Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Perhaps We Were a Little Too Optimistic About the Mariners' Offense

Episode Date: August 7, 2024

Welp, yesterday's episode aged poorly. After Ty and Colby expressed their optimism with the new-look Mariners offense, Seattle's bats disappeared against a mediocre Tigers team. The two recap last night's action, discuss Colt Emerson's promotion to High-A Everett, what the Mariners have to overcome in order to still win this series, and more.Ask us questions!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Stitch Fix With Stitch Fix, you get a Stylist who understands your style, size and budget—they do all the shopping for you! Now’s the best time to get started at StitchFix.com/MLB and get $20 off your first fix! Must redeem within 7 days of sign up. Offer does not include Kids Fixes. Liquid IVNo more thirsty summers when you indulge in hydration with Liquid I.V. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V. when you go to LIQUIDIV.COM and use code MLB at checkout.   SupplyHouseSupplyHouse.com is the reliable way to get parts fast. Shop for your next plumbing, h-vac, or electrical job and get fast shipping from coast to coast. Booking.comThe right stay can make you a fan of any US city - even your rival’s. Book today on Booking.com on the site or in the Booking.com app! Booking.com, Booking dot YEAH! PrizePicksGo to https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONMLB and use code lockedonmlb for a first deposit match up to $100! eBay Motors Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, we spent a good part of yesterday's episode singing the praises of the new look Mariners offense. So, of course, they proceeded to lay an egg against a mediocre pitcher. We're going to talk about what happened last night, what the Mariners are going to have to do in order to salvage this series against the Tigers. And more coming up here on the Locked on Marrars podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day.

Oh, Hoy, sailors. It is Wednesday, August 7th, 2020. This is Tining Azales and Colby Patnode for the Locked-on Marrars podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. On today's show, we're going to talk about last night's 4-2 loss of the Tigers, what the Marys now have to overcome in order to still win this series, and some exciting news for the mayor's top prospect. But before we do that, shout out to her title sponsor today.

Prize Picks. It's the easiest, the most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Go to prizepicks.com. Locked-on MLB and use the promo code Locked-on-M-L-B. That's L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N-M-L-B. It's all lowercase for a first deposit match, up to $100. And if you want to hear from me and Colby even more

and help support the show, check out our Patreon. The link is in the description. You can sign up for a free seven-day trial. So what was the title yesterday? Yesterday's episode? It was, I think I made it. The New Look, Marries offense is dot, dot dot, dot, good, all caps, question mark, exclamation point.

Whoops. For what feels like the billionth time this season, my optimism and our optimism in general has been immediately rewarded with a massive letdown. The mayor's offense yesterday, not good, folks. They only scratched together a couple of runs, the last of which was because who was who was it, Parker Meadows? I can't remember who it was. Meadows.

Yeah, I guess his controller disconnected or something. And Luke really had a home run and that was it. That was all the mayor's offense did yesterday, folks. So that's lovely against Ketter Montero, who entering last night's game, not good. As we talked about on yesterday's episode, we had said, this was a really good opportunity for the mayor's offense to get back on track after getting shut out by Zach Wheeler on Sunday. and stay hot relative to what they've done since the, uh,

the randy a rosorana trade, which was of course the source of our optimism on yesterday's episode, talking about this offense. So yeah, vibes are great. And Colby, you were, you were there at the ballpark.

You had to witness it all. How did that go for you? It was thrilling stuff. I got to tell you. I have never been. I will remember that baseball game forever because the Mariners played with so much heart and energy. It was, it totally wasn't like they had taken two days off in a row.

But, yeah, a pretty pathetic effort. And, you know, it's, you stack it against what they did against Wheeler yesterday. Okay, fine, that's that Jack Wheeler. But then you remember what they did against Aller the night before. Two bad pitchers in the last three games and they didn't do anything against either guy. Like, that's, okay, it's a bit concerning. You know, you kind of have to try and remember all the other. good pitchers they did score runs off of.

But yeah, it was a rough night. It became pretty evident by about the fourth or fifth inning that like this is one of those games that if the Mariners were going to win, it was going to be because somebody hit a big home run. They were going to walk and, you know, hit by pitch or whatever and somebody was going to hit a three run homer. And that's how they were going to win this game because the offense just couldn't put anything together, really.

They had a couple shots with a couple guys on base, but there would always be a double play or bad strikeout. and it would just completely, you know, wash out the inning. So really bad night for them. They struck out 14 times against a pitching staff that has no business striking you out 14 times. So, yeah, it was, it was bad. It was a pretty punchless effort from the Mariners. They just, honestly, a lot of the batts were, so many of the at-bats were so bad that you're just kind of like, geez, like, do they even want to, like, did they even know they were playing before an hour ago?

they were they just looked ill-prepared against a really bad pitcher and and uh you know it wasn't just the offense that was bad the defense was really bad uh as well so uh you know it's frustrating you look at uh last night and louis castillo was the only guy that looked like he uh was you know ready to play that game and his final line looks worse than it was because luke grayly can't field a routine ground ball and it doesn't get called in air for some reason uh so it's ridiculous it's really frustrating because i thought castillo looked fantastic last night. And I think that the merits had just scored three runs and played average defense, they would have won that game three to one, you know, pretty easily. So it's really

frustrating when your pitcher goes out, does his job very well. But the defense lets you down, the base running lets you down, the offense lets you down. And you just let a, which should be an extremely winnable game, slip right through your fingers. And now you have to go out there tonight against Tariq Scoobal, who's probably the front runner for the American League Saigon, or one of them at least. And try and and, you know, beat him to win a series against a bad team. Just you can't afford to drop series like this. You got to start stacking series wins on top of each other.

You know, the Mariners, they go and they take two or three from Philly. Great. Now they have Detroit. Okay, let's take two or three from Detroit. And then, hey, maybe we can do the same to the Mets. And then we can start to build some momentum here. And I mean, barring to them kind of spectacular win tonight, which based on how the offenses look the last three nights,

I would say don't feel great about. You know, it kind of looks like you're going to lose another series. And then you have to play the Mets again. And that's if you can even salvage a game against Detroit on Thursday. Now you have to play the Mets who are playing really good ball. So, yeah, it's you don't want this thing to snowball. Houston won last night. They're up right now as we're recording.

So it feels like a pretty good possibility that you're going to be down a half a game going into tomorrow, which again not a huge deal they're going to go back and forth for the rest of this for the rest of the fall so not a huge deal there but you know it's just a moment

you had an opportunity to put yourself in prime position to win back to back series for the first time in a long time and they just couldn't do it so that that's incredibly frustrating tough night for Randy a Roserana yeah really really tough night for Randy a Roserana

two double plays that killed two opportunities for the marries pretty big opportunities for the marries second of which being the most notable they had runners first and first the second

looked like Montero was on the ropes and then Randy goes first pitch swinging puts it right in the dirt and then Cal grounds out to end the inning and that was that was kind of the killing blow because it was 3-1 at that point it was like all right cool

at the very least let's let's try and tie it here and we get into the Tigers bullpen. Randy and Cal and Justin coming up like yeah all we need is either a big home run or we need an extra base hit and we're right back in this game and we have our three best guys at the plate this is

this is your shot and yeah oops yeah it happens but it doesn't make it less frustrating yeah it was pretty brutal all right well I don't want to talk about this game anymore so let's move on let's switch uh let's switch gears here let's

talk a little bit about the mayor's farm system some there's actually some pretty cool news coming out of there go over that in just a moment but first a reminder this episode of the locked on america podcast is brought to you by price picks price picks is the easiest the most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports unlike other apps on price picks it's just you against the numbers all you do is pick more or less on two to six player stat projections and watch the winnings roll in you can now win up to a hundred times your money on price picks with as little as four correct picks you can turn ten dollars into a thousand dollars Price picks is available in more than 30 states across the country, including California, Texas, and Georgia.

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hometown broadcast with SiriusXM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word. Maris. We'll be talking about game two of that series here in a little bit. But right now, let's talk about the Maris Farm System, which by the way, we're going to be re-ranking pretty soon here, folks. Probably next week we'll do our prospect re-rank now that the draft is over, now that the trade deadline has passed.

And speaking of the draft, all the mayor's draftees have now been assigned to minor league affiliates, which unfortunately for some players means that their time and the mayor's organization has come to an end to make room for those draftees. But fortunately for some other Mariners farmhands, this means promotions. And especially for the mayor's top prospect, Colt Emerson. who has been promoted to high A. Everett.

Emerson has obviously dealt with injuries over the course of the season on multiple occasions. But down in low A Modesto slash 293, 440, 427. It's a 142 WRC plus, just a couple of home runs, 25 ribs. Just struck out 14% of the time while walking 18.1% of the time. He was way too good. for that level. So really interested to see how he fares in high A where he's going to rejoin likes of Michael O'Royo, who is continuing to crush it in Everett since being promoted there in June in late June at just 19 years old. He hit another home run last night. He now has

seven in Everett, 18 total on the year 272, 399, 512. It's what Arroyo is slashing. That's a 156 WRC plus. So, Colby, that Everett team, going to be pretty fun to watch. And, you know, folks that are listening that might be, you know, in the area are pretty close and can make the trip out to Everett. They need to get to the ballpark, right? I'd recommend it. Right now you're getting, you know, Emerson, Arroyo and Las on pretty much a nightly basis. And those are, you know, depending on where you want to put Arroyo, those are three of your top six, seven, eight prospects all in one spot. And, you know, it's certainly a fun thing to go watch these guys,

but you might be watching, you know, your future double play combo. Like, I mean, Emerson to Arroyo is not out of the question as something you want to look at. And they're in A ball now or high A now, which means next year there's a pretty good shot. They debut in double A. And once you debut in double A, you are in theory, like you're on the doorsteps of the big league. So obviously Emerson, like he said, too good for Modesto. This despite some start, stop, a lot of start stop to his career so far. And, you know, Emerson is awesome.

He's a great prospect overall. And it really speaks to how, you know, talented he is that despite not playing a ton this year, he is still leaped significantly in most of the major publications farm system ranks. I believe Keith Law had him inside the top 10. overall in terms of prospects and all of baseball. So, you know, Pipeline still has third best in the Mariners system, which is a joke. But, yeah, Emerson.

And spoiler alert, folks. He's going to be number one on our list. Yeah. It's pretty obvious. But yeah, I mean, Emerson, there's still some things. So I got to get some in-game power. But he just turned 19 two weeks ago. So 19 years old, already in Everett.

and that Everett team might be a little bit young, but there's a lot of talent there. So, yeah, if I lived in the area, I tried to get to some Everett games, Colt Emerson is, you know, just an insanely good prospect. He might be the best prospect in the Mariners system since Julio. He has that kind of upside, and he can play up the middle. Worst case scenarios, he's probably a third baseman.

And I would venture to say that not only is he the best prospect in the mariner system, not only does he actually have a shot to be the number one prospect, in all of baseball at some point before he makes his debut. But I would say that he's also the prospect who is the most untouchable in the entire mariner system. Like I don't see any scenario where this guy gets traded before he makes his debut in Seattle as things stand right now. He's the shortstop of the future.

Again, he's only 19. There's a shot he makes his major league debut before he's 21 like that. That's in the cards. I wouldn't say it's likely, but that is a possibility there. It's a great feel for hit. he's a pretty good shortstop. The power's going to come eventually. Like it is a fun profile, you know, for fans.

It's a fun profile to dream on. And it's exactly a type of profile that the Mariners have chased the last few years. Just insane upside, staying up the middle. And it's really just a matter of, you know, is this guy going to be an all-star? Is he going to be a very good player? That's kind of where he's at right now in his development. As always, you know, we were saying the same things about Jared Kellnick. back in the days he's just going to be a really good player is he going to be an all-star

could be an MVP candidate it turns out none of those things were true at least yet so you know anytime there's a prospect who's an a ball you don't want to hype him up too much because there's a long way to go and a lot of landmines that he has to step over but emerson is one of those dudes that just has that really unlike it's uncharacteristic that he has so many paths to being a good big leaguer and that he despite his young age is is quickly rising up the ranks it is it is similar to the to the kelnick hype you remember kelnick was the top 10 prospect when the mayor's acquired him and he you know moved pretty quick so there's always a cautionary tale there but you know who else moved up pretty quick and was the top 10 prospect Julio Rodriguez so

just because you know he's more likely to be Kelnick than Julio it doesn't mean he can't be you know Julio-ish. So it's a really fun thing. It's really exciting for fans in the Northwest that they can go see, you know, three of the top 10 prospects, at least probably two of the top four or five, you know, and the best prospect in the mariner system all in one stop. So it's pretty exciting. You know, I'm kind of hoping that we'll see some promotions to Tacoma from that

double a team coming soon so there's a pretty good chance that you know looking at the looking at my old farm system ranks here that uh all well not farmello but like all five of the active mariners top prospects could be in the pacific northwest before the summer's over either in Tacoma or uh in everett so a really fun system right now so speaking of double a I want to ask, I feel like I have to ask, do you think Michael O'Royo could get a cup of coffee in AA before the season's out? 19 years old, we need to mention that he is struggling on the strikeout front. He is striking out 29.4% of the time in high A is counteracting that with a 14.4% walk rate and obviously is just slashing out of his mind right now. But this does feel similar, like they do it in different, or they did it in different ways, but it does feel similar to,

Cole Young last year where just looks like he's too good for Everett. Yeah, I think the strikeouts are going to be what holds him back. That's a lot of K's. At 19 years old, there's really no reason to push him. He's already made the jump from Modesto to Everett. And he's shown that he has in-game power, which was the big question mark here. So I don't think there's really any reason to push him to double A this year. Now, if he really cuts down on the strikeouts over the next few weeks, maybe he gets a cup of coffee

there. But at 19, there's really no reason to push him. He's probably going to start next year at Everett anyways. So I think right now the strikeouts are just kind of holding it back a little bit. Obviously, there's still stuff to work on. And Arroyo is not the type of guy who can strike out 30% of the time and be a good big leaguer. He's just not that profile. So he does have to work on making more contact and all that. And maybe it's right now he's selling out for power a little bit. So got to try and find like a happy balance between, you know, hitting homers. and putting the ball in play. But, yeah, Royos had a very nice year,

and I just don't think there's really any reason to push him. That's totally fair. All right, let's get into today's game. It's a really, really good pitching matchup between two AL-Sye young candidates, Tarek, Scouble, the Seattle U-Grad, versus George Kirby. Go over that in just a moment.

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Marri's hometown broadcast series XM via the SXM app. All you have to do to find that is search the word Mariners. Great, great pitching matchup in this one. You will be hard pressed to find a pitching matchup better than this one in 2024. George Kirby versus Tarek Scouble. Obviously, the pitcher the Mariners are facing in. Scooble doesn't inspire a ton of confidence, given what we've seen out of this offense, the last two games.

But we did talk about yesterday that it does feel like just, you know, from the fact that they've added talent with Randy, Rosa, Ran and Justin Turner, that they are better equipped to be able to scrape together a run or two against a really good pitcher like Scoobel. And this is obviously what they're going to have to do in the playoffs. They're going to have to beat really good, even elite level. pitching if they want to be able to make a run deep into October. So this is a really good test for this lineup. Obviously, this lineup is not at full strength, but this is a really good test for this lineup. And if they are able to scrape together a couple of runs, feels like they should be in a pretty good spot to win this game because you got George going

against this banged up Tigers lineup. And while George didn't have a great start in Boston, he's been excellent as of late. So how are you feeling heading into this game, Colby? It's a little sketchy. For this one now, it's worth noting that Scoobble did get roughed up pretty good in his last start. So, you know, it's if you're looking for something to hold on to, he didn't throw the ball well his last time out. But you just look at his, you know, savant page, for example, best fastball in baseball, 100 percentile in fast. ball run value.

91st percentile in XERA, 82nd and X batting, 90th and in fastball velo, 78th and exit below, 79th in Chase, 91st and whiff, 90th in K, 93rd in walk, 64th in barrel, 83rd in hard hit rate, and 70th in ground ball rate. So this is the guy who misses a ton of bats, gets a ton of ground balls, and doesn't give up a ton of hard contact. So yeah, he's a tough guy to scrape hits against, to, you know, just kind of grind out at bats and work counts on because he's going to strike you out. He's a tough guy to just rack up multiple hits in an inning because he's going to get a lot of ground balls. And he's, you know, he's a tough guy to square up and hit the ball out of the ballpark because of his, you know, impeccable command and control and just the value he gets out of that basketball.

So he's an extremely difficult matchup here. And he's a lefty. Let's not forget that. He has a 25% whiff rate on his foreseamer, which is really good. 46.9% width rate on the changeup, 36.1% whiff rate on the slider. He mixes in four distinct pitches. It's a foreseamer at 97. It's a changeup at 86.

It's a sinker at 97. It's a slider at 89. And every once in a while, he'll flip in a curveball just to change your eye level. This is an extremely difficult pitcher. he's one of the best, if not the best, in all of baseball. And it's, you're going to have your, you know, you're going to have to try and find a way to scrape a run or two off of him or get him out of this game early.

Because if you let him coast, if you let him get comfortable, he is going to run right through you as a pitcher. So, you know, George is also going to have to be on his game. Part of this is that George is going to have to counter whatever scoobull is doing. and his margin for error is basically going to be zero. So it is a great pitching matchup. You have two legitimate Sy Young contenders going at it against two lineups that are both banged up and on paper haven't been very good this year.

So it's going to come down to who makes a mistake. Now, Seattle has beaten Garrett Crochet, who's in the Cy Young mix, not that long ago. So it's not like they haven't been able to score some runs, but you're going to need a little bit of luck too. You're going to need some Babbitt luck. You're going to need some, you know, some, you know, bleaters to get over the shortstop's glove. You're going to need some, you know,

balls at just go fair over the bag or whatever. And you might have to take advantage of, you know, some mistakes that Detroit might make. So it's all hands on deck. Anything goes in this one. You're just trying to push a run or two across against Scoobel and hopefully get him out, you know, before the seventh inning so that you have a shot if you need to,

to go out and try and play add-on or to go out and try and score more. more runs against this bullpen. So it's going to be a tough one tonight. It's, it's, you know, feels like one of those games, first one to three runs has a really good shot to win this game if anybody even gets there. But, yeah, part of this is the offense has their work got out for him, but so does George. And his margin for error is basically zero.

And, you know, the way the mayor has played defense last night, it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. They have to be significantly better defensively tonight as well. They have to play a really clean game. and hope that they can win this one like two to one or something like that. And we'll see if Justin Turner is able to play in this one. He is day to day after getting hit on the hand by Will Vess Fastball. I believe it was 95 miles per hour out of the hand.

X-rays came back negative, fortunately. But again, they're going to have to reassess where he's at later today before they finalize the lineup. So hopefully we get good news there and Turner's in the lineup because they're going to need him. and we're probably also going to see Mitch Garver in the lineup tonight who of course pinch hit late last night ended up generating the final out of the game striking out I know there's some people out there that weren't fans of doing that

I don't necessarily agree because the splits say that that was the right move Garber has been really good against lefties at the very least this year I know yes he's the worst qualified hitter in baseball yada yada yada i've i've watched every single game of mitch garber this season you don't have to tell me right but that to me raley or garver raley struggled against lefties garver's being really good against lefties that to me was a no-brainer um it's unfortunate that he struck out but also had he gotten a hit in that situation or man if he hit a game time to run home run we'd all be singing

Scott Services praises. Oh, that's such a great move. Oh, you rebuilt his confidence. Yada, yada, yada, yada. Yeah, it's really one of the only moves you had in that situation, too. You don't have a righty off the bench that is, you know, more deserving of that at bat. You have boss or you have Marlow who is in the game for Turner. So, you know, you're just kind of reboss. No, because in that situation, too, you're not really looking for a base hit. You're not looking for a walk. You're not looking for a you're trying to tie the game because you have you're down to your final hitter, right? This is the last that bat. So yeah, you can extend the game, but you have Hanager on deck.

And Hanager has been terrible against lefties this year. So, you know, at that point, it's pretty much like, hey, this is our last shot to win this game. And so we're going to go to Garver who does slug against lefties. He is, I don't know, 30, 40 percent above league average against lefties. He's significantly better in this matchup than Rayleigh. And like I said, our other options at that point are what, Rivas? bossler against the lefty. Like, it's just,

Marlowe's already in the game at that point. So, yeah, you're, you're kind of out of options. Like, this is the best you have in that situation. And it's exactly why, it's exactly the type of moment when you would use Garber, because, again, you can run into one, and that's kind of what you're going for there.

It's kind of a Hail Mary shot here, and you're looking for the big home run. And Garber is certainly a guy more like, it hit a home run in that situation than Luke Rayleigh is, who is really struggled against lefties particularly since about June. So, yeah, it was a no-brainer for me. That's the exact situation you should use Garber in. They did.

It didn't work out. It was pretty predictable that it didn't work out. But that's so what? You have to try and put guys in the best possible situation to succeed. And that is a situation where Garver is more likely to succeed than anybody who's available to take that app. So I don't have a problem with that at all. Yeah, I agree with that.

All right, well, that's going to do it for our show. But before we get out of here, a reminder that Locked on has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. And now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV and the free Fire TV channels app. Lockdown Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Locked On, plus our national shows covering every league. Find Lockdown Sports Today now available on the free Fire TV. channel's app. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast for Colby

Patnaud. I'm Tiding Azales. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L0 underscore Marers. You can follow me at Tiding Azzalus and Colby at C-Pat 11. That's C-PAT-1-1. You can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Now head on over to Lockdown Seahawks to get all the latest out of training camp and get ready for Saturday's preseason opener against the Chargers from Corbett Smith and the gang and tell them Ty and Colby St. Yeah. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.