcast page, it shows, you know, a guy who lineups should handle pretty easily. I mean, it's, you know, 41st percentile on average ex-vilo, 47th percentile on hard hit rate, you know, 26 percentile on X slugging, 21st percentile on X Wobah. There's nothing special about his pitches whatsoever. He's just a lefty who throws strikes.

And the Mariners have had issues against guys like that. So it's not like, you know, every lefty who's just a strike thrower, the Mariners have torched this year. That's not been the case. But for whatever reason, they had no problem handling Coal Urban this year. And it's funny. It's justice in a way. And it's, you know, above everything else, it's honestly just hilarious. So, you know, maybe he'll learn his lesson.

But I can't imagine that this is going to be something that doesn't get rehash next year. But yeah, it's, you know, you play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And Cole Irvin's prize was an ERA of about 11 and a half against the Mariners. So with, you know, an offensive just onslaught like this, there's going to be huge numbers throughout the lineup. Mitch Hanager, the start of the day, two for five with a pair of three run, home runs, six RBI in total. and that came after a couple of some pretty bad of bats against Cole Irvin

but he was able to turn things around Ty Brants went four for four with four RBI J.P. Crawford was three for five. Jared Kellnick had went two for three and had a pretty cool bunt for a single to beat the shift and you know with all of these moments it's hard to kind of pick a favorite but was there one that that stood out to you last night that you particularly liked yeah the uh the the hanniger home run the first one was it was pretty big um of course that comes on the heels of you know two awful at bats where he you know had a chance to drive well the first one he didn't have a chance to drive and run but it was still really bad he swung through you know center cut basketball for strike three

um and then the second time he had a shot to drive and runs he you know again awful at that that little soft, you know, blooper right to the second basement. So, yeah, you know, a couple bad at bats and he comes up, though, and then you've gotten the big production, you know, J.P. Crawford came up huge and he got a base hit and Ty France came up and he got a hit too. And so you kind of had this momentum and you're just sitting there going, okay, it's five to four now. You know, how are we going to, you know, are we just going to, in the past, we've stagnated here and we've tried to hold this lead.

Can we play add-on? And Mitch's answer was definitively yes. So that one was really big. It really felt like pretty much game over, you know, until Seth Brown came up with runners on first and second with two outs in the fifth after a, what was a 14 pitch at bat between Flexon and Cana.

But, yeah, the other one that was really fun was to see Jared Kalnick punt for a base hit against the shift. That's not something, you know, you want him doing regularly, but it was kind of fun to see him pull that off against the A's and lay it down really, you know, perfectly. So, yeah, there was a lot of fun stuff that happened there. Louis Turenz, two RBI single, with two outs in the third was huge. Tied the game at three to three.

And that was, you know, again, after Hanager and Seeger really had bad at bats, you know, they looked like the mares were going to let that opportunity slide. and Turen stepped up in a big way and that kind of started the turn of the tide. So yeah, it was pretty good at-bats up and down the lineup. You know, only Seeger and Toro were unable to get a hit

or reach base, sorry. But yeah, other than that, it was pretty good production up and down the lineup. Yeah, this game looked a lot different through the first three or four innings here and then it just completely turned on its head and the Mariners explode for

as many runs as the Seahawks have scored points in the second half of their games through the first three weeks. We're going to talk about tonight's game, Tyler Anderson on the bump for the Mariners and another must win for the M's. We're going to tell you everything you need to know about that one in just a moment. But first, a reminder of this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Get Upside. Hey, Mariners fans, this is Tideiang Gonzalez with an incredible app. Everyone who buys gas needs to know about. Get Upside. My listeners are making up to 25 cents for every gallon of gas every time they fill up. Just download the free Get Upside app in the App Store or Google Play right now.

Use promo code baseball and get a bonus 25 cents per gallon on your first fillup. That's up to 50 cents cash back. Don't pay full price at the pump anymore. Get cash back using Get Upside. Just download the app for free and use promo code baseball to get up to 50 cents per gallon cash back on your first tank. Some people who drive a lot are making as much as two to, $300 a month in cashback and there's no catch. The cash back gets added right to your account

and you can cash out any time to your bank account, PayPal, or even an eGift card for Amazon and other brands. Just download the free Get Upside app and use promo code baseball to get up to 50 cents per gallon cashback on your first tank. That's promo code baseball. This is Locked on Mariners. Thank you again for making us your first listen of the day. We greatly appreciate appreciate it. Colby, there's been a lot of talk about Matt Brash. You say Kikuchi, what to do with this start. Kikuchi was initially slotted in. Scott Service later on said that the starter was to be determined. And then last night confirmed that instead of Matt Brash, who was in the building last night, it's going to be Tyler Anderson on short rest. Obviously didn't have a good game in Anaheim and his last start. That was the 14 to 1. loss of the Mariners suffered on their road trip a few days ago. But and this comes from Gary Hill Jr. Mariners broadcaster and host of the Mariners pod.

Last year, Tyler Anderson was ejected from a start versus the Mariners of all teams on 49 pitches. And then he made another start just two days later versus the A's, funny enough, and went five and two thirds. and didn't allow an earn run on 105 pitches. And last night you told me that you love this idea, this move to go to Anderson in this spot instead of Brash. Tell me why.

Yeah, so this is a really interesting move to go to Anderson after he was absolutely sheled. But there's a couple of reasons that make it a pretty sound decision here. First and foremost, Anderson should be fairly, well rested. It seems weird that he threw three days ago. And we're considering him, you know, fully rested. But he should be. He only threw 56 pitches in that, in that matchup. And, you know, between starts, there's a bullpen day where you essentially, you know, you throw 75% of your stuff. And it's, you know, usually it's between 25 to 40 pitches.

And that's basically what, what this is going to represent. It's his midweek bullpen. and it's a little bit more than that. So maybe you only ask him to go four innings instead of five. But it's a thing that he should be, you know, he should handle. He shouldn't be exhausted, right? So it's not like you're asking him to go and throw, you know, 100 pitches or you're not asking him to pitch after he's thrown 100 pitches. So number one, he should be fairly well rested. Number two, he's actually done this before.

Like you said, just last year, you know, he got ejected from the mariner, from a starting. against the Mariners. After throwing 45 pitches, and a couple days later, he went out there. He went five and two-thirds. So it's something that he's done before, as just about a year ago, almost exactly.

So that's number two. Number three, he's pitched well against Oakland this year and his other start a few weeks ago. He went seven shutout innings. The lineup is something that he should handle, and they seem to have a pretty good game plan on how to attack these Oakland hitters.

And Kikuchi, you don't really trust him to. execute that. That's the other thing, too, is that now you can push Kikuchi back. And this might be the bonus of it all is we think Anderson is going to be fine on this short rest because of the short start he had on a, what was that, Saturday. But we also know that Kukuchi does a lot better on extended rest. So since the move to the five-man rotation, you say Kikuchi's been very inconsistent. The times he's pitched pretty well, there tends to be an off day in the middle of that

in the middle of his turn, right? There seems to be an off day the day before or a couple days before and he's actually going on five days rest. Well, now, if you want to start him, say, on Friday, right? Now you're looking at him having basically an entire week off between starts. So he should be able to, you know, be well rested and attack guys and go after a easier to handle Anaheim Angels lineup than an Oakland-Ais lineup. So I think this should help Kikuchi.

I think it's going to help Anderson and the Mariners in a game against the superior opponent to the Angels. And I think the plan is probably going to be to ask Anderson to get through the lineup once, maybe one and a half times. And then they're going to hand the ball over to Brash. And hopefully he can give you, you know, six to nine outs. And you can hand the ball off to Paul Seewald and Drew Steckenrider and Diego Castillo, who didn't pitch yesterday because of the blowout. So I actually think this lines up pretty well.

I think it helps Kikuchi. I think it helps the Mariners team as a whole trying to win tonight. And I think Matt Brash is going to play a big role on this. So I don't think it's going to, I don't think Anderson is going to be bad because of the short rest. So I like it. So Brash is in Matt Andres who struck out the side last night to end the game is out. He gets DFAed, which is the harsh reality of professional. sports of major league baseball but

it is what it is and uh brash is expected to make his major league debut tonight like you said assistant general manager Justin Hollander who we think is probably going to become the general manager when uh when the you know everything gets settled here now that

Jerry de Poto is the president of baseball ops but uh he said that brash uh he expects brash to get the ball at some point tonight so like you said, it does seem to be some sort of piggybacking plan in a way with Anderson and Brash to help them get to their horses there in the bullpen. And a great thing there, by the way, that they, you know, they are a great benefit of blowing out the A's last night.

As you said, they didn't have to use Castillo or Seawald or Steck and Rider in that game. and Casey Sadler only through eight pitches last night as well. So he should be available as well if you need him. So they're fully stocked here. Big matchup here, though, against Chris Bassett, who is making what his second start since returning from injury. Yep. And, you know, he's obviously been really good this year,

but the Mariners were able to get to him down in Oakland. What's the game plan here against Chris Bassett? night. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how many pitches Bassett is allowed to throw. He was very effective in three innings last time out against the Mariners, and then he was done for the day, you know, obviously returning from that gruesome injury. Season kind of on the line. I actually made a mistake there. It was James Caprillion who they got to after he was pulled. They did get a home run off of him, though, right? I believe so, yeah, but he looked pretty good. Yeah. You know, again,

it's, Oakland season is on the line one more loss and they are eliminated. So they need this game. And so it'll be interesting to see, you know, how they try to make that work with Bassett because the bullpen for Oakland, not that good. So do they really trust it or are they going to ask Bassett to go out there

and go his normal six, seven inning? So it'll be interesting to see how the A's handle him. You know, as for the Mariners, I think it's just, you got to start grinding out these at bats and you've got to try and get him out of the game as soon as you can because the Oakland A's bullpen has issues, quite a few of them.

So you can get to that bullpen. You've got to trust Tyler Anderson to keep you in this game. And you just grind out at bats against Basset get that pitch count up and get ready to attack the bullpen. Obviously, you want to score on Bassett. It would be great if you could score early so that Scott can really kind of pick and choose when he's going to go to Brash. And maybe he can stretch Anderson for, you know, another inning. maybe you can jump out to an early lead. But I think the goal here is to get Bassett out of the game as soon as you possibly can

and go to work on the soft underbelly of the Oakland Aves, which is clearly their bullpen. So I think that's it. You've got to be patient. Don't miss the mistakes if you get any and be aggressive on the bullpen when you get your chance. Yeah, they got to put together some runs here, try to get into that bullpen. And hopefully they should be good to go. Definitely a tough matchup.

They also got Frankie Montaise tomorrow as well. So not going to be an easy, easy next couple of days, but they got to win these games to stay competitive in the wild card race. We're going to be talking about Luis Terenz in just a moment and how he fits into the future of the Seattle Mariners. But real quick, a reminder, this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by betonline.ag. We're back in better than.

ever. All eyes are on the gridiron as teams are back on to start another football season. And as always, BetOnline is your number one spot for all the pro and college football action. With a new updated site and interface, even more odds, props, and contests, betonline.ag continues to be the number one source for everything football. Head to the website or use your mobile device to sign up today to receive your 100% welcome bonus. That's double your initial deposit just for signing up. Don't forget to use promo code NFL 100. Bet Online is the fastest and easiest way to bet on all your favorite sports from football, basketball, boxing, right to your favorite Vegas casino games. So don't wait to take advantage of all the amazing offers available for the 2021 season.

Bet Online, your online sportsbook experts. This episode of Lockdown Mariners is also brought to you by rockado.com with the ever-increasing numbers of makes and models. it's now impossible for your local chain auto parts store to stock all the parts you need. Why endure often pointless or seemingly intimidating questioning like is your Odyssey an LX or an EX and wait while the person behind the counter orders the parts on their computer, choosing the only brand their warehouse happens to carry? You have computers with access to rockato.com at home and in your pocket. So why choose to spend 30%, 50%, even 100% more for the same parts from a chain store or car dealership?

For example, a Honda Odyssey fuel pump is $353 from a chain store, whereas with Rock Auto, it's only $216. Plus, Rock Auto is a family business serving Do It Your Sulfers for over 20 years, and their prices are reliably low for every customer. So go to Rockato.com right now and see all the parts available for your car or truck. Right, locked on in there, how did you hear about us, box, so they know we sent you. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts are you. your car will ever need rock auto dot com so colby we've talked about you know wanting to have the dh

be versatile on this team to not have it really be one specific guy to be able to move a bunch of different guys into that d h roll pretty much every night and that's usually what jerry depoto and company have wanted for the most part with that d h spot but louis

Terenz has kind of become the de facto D.H. this year really hasn't caught at all since he was called back up. And Jason Churchill last night, friend of the show, Prospectinsider.com, Baseball Things Podcast, check it out on Patreon. He tweeted last night that Luis Terenz doesn't like nor want to catch. And now you, with the way that you've been constructing your offseason plan, And by the way, for you listening at home, we do an off-season plan every year where we put together a 26-man roster and trades and free agent signings and all that that we think the Mariners should do.

And in your off-season plan, you have had Luis Terenz as your second catcher behind young gomes. We've also talked about Wilson-Cutreras, et cetera. We've talked about a bunch of ideas, but if Terenz isn't going to catch and is strictly going to be a D.H, I have to wonder, does he fit with this team anymore moving forward? Well, I don't know if he's strictly a D.H. He played some third base the other night. So it's...

Sure. And, of course, there was the infamous lineup that had Terenz playing third base against Tampa, I think it was. And clearly that's something Seattle's been experimenting with. And it's worth noting that, you know, Luis Turenz wasn't a catcher until the Yankees told him he was. He came up as an infielder. He was a shortstop and was never really going to stick at shortstop.

But the fact that they thought he could catch says a lot about his athleticism. And again, he never really blossom into a good catcher. He was decent last year at the end of the year. He was just awful this year. So, yeah, if he doesn't want to catch, then, I mean, you can't have to. him to catch i mean you you literally cannot have that so um but you know you also have abraham toro who we are assuming is going to be the third baseman next year uh i really don't think turenz can play second and uh first base is going to be tie france so yeah you're kind of looking at this

and saying well is he the full-time d h is he a platoon guy is he you know can we use them at third can we use them at first can we ask him to catch once a week and just at least keep that as a possibility. And we'll see what they decide to do with that. So for now, the bad is enticing enough that I still think they want him to be around. But if he's not going to catch, he has to offer them some versatility. So he has to be able to play some third. He has to be able to play some first.

And yes, I do think he's going to have to be willing to catch, you know, once in a while. because now you have to carry, you know, a second catcher. And if Torens isn't one of them, you kind of either need to bring back Murphy or you need to sign two more, two catchers this offseason. So the versatility that- Which I do like the idea of, by the way. It's fine, but like, again, what you don't want is you don't want to carry Luis Torens who can't play defense anywhere except for first base.

And, you know, he has to be at least passable at third. And thankfully, you do have Perry Hill, who has worked wonders with quite a few guys. So can Perry Hill turn Luis Turenz into a 45-grade third baseman? Well, I mean, he couldn't really do it with Thai France. But, I mean, Thai France is like a 55-60-grade first baseman. So, I mean, I don't know. Could Perry Hill do that? I think he can.

But it's just one of those things. that not him not wanting to catch is, makes it harder to carry him because I don't want a full-time DH. And I don't want a guy to stick around on my bench who's going to play first base once a week. You know what I mean? So if he's willing, if he can play a decent third base, if he can go stand over at first base,

if he's willing to catch once or twice every 10 games or so, then I think you can still carry him. But if he's not, then it's kind of him versus Toro. and you really don't want Toro to be your second baseman and Torens to be your third baseman, because now you've eliminated two areas where you can upgrade. So, yeah, he's got to be willing and able to learn a couple different positions to stick around. But I think he can do that.

It's just a matter whether or not Seattle wants to wait for him or Seattle, you know, wants to carry two additional catchers in addition to Torens. So that's what I was going to ask you about was, what do you think the viability of him being able to actually be efficient at third base is? He's pretty athletic. Again, came up as a shortstop, came up as an infielder, moved to catcher. And in a couple of years, at least for a small sample size in September, he was a viable defensive catcher.

He wasn't good, but he was fringe average. So, yeah, I feel like it's possible. I think he's got the arm for it. I think he's got enough lateral quickness. It's, again, it just, it's kind of tough to sit here and say, I don't want to accuse Luis Torrance of having work ethic issues. But the fact that he was so bad defensively a catcher this year, and then, you know, obviously Jason says that he doesn't want to play catcher.

Kind of makes you wonder how much of that was just lack of effort. But I don't want to accuse the guy of that. Because I don't know. So I think he can make it work. I really do. I think you can play a little bit of third. I think he could be at least, you know, he doesn't have to be Kyle Seeger. He doesn't have to be even Abraham Toro over there.

He just, he just has to be somebody who can stand over there and not kill you. Can he do that? I think so. And he only has to do that once or twice a week. right so and then the other days you're dhing him particularly against lefties but yeah i feel like you can make it work i i think he's athletic enough to uh to to figure that out and i think perry hill is good enough at his job that he can make him passable at third base and again you're only

you're only asking him to play third base twice a week in dh twice a week and and play first base once a week like i don't think that's too much to ask for louise turence well perry hill is a magician so we'll see if he'll be able to pull something out here but uh you know i think you should probably explore other options and see you know i i think turennes might have some pretty pretty good trade value might be able to help you get you know a deal across the the goal line or something uh down the road um there's going to be teams out there that you're going to trade with that are going to want major league pieces back and he's a pretty valuable one that's fairly expendable.

You could at least make the argument that he's expectable to you, which can't really make that argument with a lot of guys on this roster. So that's pretty valuable to you. We'll see how they handle that and see what his willingness is to

play out in the field and catch. Can I, before we go, Ty, real fast. Can I throw out an aim as a potential catcher? Whether Turen's six rounds not. All right.

I think Mariner fans are going to like this. And this will be my, my walk-off Wednesday moment. Oh, I think I know where you're going with this. How about the return of All-Star and good catcher, Mike Zanino to the Seattle Mariners. Could be a free agent this year.

He has an option. It's a club option. We know Tampa doesn't really like to pay those guys all that often. Could be available in trade. Could be available in free agency. I think he makes a lot of sense coming back to Seattle. So watch that name. Mike Zanino to return.

We will celebrate like it's 1999 if it happens. All right. On that note, then, thank you so much for joining us here on Locked-on Mariners and making us your first listen of the day for Colby Patnode. I'm Tidea and Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Mariners. you can follow me at Dane Gonzalez, that's D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z,

and Colby at C-P-P-E-E-T-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day, and we'll see you tomorrow. Betting on Major League Baseball doesn't have to be a guessing game. If you listen to the new Lockdown Betts podcast hosted by your boy Q and handicap and expert Lee Sterling, get daily picks, blowout specials, wrong team favorite picks, and Lee Sterling's lock of the day.

Follow the Lockdown Betts podcast brought to you by betonline.ag wherever you get podcasts.