Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Pitching Propels M's to Two Wins on Thursday

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

It was a good day for the Mariners pitchers. D.C. talks about both games of yesterday's double header, including Marco Gonzales' and Justin Dunn's great starts. There was some history made in Major League Baseball on Wednesday, and D.C. talks about both players who entered the history books. The Houston Astros are coming to town for three games, but their troops will be depleted. In addition, D.C. offers up some Jackie Robinson trivia in the Trivia Corner, as yesterday was Jackie Robinson Day. 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, my braces pick up radio signals, causing me to play the piano at a different tempo than the rest of my family during band practice, screwing up a television appearance. 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 Thursday night here in Spokane. I've got my window open behind me, which I do not ordinarily do. I hope the weather is nice wherever you are as you're listening to this on Friday. I'm D.C. Lundberg here to at least attempt to present today's episode of Lockdown Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, brought to you by the locker room.

Please remember to download, rate, and follow this program using whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked on Mariner's podcast or Locked On Team Name Here podcast, any program at all, here on the Locked-on Podcast Network, or T-L-O-P-N-O-P-N-O-T-Lopin. Ladies and gentlemen, before we get into today's show, I owe each and every one of you listening, an apology. On Wednesday's show in C-Block, I believe, I was talking about how the manners made some mistakes in the second game of Tuesday's double-header,

which I called inexcusable. I made some mistakes in that episode, which were themselves inexcusable. Ordinarily, when I have to stop talking and restart for whatever reason. It's edited out of the program, and the show goes on as normal without you knowing anything had been edited out. It happens a bit more frequently than I would care to admit, quite honestly. On Wednesday's program, however, I failed to edit out two of these pauses. The overall quality of that episode in general was also pretty terrible. If you're still listening to this episode after hearing that one, I want to thank you for giving us another shot.

And if this is your first time listening to Locked-on Mariners, don't go back and listen to Wednesday's show. There's just no excuse for leaving mistakes in the program like that. That's absolutely on me. And I will certainly make more of an effort to make sure that I'm producing quality programming rather than the amateurist junk that was published on Wednesday. Well, gang, at least we have two victories to talk about on today's show, and two pretty good pitching performances as well. We'll talk about the first win here shortly,

go over the second game in B-block. Then to close out the show, we'll get you ready for the impending series in Seattle versus the trash can bangers. and talk about some great accomplishments that occurred across the league on Wednesday. But first, game won yesterday, a rare Thursday morning game, beginning at 9.35 a.m. Pacific, 1235 p.m. Eastern, and 7.35 a.m. Hawaiian Aleutian Daylight Time. It was also Jackie Robinson Day, celebrating the man who broke baseball's color barrier on April 15th, 1947, where all players across Major League Baseball wear his legendary number 40.

which was retired across baseball in 1997 on the 50th anniversary. And since it was a double header, it gave the Mariners TV crew double the opportunity to pepper the broadcast with Jackie Robinson trivia. So in that regard, Wednesday's rainout was pretty fortunate, for those of us who not only enjoy baseball trivia, but who also hold Mr. Robinson in very high regard. This was also the first time the Mariners played two double-headers in the same series since August 1985. Two games in the Kingdom against the California Angels on August 12th,

a single game against California the next day, and another double-dip against the Angels on the 14th. These were rescheduled games from August 6th and 7th that were supposed to take place in California that were postponed because of a two-day strike. Back to present day, Justin Dunn was originally scheduled to get the start in Wednesday's delayed game, but he would start the second game of the double header. Marco Gonzalez, Thursday's scheduled starter, would start game one. He stated that he was off with his mechanics a bit in his first two starts, leading to control problems.

Those two starts were not good, especially for his high standards, and the first inning of this start looked like it was going to be more of the same, unfortunately. He actually retired the first two hitters rather quickly, but he then walked Michael Franco, then a Trey Mancini, jacked a two-run home run on a pitch that was far too near the center of the zone. A fan did make a pretty nice catch, though, I must say. Anyways, Marco then allowed two singles in a row while showing some signs of wildness, but Ramon Urius popped out to end the inning on a pitch that Urius could have done more with.

It was a change-up in the middle of the zone, but down. Ureis may have been looking for something else, but nonetheless, Marco escaped more trouble, and man, did he snap out of it? beginning in the second inning. Meanwhile, the Mariners couldn't do really anything at all against Matt Harvey, although he threw a lot of pitches. He threw a lot of balls outside the zone, yet the Mariners still couldn't do all that much. In the fifth, however, with Harvey still inconsistent with his command, telegram Sam Haggurty ripped a two-out single, then stole second base. It is so fun to watch that man run the bases. Mitch Haninger then stepped up and took a fastball who was in the

low outside quadrant out to left center field, into the mariner bullpour. to tie the game. Mariner's bullpen catcher Fleming Baez hustled over to make the catch the second time already this season that he's made a good catch on a home run into the bullpen. J.P. Crawford is coming out of his slump evidently as well. He laced a two-run double in the sixth to put the Mariners ahead four to two. He noted after the game that he felt as if his swing was getting a little long. So he's made an effort to shorten his swing and simplify things. It's paid off. This was the fifth game in succession, where he's gotten at least one base hit, and we'll talk about him some more in the next segment. The Mariners struck out only five times as a team, which is another positive sign.

Dylan Moore checked in with one of five Mariner hits. He's also gotten off to a very slow start, but has been picking it up as of late as well. Taylor Tremel went 0 for three, and he is struggling. He's still not chasing fastballs out of the zone, but he's also not being thrown very many fastballs. The league has seemed to figure him out. and are throwing him nothing but off speed and breaking stuff low and in, and more often than not, he swings over the top of it. He'll get there, gang, but it may be a rough go for a while, as he works to fill that hole in his swing.

After that bad first inning, Marco settled down big time, and it was a vintage Marco from there on out. In the first, he threw 34 pitches, and looked like he may be done by the end of the third. But he threw only 49 pitches in his remaining four innings, and only allowed one more base runner. A base is on ball, a base on balls to Freddie Galvis in the fifth, and he struck out four. Whatever struggles he had in the first two starts in the first inning yesterday, let's hope that's put it all behind him. As I said earlier, Baltimore may be a team against whom the mayor's pitchers might be able to find their footing.

Same for the bats, but I think they had a rough day as a group overall, with a few exceptions, of course. It also appears as if Raphael Montero is no longer the closer. He came in to pitch the sixth inning, and remember it's a seven-inning ballgame since it's a double-header, and while he allowed a lead-off hit to Michael Franco, Franco was erased pretty quickly on a double play, and Montero turned in a one-two-three inning. Out for the seventh to close out the ball game was Kendall Graveman, and he did his job, gang, another one-two-three inning from the bullpen, good overall day for M's pitching, and the Mariners pick up game one with a four-to-two score.

Pretty apropos that on Jackie Robinson, Day, it's 4-2. Game 2 will be discussed in our next block, but right now it's time for the trivia corner. And since yesterday was Jackie Robinson Day, and also since I didn't have a show yesterday, or else I would have done this at that time, I'm going to offer some Jackie Robinson trivia following this word from Blue Nile. This episode is brought to you by 1010, a capsule collection of diamond rings that are

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This collection features high quality, fine jewelry that will surprise and delight. And fairly priced so you can give her something special and truly meaningful. If you're on the hunt for the perfect, unique ring that she'll treasure forever, you're definitely going to want to check this out. They won't be around for long, gang, so find them now by searching the words 10 by 10, only at blue nile.com. The conclusion of the trivia corner, ladies and gentlemen, Jackie Robinson made his Major League debut April 15th, 1947,

as I'm sure you all know, in Ebbets Field against the Boston Braves. He was the first baseman that day and batted second in the order, going 0 for three, but he did score a run. He grounded out to the third baseman in his first at bat against Johnny Seine, a very good major league pitcher. In the bottom of the 7th, he reached the base for the first time. Eddie Stanky headlock led off with a walk. Robinson tried to advance him to second base on a bunt,

bunted the ball to the first baseman, who threw the ball away trying to go to first, so Robinson reaches base. Stanky goes to third, and Robinson actually goes to second. Both runners were then driven in by the next batter, Pete Reiser, on a two-run double. So that is how Robinson reached base for the first time

and scored his first Major League run. That year, he appeared in 151 games, slash 297, 383, 427. Stole 29 bases, hit 31 doubles and 12 home runs, five triples as well. He only struck out 36 times in 590 at bats. He was the rookie of the year and even placed fifth in MVP voting, and he was the MVP just two years later in 1949. A year he led the National League with a 342 batting average, also led the National League with 37 steals, and drove in 124 runs. 38 doubles and 16 home runs, also 12 triples were had that year by Mr. Robinson,

342 average, 432 on base, and 528 slugging. That was the first of his six all-star appearances, and overall in his 10-year career, he slashed 311, 409, 474. 273 doubles, 137 home runs, and 197 stolen bases. So not only did he have a tremendous impact on Major League Baseball for things other than statistics and a huge impact on American society, he was a damn fine ballplayer as well, gang. And according to Ralph Kiner, quote, baseball was his worst sports, end quote.

He was also a track and basketball star at UCLA, and he lettered in four sports. an amazing human being, gang. Coming up, how did Justin Dunn fare in the second game of the doubleheader? You know, gang, I was about to say something funny, but after doing at least a semi-pointed piece on Mr. Robinson, I don't think I want to say anything funny, so we will talk about Justin Dunn's brilliant pitching performance on the other side of this vital word of importance. Now back to Lockdown Mariners and your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you much, J.M. Get all the sports news that you.

You need an under 20 minutes with the Locked-on Today podcast. Host Peter Bikowski updates you on the latest news in every major sport with the help of our local experts. Yes, gang, our local experts are the best. Follow the Locked-on-Tay podcast on the Odyssey app, or wherever you choose to get podcasts, Odyssey is A-U-D-A-C-Y. In the second game of yesterday's double-heder,

the M's and O's were back in their regular uniforms with their own uniform numbers. I'm not sure whether I couldn't wear the 42 jerseys for the entire doubleheader, but there has to be a rule, stating that they can only wear them for one game or something of that sort. Anyways, Justin Dunn got the call for game two, and this looked like a completely different man. This could not have been the same person who walked eight white socks

or who walked six batters per nine innings last year. I have to assume that this was his twin cousin, Dustin John, or something like that, because I've never seen him pitch like that before. He was fantastic, and he had to deal with a home plate umpire who was not giving him hardly anything to work with. More on that in a bit. The Mariners' offense was not very impressive today for the most part, and they were only able to score twice in game two, both of them solo home runs.

In fact, the only Oriol run was scored on a solo home run as well. Dylan Moore got the Amazon the board first in the top of the third inning, with what looked to me like kind of a long popped-up which just kind of kept carrying. While Baltimore does have a small ballpark, this landed nine or ten rows back, so it wasn't exactly a cheapie. In the bottom of that same third inning,

Freddie Galvis tied the game on a homer way out to right field. It was up and out of the zone, but pretty much also in the center of the plate, and Galvis sure got all of it. In the fifth, Mitch Hanager got a slider or something that wasn't quite low enough, and also in the middle of the plate, and he sent it out into the Oriole bullpen in left center field, one of two hits in the game for Manager,

who also went deep in the first game of the double dip. He is now one of only seven Mariners to Homer in both halves of a double header. Jay Buehner was the first to do it on June 8, 1990 in Detroit. David Sigi did it in 1998 in Kansas City. Edgar Martinez did it in Kimisky Park in 99. One year later, also at Kimisky Park, Alex Rodriguez, did it. Then twice last year it happened, August 27th in San Diego by Jose Marmaléjos, and Kyle Seeger in Oakland on September 26th. All seven of these doubleheaders occurred on the road, which I thought was a little odd when I saw that originally,

but then I realized that until the middle of 1999, the M's played in a dome, and then they moved to a retractable roof park, so it actually makes sense. Although there have been doubleheaders in the kingdom, and also at Safeco Field, slash Barbie's Dream Park, but no Mariner has ever hit home runs in both halves of a home doubleheader. The Mariners collected seven hits overall in game two, which is pretty respectable for a seven-inning game, drew three walks and struck out only four times. J.P. Crawford checked in with another hit. Evan White ripped one back up the middle for a hit, very well struck, and also drew one of the walks. Crawford, though, now has a six-game hitting streak. Prior to the streak, he was hitting, he was

hitting 160. As of current, he's taken that all the way up to 267. And in this six-game streak, he's hitting at a 400 clip, going 8 for 20. White's average is still at 148, but his quad is still bothering him a bit. And his hit was absolutely smoked this afternoon, gang. Tremel went 0-4-3 again, 0-4-6 on the day with the strikeout. I spoke about his struggles in A-block, so I'm not going to belabor the point. But it's been tough to watch. Justin Dunn, though. As I said, he looked like a completely different pitcher. He was getting ahead of hitters, throwing first pitch strikes, keeping the ball in the zone, but out of the middle of the plate, what a turnaround gang from his last start.

He was fooling hitters with his breaking ball, which he was able to dip out of the strike zone to be swung on top of and missed. He goes five plus innings, allows that one run on the Freddie Galvis home run, only one other hit, two walks, which I will speak about in just a little bit, and he struck out six. and he did all of this with a home-planned umpire with a very tight strike zone. If you've listened to this program in the past, you know how much bases on balls drive me up the wall. And I'm not usually one to make excuses for pitchers, but Dunn should have recorded zero walks in this game. Yes, the umps strike zone was that bad.

The pitch tracker on TV showed that in both played appearances which went for bases on balls, several pitchers that were called balls were well within the strike. zone. Not just borderline, not just grazing the corner by a seam in the damn strike zone. And his zone was inconsistent. There were pitches that M's pitchers were not getting, that Orioles pitchers were. And you can tell that a couple of the Mariners hitters were getting a little frustrated towards the end of the game. I don't remember which specific players they were. I think it was Tom Murphy and Luis Torrent. I wish I would have written it down. But home plate umpire Ryan Willis had a bad game. It happens. It's just very frustrating.

when it does, but it's more frustrating when it affects the outcome of the game, and it really didn't this time. And at the same time, Justin Dunn showed a hell of a lot of poise throughout this afternoon. There are veterans who have been pitching 10, 12 years who'd get upset over a strike zone like that and start to lose focus. Dunn didn't. That showed me a lot about how he handles adversity on the mound, and it was super impressive. So Al Willis's strike zone may have been frustrating. in a way it was kind of a good thing that it happened because it showed what kind of focus Justin Dunn has on the mound and it could be considered another step in his development.

He handled it as well as any veteran could have. He seemed unflappable. Looking at his pitching line for the game, it's impressive in its own right, but he pitched better than that line indicates because he should not have allowed any walks and there were at least two first pitch strikes, maybe three. but definitely two that I can remember that were called balls,

despite being well within the strike zone. Brilliant performance for the young man. And I hope that he's turned the corner and figured some things out. He and Yusei Kikichi, who will be pitching tonight, both pitched well after poor Major League careers up until this point. If they have both ironed out their issues and can pitch like they did in their last two starts, the M's rotation has all of a sudden gone from being mediocre at best to a strength. and hopefully the bats can come around as a group and start supporting this rotation.

But remember, gang, this is a young developing team, and they're going to be streaky. But Justin Dunn's afternoon was very promising. If you have a question or comment, please send it to Lockdown Mariners at gmail.com. Questions and comments on any subject are welcome and encouraged, and it doesn't even have to do anything with baseball. Ask me anything. Coming up, which two Major League Baseball players, made history on Wednesday. I'll tell you while I finish my bottle of Huckleberry's sparkling

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you'll get 15% off your order just like I did. BiltBar.com promo code Locked 15 for 15% of your order of the best protein bars in the history of protein. Filt Bar, it keeps going and going and going and going and going and going and going. Welcome back to Locked-on Mariners. Here once again is your host, D.C. Lundberg. And going and going and good. Thanks once again, Joey Martin. Hey, gang, do you want to be a waiver-wire winner?

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to offer the strategies and waiver wire pickups that lead to league wins. Follow the Lockstone Fantasy Baseball podcast on the Odyssey app or wherever you get podcasts. D.C. Lundberg here, getting you set up for the three-game series, which begins this evening in Seattle against the Houston Trash Rows, and their cavalry has been rather decimated.

On Wednesday, they placed five players on the injured list. Yeah, five. It's the COVID injured list, and they can return once they're cleared. But from what I gather, they will not be playing in this series. Those five players are, gang, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Yordon Alvarez, Martin Maldonado. and Robel Garcia. Four of those five are key pieces

to their offense. The Mariners are catching a major break, and hopefully their pitching can take advantage of their short-handedness. This leads me to believe that Anthony Mosevic is on the COVID-I-L. The Mariners were very vague in announcing Mosevic's status

a few days ago. Anyways, in game one, Yusay Kikichi will tow the rubber for the M's, looking to build on his last start, which was very good. His first start of the season, was also quite good. Fingers crossed that he can make it three good ones in a row. Jose Orkidi will oppose the M's, making his third start of the year. He only lasted four and a third in his first start in Oakland, giving up two runs and four hits and two walks, but he threw

101 pitches in that outing, not very efficient to say the least. His next start was also against Oakland, this time in Houston, and the A's roughed him up a bit for four runs and six innings, but he didn't walk anybody. Those two starts, combined with last season's numbers, give him an ERA of 3-3-8 in seven games. All of them start and 40 innings. Zach Grinky will face Chris Flexen on Saturday. Granky is a former Sy Young Award winner, who is still very tough. While Flexen has turned in one great start and one clunker thus far, hopefully this next start

is closer to the former than the latter. On Sunday, the mayors have not announced its starting pitch. but if the rotation holds true, I think it's going to be just as Sheffield, if I'm not mistaken. Jake Oterice will get the start for Houston. His first outing as a trashdrow did not go very well. Three in the third innings, seven hits, five runs, all of them earned. No walks, but a whopping three home runs. He was an All-Star in 2019, where he started 30 games, but he only pitched 159

innings. That's an average of only 5.3 innings per start. He did post a 5-3-1 earned run average, though, and gave up fewer than a home run per nine innings, with a 1.208 whip. Houston is currently 6 and 6, and have lost their last five games in succession. And the Mariners, ladies and gentlemen, they're in first place. Yeah, they're 8 and 5 as of Thursday night after taking 3 of 4 in Baltimore. The Los Angeles Angels are 7 and 5, 0.5 games back of the end. Enjoy it while it lasts

gang because it probably will not last very long. However, with the Astros so short-handed and on a losing streak, the Mariners could absolutely take advantage. Now for the historical stuff and will begin in St. Louis, where catcher Yadier Malina caught his 2000th game on Wednesday.

He is only one of six players to catch 2,000 or more games. The others are Yvonne Rodriguez, Carlton Fisk, Bob Boone, Gary Carter, and Jason Kendall. Molina, though, is the only one of these men to catch 2,000 or more games with the same team. All of these games have come as a St. Louis Cardinal.

Among the others with 2,000 or more games caught, Yvonne Rodriguez has the most with one team, catching 1,503 games as a Texas Ranger. Yachti, however, has never caught a no-hitter, which brings us to Carlos Rodon. See how I did that, gang? Also on Wednesday, Carlos Rodon of the White Sox pitched an absolute gem against the Cleveland Indians. Through eight innings, he had not allowed a base runner. I happened to be in the car at this time listening to the Rockies Dodgers game, and Charlie Steiner mentioned this on the Dodgers broadcast,

so I switched over to the White Sox game to listen in. I decided, though, to listen to the Indians broadcast, since their radio play-by-play guy, Tom Hamilton, is fantastic and one of my favorites. and you would think that he was a white-sox announcer as excited as he was. But with one out in the ninth, Rodon threw a slider to Roberto Perez, which hit Perez's back foot, ending the perfect game, but the no-hitter was still intact. Yu Chang struck out, then Jordan Luplo grounded out to the third baseman, putting Mr. Rodon in the history books.

He struck out seven and threw 114 pitches in the complete game effort. Lopla was grounding out to the third base when I happened to be in a drive-through window, so I had to have the volume down. I went to Del Taco for dinner. I was hungry. This was the 20th no-hitter in White Sox history, and the second already this year. Joe Musgrove tossed the first no-hitter in Padre's history not long ago, and I find it interesting that the only thing keeping both of these games from perfection

was one hit batsman apiece. Big congratulations to Carlos Rodon for a historic effort. and I have to give a lot of credit to Tom Hamilton. As I said, he was really pulling for Rodon, even though Rodon pitches for the other team. After the hit batter in the ninth, Hamilton said that everyone had to be sick about it, including him and including Perez.

I thought he really knocked it out of the park, so to speak. And I must say, if you have the MLB app and have paid for access to all the radio broadcasts across the majors, listen to a Cleveland Indians game so you can hear Mr. Hamilton. He's a fantastic broadcaster, almost reminiscent of Dave Niehaus in a way, as excited as he gets. It's a real treat to listen to a game, which Tom Hamilton is broadcasting. With that gang, we'll fold up our tents and call it a day. We'll be back on Monday recapping the series against Houston.

Joining me to do that will be Balky Bartokamus, Philo and Gunge, and a broom closet. Remember to download rate and follow Locked-on Mariners. Look for us at any podcasting app that you like. a rating and a review if your podcasting app offers that option. Thanks for listening, ladies and gentlemen. If you're checking us out for the first time, or if you've been a long-time listener, I hope you'll join us on Monday and throughout the rest of the season. Have a great weekend, gang.

I'll talk to you on Monday. This is Joey Martin for Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.