Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - What Are the Seattle Mariners GOING TO DO About Emerson Hancock When Bryce Miller Returns?

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Mariners TV analyst Ryan Rowland-Smith joins Ty and Colby to discuss the biggest topics around the struggling M's, including what the club will do with its rotation once Bryce Miller is cleared to return. Click for more information on Ryan Rowland-Smith's NXTGEN Baseball youth camps! Click to learn more about the Everydayer Club! Join the Ahoy, Sailors Discord server! Check out our Patreon! Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11 Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolby Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Turbo Tax Intuit TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide. You can meet face-to-face with a real tax expert, and your documents get uploaded straight to your TurboTax app on the spot.  Visit https://TurboTax.com/local to find a store near you and book your appointment today. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel.Right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get two-hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets if your first bet wins.Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started — Play Your Game.   FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What will the bearers do with Emerson Hancock when Bryce Miller returns? To help us try and answer that and more, we'll be joined by Ryan Roland Smith coming up here on the Locked-on Marrars podcast. You are Locked-on Mariners, your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors, it is Friday, April 24th, 2026. My name is Tadding Gonzalez, and today's show is brought to you by GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the promo code Locked on. That's L-O-C-K-D-O-N for $20 off your first purchase.

Really stoked to have Mariners TV analysts. Ryan Rowland-Smith, join us today to help make sense of what's been going on with this Mariners ball club from their offensive struggles to Julio's nice start to Logan Gilbert's issues getting deep into games, what the club's going to do with Emerson Hancock, and a lot more. So let's get into it. There have certainly been plenty of bright spots, but it's overall been a pretty frustrating first 26 games for the Mariners and here to help us break it down. who's had a front row seat to many of those games, MLB Network and Mariners TV analyst,

Ryan Rollins-Smith. Ryan, appreciate you hopping on. Happy to have you back on the show. How's it gone? Good. Good to be back. I appreciate you guys invite me back. But, yeah, it's been a little frustrating, that's for sure. The first month or coming up to the first month, that's when you can really start looking back and figuring out what's wrong, what's good. You can't say it's early anymore, that's for sure. Yeah, so you're on the road with the club right now in St. Louis. This playing on the road has been big part of those frustrations.

I mentioned one and nine so far away from T-Mobile Park. What are your overall just like broad strokes thoughts on how all these guys have started the year? I think the obvious ones is obviously the lineup. Just obviously with Cal Rory, Josh Nailor, Julio Rodriguez, middle of the lineup, just kind of, Cal obviously hitting three home runs helps because obviously the fly balls finally getting some juice behind. it. Julio's still hitting a ton of balls on the ground.

You feel like when he's really struggling, a lot of people look at the swing and miss, but you look at the amount of balls on the ground for whatever reason. A lot of people say, well, the swing path is going to fix that. But it could be the way he's being pitched, too. It could be, you know, trying to cheat on certain pitches, and he ends up rolling over. And then, you know, Josh Naylor, who, you know,

man, I just feel like with him, it's not so much the swing and miss so much as the kind of getting caught out in front on pitches where it's that weaker contact. I say all that, but you feel like, you know, Josh had three hits that last game. Cal hit three home runs.

Julio's shown a couple signs of getting a bat head out and putting the ball on the pool side, which I think is massive. Everyone talks about him hitting the ball the other way, right center field. I think when he gets the bat head out, it's just so much tougher the pitch to him. So I think those, they're the glaring fact.

in regards to offensive production. Haven't done anything against bullpins. You look at some of the numbers for the Mariners from inning 7, 8, 9, just nothing doing. And I thought that, you know, looking at them against the athletics with the pitching staff like that, you're thinking, okay, here's an opportunity here,

just like they did with the Houston Astros, especially that bullpen. And you just felt like just whether it be swing decisions or some of the chase goes up or the aggressiveness goes up, whatever it may be, I just think they're just quite kind of haven't found that rhythm like that. Last year was all about the on base, like the walk and the home run. This year, the, maybe it was, you know, because of spring training,

they understand they have to be better at situational heating, one of the worst teams last year. Sometimes just as a collective, when you're talking during batting practice and everything, you kind of gets in your head where you're trying to do too much in those situations maybe. But it's just, yeah, offensively, it's just been a bit of a struggle. Pitching wise, I still feel like with the bullpen, it's still missing that one piece, man. And again, the easiest thing to grab in a trade deadline is not the easiest thing, actually. I'll take that back.

One of the most available things in the trade deadline is that extra bullpen piece, which I think that we've seen the last couple of years is going to be a factor this year for the man. Like you notice on the weekend, right, like Gabe Spire was down. with an off day yesterday. Gabe was down. Matt Brash, he went that one inning. There was, okay, is he coming back out for the eighth? He didn't come back out for the eighth.

And then you have to have nothing against Chriswell, but you got a guy pitch and it worked out. But I'm looking like, oh, man, you are really missing that one piece. Even when you started, I know Logan went four innings, but you've got a guy who goes five. Other teams obviously have plenty of that. You cannot rely on your. starting pitching to get you seven every single time, six plus. So I think the bullpen,

you're still missing that one piece as well. But there's some of the things. I think there's still early. I say that all the time. I still feel like once you get to the end of April, you can look back and say, right, where are our deficiencies here? I think they're close to to really understanding that and having that look back. Well, you mentioned the Cal Julio Nailor stack, and it was obviously hard not to point to that stack as one of the main culprits. for the early season struggles. But all three of those guys, as you kind of mentioned there, have seemingly turned maybe not the corner, but a corner at least.

Yeah. Julio especially, you did mention, you know, the launch angle issues, but, you know, we talked about this on the show yesterday. Since the end of the first homestand, Julio's hitting over 300 with a near 400 on base. He's just not slugging right now. starts of the season he's had in his career. So, you know, let's talk a little bit more about what you've seen from him, especially over the last three-ish weeks that he's been putting up those numbers. Yeah, I think, well, yeah, I love the fact he's getting on base. I love the fact that, you know, there's that, especially when he is starting to struggle

a little bit, that's when the chase comes. That's when, because he's trying to do too much, right? I still feel like he's at his best when everything's simplified. And, you know, like even going back to last year or two years ago, too, we talked about so many different voices in his ear about do this, do that, because everyone wants to put their stamp on him. And I think that at the end of last year, you know, I know he took time away from the All-Star break to have that big second half.

But the one thing, and this is what happens is hitters get older too. I think they see the same pitches. see how they're getting pitched over and over. They see when all of a sudden they start to struggle. Okay, you're going to try and hammer me in here like they do every year. I think he's turning that corner where it's just that little bit more pitch recognition or even the simple fact that the last couple of years, I can still look up on the big screen, the big scoreboard and see lack of slug like you guys talked about. And I can still look up in the, on the big screen, on the big scoreboard, and I still know there's plenty of time here.

I remember talking to him, I think it was two years ago. We're in Texas, and he hadn't cracked 20 home runs yet. It was late in the year. And someone was talking to him, a teammate, we're in Texas. I can't remember when that was. I want to say it was like in August. Like it was, you guys could tell me about the mayors a couple years ago. He didn't crack, like, he was just like hovering around 20 home runs.

And I want to say we just played against the blue, played the Blue Jays. was someone one of his buddies like it was like a vlad rero junior was there who was just you know mashing the ball whatever and um and he i made a comment to him and i said oh yeah dude man it's it's hard when it's in your face too when you're glaring up he goes dude fool as if to say he's looking up at the ball he's at the gang going what the you know because you keep everyone's numbers flash up bang was right in front of you i remember saying that like you there was times in my career I'm like, please don't put up my numbers right now, like on my ERA or something. I just don't want to say it.

Or some places it calculates as the game goes on. Like, you're getting out, your ERA dips. I'm like, oh, and it messes with your head because whack, you give up a home run. You say, it just messes with your head. And that sounds ridiculous. Well, anyway, I think just on that, I know he's not sitting there looking up at, you know, look at my extra base numbers or home run numbers or whatever it may be. but I think that to me if he's been more patient I feel like subconsciously he knows he has

a little bit more time where he can where that stuff's going to come and you talk to anyone who's played a ton of years in the big leagues they're like I know my numbers are going to stack up I guarantee you cow's gone through was gone through that a little bit early on in the year too made a comment we actually put it on during the game on not Sunday or was I saying Wednesday, about the, he's at the same swing since he was nine years old. It plays in your head a little bit when you're trying to keep the same rates or keep up with your peers around the league or your teammates, and it's just not happening. So I think with him maybe this year there's a little bit more of that just patience where he's

not trying to force the issue. It's cliche as it sounds, letting the game come to him a little bit. I still, man, whatever it is in that swing of his, where whatever, if it's point of contact, back path, whatever it may be. I know he's really low on when he comes to attack angle with the back path, one of the lowest in baseball, but you can still backspin it. Why you get so many balls on the ground? And it makes up for it because he can leg out some of those balls that are hit.

Plus he's got that extra little bit of V-Lo that sneaks through the infield. But yeah, that's always that with him, that big chunks of time where the ball's just getting on the ground. It's not just one pitch either. It's like multiple pitches. Colby, what do you got for Ryan? Yeah, how about most pleasant surprises? I mean, I think, you know, for the most part, we know Cal, Julio, and Josh have been disappointing.

We also know they're going to turn it around. Who's gotten off to a pretty good start that maybe you're not surprised by, but, you know, is a nice bonus and you hope they can keep it going as the season progresses. The obvious, I got a couple. The obvious one is Cole Young. Spring training, I'll admit. I didn't write him off. I was like, at all, I didn't write him up at all.

But I remember, you know, the big talk, and you guys know, man, when you cover spring training, there's that one prospect that the front office tries to either, either the front office is like dropping hints about someone because they want to justify bringing them up maybe earlier than usual. Or we just freak out because it's like, oh, we're so close to seeing him. And that was Colt Emerson. You know, there was so much talk about Colt Emerson. And then when you got Brendan Donovan coming over in the trade and then J.P.'s free

agent year. You're looking around and going, okay, and Ryan Bliss was coming back healthy, who made the opening day roster as well. You're thinking, okay, well, we're just, Col Young's got some competition here. Is that going to fire him up or what? Because to me, at the end of last year, I'm looking at this guy, man, does this kid quite understand that at this level, you cannot find these same patterns. And I'm not, look, as a rookie, it's hard. But if you want to stick around, I don't care if you're a first round or a 500th round, it doesn't matter. If you want to stick around at some point when you're getting pitched a certain way or whatever, you've got to adjust. Anyway, so with all that Cole Young man, I'm stoked for him,

I've had a couple chances to talk to him. He came on my show on the top step and we went through an app bat. And when he was talking through the at bat, I do this thing where we sit there and I show him the at bat and they walk us through it. The way he was talking about it and process, Sessia, I'm like, oh, okay, all right, there's not just this, because, you know, if you guys have spoken to him or listened to him talk, it's kind of this, like, oblivious sort of, he's just like, yeah, I'm good, but I don't know why I'm, I'm unconsciously competent. You know what I mean? Like, I'm good, but I don't know why I'm good.

Now, a lot of players get like that, and what happens is when you struggle, man, it catches up to you. But the way he was talking about, I'm like, oh, okay, there is some method here. There is some, you know, approach here. And it was really interesting as he was walking through these at-bats. I pulled up the hit a home run. I think it was, what's the guy's name for the Angels? He hit a triple off and then he went deep against him.

So I pulled up those. And then against, I pulled up the at-bat against, what's his name? Jeez, I'm drawing a blankie. Sorry, I just woke up. With the, with the Guardians split out of the bullpen. Cade, yeah. Yeah, he's like, he's just got really nasty stuff. And the way he was talking about it was like, oh, here we go.

Okay, you're not going to get overwhelmed. So anyway, sorry, to answer your question, Cole Young. And then also, too, guys, when I was watching him at the WBC, I was like, I was a big concern, I'm not going to lie. And that's Gabe Spire. I was like, oh, man, is he going to us dip back to what we saw a couple years ago? And the velocity was like, what are we going to see here? It's starting to get a little home run happy.

Yeah, yeah. It's starting to be a little predictable, you know, middle of the plate, ball was flattening out. He's looked really good, man. And I think what has given me that opinion on him is the facing Corey Seeger, who he's dominated twice in a span of 24 hours, he ended up punching him out. Just some of those quick as a bullpen guy, as you guys understand, you know, you've got to make adjustments when you. So just some little things like that, the Vlossi's starting to creep back up again.

So not saying he was going to be buzzed, predicting him to be bad this year, but I think he's taking on what he did last year, which is great. More from our conversation with Ryan in just a moment, but first a reminder, this episode of the Locktime Aaron's podcast is brought to you by GameTime. MLB season is back and you can feel it. I'm talking fresh starts, big expectations, and that first crack of the bat.

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Mariner's. And also thank you for making Lockdown the number one sports podcast network. Don't forget to check out the Every Day or Club for ad-free episodes and access to a group chat with me and other listeners of this show. Tap the link in the description or go to Lockdown Mariner's.com to learn more. And back to our conversation with Ryan Roland Smith. Well, speaking of the pitching, a lot of interesting stuff, both good and not so good happening on the pitching front. Got a lot I want to ask you about here. But let's start with a question that Colby and I have gotten asked a bunch and don't necessarily have a great answer for. Emerson Hancock,

what do you think his future looks like on this 2026 Marron's roster, especially or specifically, once Bryce Miller is clear to return? Yeah. First of all, you don't want to make their decision easy, that been the front office. And that last outing, I felt like, first of all, take a step back. He's looked great. And he's putting guys away with two strikes. One of the best averages against with two strikes, way high swing and miss, like up there in baseball with two strikes.

Massive. That's huge strides forward for him. We all know that, man. He didn't have that one pitch to put guys away. He's messing with that lower arm slot. You can see it slowly creep up at times. I still think he's trying to get that, like, feeling natural every pitch. And I say that because you get into, and this is stuff that they are going to,

it's one of these things with Emerson Hancock when you're talking about Bryce Miller coming back. Give, like, how do I put this? Don't give them, they're looking for reasons to justify because they, Bryce Miller is supposed to be part of this rotation. if Bryce is going to come off at the end of, he's going to be rehabbing for 30 days. Like they're going to max it out, in my opinion, because of last year and this year. So you're looking at, so Emerson has a window of what, like 25 days now to basically audition to make this decision extremely tough and not to justify anything.

What the front office has to do, you have to, is look and say, okay, or even if he's putting up five, six innings to run baseball at each start and he's looking good and looking like a pretty typical starting pitcher, they're going to go below that because they've got Bryce Miller on the horizon and say, okay, what are we looking at here to justify switching him out or putting him in the bullpen or whatever they decide to do? Whereas if Bryce wasn't coming back, you'd sit there and go, oh, Emerson Hancock, five, six, seedings two runs. Awesome, if that makes sense. So he's in a tough spot. And he's had to do this last couple of years, man. This is going to test that mental game for him because he is literally

auditioning every time. Now, six-man rotation, I don't say that happened. I do not, I do not see them taking away, call it three to five, six starts per Kirby, Logan, Gilbert, and Brian Wu. Because why would you do that? You're talking about taking away 10 to 15 starts and giving them and spreading them out for another guy when you don't want to lose that many starts from a guy. Like, if you have that kind of value in your rotation, you get them out as much as you possibly can, you turn them out as much. So I don't see that happening at all.

Plus, I don't think internally from their scheduling and stuff that George Kirby and Logan, they don't want to pitch every seven days. Like with the off days and stuff built in, no way. So with Emerson, this is going to be a huge 25 days for him, I think, with Bryce on the horizon, regardless of what Bryce does. You know, on Bryce Miller's side of this, too, you think about it, he's incentivized to get back and to perform as a starting pitcher as quickly as possible because he's making, what, $2.7 million this year or whatever it is?

Well, he's got a club option next year, six and a half or whatever it is, million dollars. So he's looking at this guy, man, I can't be like hovering around or getting beat out by Emerson Hancock. There's no way they're going to pick up my club option at the end of the year. Or I can't go slide in a bullpen here or whatever. So I think that, and I think he's made that known as well. So I, you know, again, there's a lot of span here between the next 25 days, but they're going to put Emerson Hancock under a microscope and if they see any little, like give

an example, that last start, man. everything was in that middle of the plate. He got to pitch number 60, 65. Everything was middle. The sweeper is inconsistent. They were looking at, oh, what are we seeing here? They're going to look at the glass half empty all day. So it's going to be interesting.

And you want to make that choice tough, but I don't think now they're like, what do we do tomorrow? But they're going to figure that out. I'd say about 20 days from now. They're going to have to start coming up with some sort of plan. Another hard thing is too, sorry guys, to drag this out. But the other hard thing is, as well with Emerson, is he had some success last year in the bullpen too. And that sucks. I'm telling you. He wants to stay in the big leagues.

Don't give me wrong. But man, he is dying to be a starting pitcher in the big leagues, right? That's where his values is. And he's looking around and going, man, I could be a starting pitcher in 20 other teams right now. So there could be that option, too, put him in the bullpen and maybe, you know, correct some of that depth in that bullpen too. That's the idea that we're probably the most fans of here with him because like in short spurts it's been fan yeah no of course of course but in short spurts he's like fantastic but then it's you know there's been the issues of sustaining the velocity he's kind of put that away over the last few starts but that's been an issue in the past and then you know like you talked about in that

a start where the command started to fade and sweeper control is all over the place and you know he's thrown how many sweepers to the backstop you know okay he's still getting used to the arm angle and all that. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. Because you'll say, I mean, I have, I pull, I don't have it in front of me on my computer, but I wrote down the pictures where he crept back up, you know, and I was watching him. I was trying to see if like from the dugout or something, if they're going to be on him

to make sure he knows, man. Like, you know, it's tough, man. When you're trying to read, even if you're trying to adjust it, that's harder when you're trying to adjust it by just a little bit, to be honest with you. To move full speed down the mound. I want to talk a little bit about Logan Gilbert. You know, it's been really nice to see this rotation get off to a good start, especially with all the ups and downs last year.

You know, Hancock's had some big moments. George Kirby's been very good. Brian Wu's been one of the best pitchers in the sport. But Gilbert is supposed to be the guy in this rotation. And back to the matter is he just, he hasn't been for a while now. He's only gone seven innings twice over his last 38 starts, including the playoffs. And his last two outings were essentially a prime example.

of the Gilbert we've seen as of late, you know, really struggling to put guys away in a timely manner. His pitch count is getting ballooned early. Just kind of feels like he's spending the rest of his start playing catch-up. And in the end, he's giving you only five innings, you know, more often than not. And this is a guy who led the league and innings pitch just two years ago. And we've seen him and Cal tinker with things to try and specifically address that.

You know, we saw the cutter early on. We've seen some other wrinkles over the last few starts. You just talked with him on your show, the top step. What do you make of the last year or so for Logan? And how do you think he ultimately finds his way out of this? I just, you know, the, I get the idea behind throwing the cutter. And, you know, in regards to trying to induce weak contact. But the last I looked, I was just going to look right now too with that pitch.

It's like in regards to like X a velocity off that pitch, it's like the worst out of all of them. And so I think we've. The same goes too with this throwing a change-up and a split. Okay, going back to that last start, the athletics did an amazing job at they can chase, but they can make contact outside the strike zone. And they just fell balled into death. It was crazy, right? And so when you look at a match-up like that against them, that match-up doesn't fare well for him

because you mentioned that pitch-accounts just balloons. Logan Gilbert still sprays the ball around a ton. Like, he misses quite a bit, but he can kind of get away with that because he does get some, call it effectively wild if you want. I still, to me, I'm just, I'm in two minds about this cutter and this change up with the split. One, give it some time to really figure out what counts. He, I'm looking at the counts, and it's one-one counts.

O-1 counts with the cutter, a couple two-strike counts. Him and Cal, Cal was adamant at the end of spring training, so, hey, let's mix this in, let's try and get some weak contact, save that pitch count, keep the pitches per out about, you know, below four, because it's well above four right now. And to me, I still feel like he's trying to figure out when, how to throw this pitch, when you're trying to have results. It's really hard.

And the same goes with throwing a change. up versus split too. The other part is as well, when you do go to having that bat and you're trying to get someone out with a secondary pitch, whether it's a change up or whatever, especially an off-speed pitch, and then you've got to get that split, like, and you're not trying that split consistently, you lose feel for it. To be honest with you, you grip that, I think he throws a four-sim change-up, throw that four-sim change up, then you go on split. To me, I just, it's way harder to have good feel for that split as well. So in my opinion, look, I love the idea of the cutter, try and get some weak contact.

He doesn't have anything to generate, to induce ground balls. He's still going to go 50-50 slider fastball. But when you add that many options, to me, it just makes it tougher to put guys away faster, number one. And two, it makes it tougher to really have a, all right, fastball in or fastball up. now I can pair that with this pitch. It just makes it way tougher. And so when you're looking at someone who threw a ton of pitches early,

any ton of foul balls, and now he's trying to correct that last year, it's going to be even tougher if you're trying to mix in two more pitches, in my opinion. That doesn't mean that he just puts him in the back pocket. But he had a start, I'm trying to think who it was, started a couple starts ago. And he, I think he threw like hardly any cutters or he threw it just the, the one time early in at bats. And it was more split. It was hardly any changeups.

And he dominated. Like, he was really good. I'm trying to remember who that was against. He looked good. Like, he just looked like bad swings, bad contact. He was putting hitters way faster. So, look, I just think, man, when you have that much swing and miss on heaters, splits, just stop trying to reinvent the wheel, I think, sometimes with him.

However, if it's something that, if it's because it's April and by the middle of May, you can have a really good game plan approach, when to throw that cutter off what pitch. Fair enough, then keep it. That's what I'm saying from Logan. I think by the end of the year, by the way, and going back to last year as well, I kind of talked to when I sat down on them,

I kind of talked to him about this, but I didn't want to bring it up because there's not a good time for it, to be honest with it, in the beginning of a new season. After that elbow injury, he started fatigue quick. If you look at stuff-wise,

and you look at the numbers from pitch, you know, 75, up when they were trying to push into 100 pitches, stuff-wise went down, like command went down, swing and miss went down. And this is, everyone's like, well, yeah, that happens. Everyone late in games. No, no, he was like bottom 10 in regards to batting average against ERA, a bunch of numbers in the league. And for a guy who ended up having a good year last year, when you look at it on paper, that shouldn't be the case, period. He was down there with guys who were just having really bad years. And you look at guys who have really bad years. And you look at guys

who he was competing with when you're talking Tsayung votes two years ago, you look at their numbers from pitch 75 up, man. They're pretty amazing. So that was a big one as well too from last year as well. And looking at this year from pitch 75 up, the stuff has maintained, that's for sure, which is a good sign. I want to know what you see from Jose Ferrer

because I see a guy who seems to be getting comically unlucky with a ton of soft contact finding their way into the outfield for base hits. I know the swinging miss isn't quite where they wanted to be yet, but I'm pretty impressed with Ferrer. I'm wondering what you think. Yeah. I pulled up a heat map from last year because we all talked about the ground ball, right? You mentioned it, right? The soft contact final out of field grass hasn't got the same ground ball, right, nowhere near as he did last year.

Big emphasis on him is you're a lefty. He throws 97-98. We want you to be a weapon against lefties, and lefties have hit him. He's working on that slughey. He told me this after a game a couple days ago. He is trying to find that slider, and it's a work in progress. It's new to him, the grip, how he's going to throw it. Whereas I think last year with the Nationals, he was in a situation where he was right,

his left, he's pitching late in games, just groundball heavy, just fill up the strike zone. So when you look at the heat map, you look at the pit, everything was middle down on a heat map, especially on the on the on the on the two seam now you look at it and the heat map it's not a bad thing it's out of the middle of the zone but everything's like heat maps up and in on lefties and then it's down in the way to righties it tells me that you know cow pitching staff all this like hey we want you to be more um have more intent um have have more of an idea of what you're doing as opposed to just filling up the zone and getting that weak contact because we do want you to get swing and miss so i think when you're trying to find swinging

miss, get out of the strike zone. Yeah, you're soft contact, but you're still going to be a little bit 50-50 on how you put hitters away. And again, that slider too. I think I like the left-on-left changer for him. It's plus. He's done a couple. He's mixed a couple in.

But that's something they wanted to get away from and go with the slider against lefties. So I think that once he, if he can get that slider against, he threw a really good one to Kurtz, actually, which was really good. That's a good sign. Man, if he can get that consistently, I think he'd be really good. But, man, they need him, man. I know he threw the two innings, which was great because Logan went for that last outing. But, man, they really need.

They need him to be the dude and be more lucky, that's for sure. Because, again, just with that bullpen, there's just that gap. If Matt Brash is only going to throw one inning and he's going to be a little bit more, you know, taper off the workload until late in the year. Well, you've got those couple months there. Man, you've got to fill some gaps. because those wins and losses still count just like they're doing August and September

when you want guys to be fully healthy and everything else. So Jose Ferrer, man, they're going to need him. But got to get that slider down, especially against lefties. And, you know, I just feel like he's going to get to a point where he's not trying to overthink this or all this pitch development where he's, you know, the intense is just going to be like,

I'm just going to fill up the zone. He's just going to get weak contact on the ground. Because that ground ball rate's not quite there just yet like it was last year, that's for sure. with it being rick's last year in the booth we've made a point to ask everyone who's come on the show and has interacted with rick before to either share a story about rick or just talk about him a little bit stacey ross had a really cool story about a time when she was in the dugout struggling to think of a question and you know rick as as always had a great feel for the moment and kind of nudged her

in the right direction so is there a story or anything that comes to mind when when i say the name rickriss yeah i mean i know where to start man he uh i mean i love that I love that, dude. Like, even put it this way, as a player, I remember Dave Nehouse, one of the first people came up to me when I was in camp. So 2007, that wasn't my first going to big league camp. 2005 was, I got, it was with the twins. I got Rule 5 with the twins.

I didn't make the team came back. But I'd never been in Big League camp at the Mariners. So like you walk in as a, I was, what was the 24 years old? And, you know, you're looking around going, like, you just feel like a naturally you walk in. you're like, I am a friggin' nobody in this, in this room, right? Because you've got dudes Ichros in there and Felix and all these, like, priorities are in there. And then Dave Nehouse came up to me and he goes, hey, how are you doing? You know, you're from Australia.

I was, dude, you notice from I'm from Australia. Damn, Dave Nehouse. It was the coolest thing ever. And then literally right behind him was Rick Riz. And Rick came and, like, said, Dave talked to me quickly, but I know it's Dave Nehouse. And he kind of moved on and he started. And you could just see him. He would just walk straight up to guys.

And boom, just start talking to him. him even when they're like getting dressed right well then rick was standing there and rick just he just kept talking to me about a bunch of stuff and he wasn't talking to me about the typical like oh you throw a boomerang you know the typical like pr rubbish he was actually like he was asking me about you know um pitches i throw and you knew my numbers from double a and he knew that was in the Arizona four league and all this kind of i'm like oh man like you know like first of all dave spoke to me that's awesome and then rick who i hear his voice all the time is he talking to him about what I did in Arizona full league.

It was nice, right? So from that point on, I felt like any time I spoke to him, he's not going to, I'm not talking about stuff that, you know, when you're talking to someone and like they don't quite know what you're done or talking about. I don't know. That's hard to explain. Anyway, so I just always have that. And that's something he does very well, man.

He has that rapport with players, not because he bugs them, but because he kind of has that way about him where he walks in and. just like, oh, you've known him for years. Like, that's, that's red. And I remember late in, it was, no, it was 2008. That's right, 2008. J.J. Puts was supposed to be doing bullpen banter, right? It was like a, he would give him, and Rick would give JJ the little recorder,

and he would go record with someone. They'd do a quick interview. It was just a fun segment on the radio. Well, JJ, Rick never forgets his, too. And Rick was like, oh, JJ, he was so mad at him. until I, that's the story for another time, but he, JJ just left him hanging. And he's like, oh, I'm going to get an interview. I said, oh, do you want me to do it?

You know, I was just like, he goes, oh, it'd be amazing. So I did it. And I started like, I really enjoyed it, man. I was like, oh, you saved me. He still brings that story. He goes, you saved me, man. And he goes, ever since then, I was always hoping you were going to get into broadcasting this and that.

And so fast forward, I came back. And I remember coming back in 2015 at the end of the year just to meet people about potentially doing this job. And one of the first people came up to me, gave me a big hug. Like, you know, it was Rick. And he goes, oh, you're so good. I'm so happy you're back. And Randy Atomack standing right there.

And I'm, like, trying to impress Randy Atomac. And here's Rick Riz saying, oh, man, this is great. I'm so happy he's here right now. He's going to be great. He did this. And it was just just nice, like, okay, I'm not rocking up here, like to some random, you know, having a little mini audition here. I've got Rick just in my back pocket.

It was huge. I never forget that, man. And he's always been that. way. He's always put people, like you mentioned with Stacey in it, he's always put people in a position to succeed. And sometimes that can be rare, you know, because everyone's so fixated on what they're doing, whereas Rick looks around and he's aware of the people who are trying to perform or whatever, and he always puts you in a position to succeed. But I have got Rick, Riz stories forever, man, but he's the greatest. I'm really going to miss him at any of the year. I'm not going to

lie. It's not going to be, he said he's still going to be showing up. It's not going to be the same. It won't be the same. Yeah, it's tough, man. It's tough. I'm doing radio with Gary Hill Jr. This series because Rick's not coming on this trip. And I'm sitting there. Oh, man, I don't want to be like talking.

Everyone's like, where's Rick? Yeah. Whoops. Sorry. Yeah. Finally, tell us a little bit about what you got going on with your other ventures with the top step and also next gym baseball. I know you got some cups coming up.

June through August. I appreciate that. Yeah, I do a show. It's called The Top Step. It's on YouTube. It's on King 5 as well every Sunday. Basically, I just, I like just to, you know, get a chance to sit down with players.

I have a player join me every week. You know, I do a little, I do a breakdown at the beginning of the show. It's a lot of fun. It's a good way for me, obviously, to have a different inn with players, and we're doing this cool thing now where we walk through these our backs.

I love doing that. You know, maybe bending the rules a little bit with showing game footage, but it doesn't matter. But I don't care. They love it. Every time they get down, oh, that was fun, man. I want to do that again. I'm like, great.

Because it's, you know how it goes, man. When you're trying to interview a player, they want to deflect all the credit and whatever. Well, this is a chance for them to like, not deflect credit. They can't. So it's good. So I've got the top step. And also my camps, too.

I've got summer camps coming up. I can't wait for that. Five weeks, five different locations, ages six to 12. I've also got Bryce Miller's doing a camp with me. That's why I better be healthy in August. Bryce Miller is doing a camp with me as well. And so is Col Emerson in August. We did one with Brian Wood last year.

It was epic. I do want to say this too. Nothing against other players that do these camps, but this is not a camp where it's 600 kids rock up. Player comes out waves, tells everyone to believe himself, and is basically just off in the background. Then they're like, Brian is there with the, Brian was there last year with the players, helping them out face to face.

And Colt and Bryce know the deal too. It's way small group. Say if you go to next gen baseball.com, NXTGEN Baseball.com. And check it out, man. I'm excited. It's one of my favorite things for the summer. That's for sure. For sure.

Well, we'll put the link to that in the description of this episode if you guys are interested. Awesome, man. Well, Ryan, thanks so much for your time. Always appreciate your insight. Keep up the great work on the. broadcast and we'll talk again soon yeah thanks for having me guys appreciate and you guys keep up a good work too off i listen to your show all the time so thank you all right well that's gonna do it for our show thank you again to ryan for joining us and thank you so much for joining us here

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