Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Who Are the 2025 Seattle Mariners?

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

After a sweep at the hands of one of the worst teams in the American League, Ty and Colby discuss who the Mariners really are then get you set for their upcoming series with the Angels.DONATE TO OUR FEEDING AMERICA FUNDRAISERCheck out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Wonderful PistachiosGet snackin' and get crackin' with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit WonderfulPistachios.com to learn more! Supply HouseJoin the TradeMaster program today at SupplyHouse.com/TM and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus, use promo code S-H-5 for 5% off your first order. That’s SupplyHouse.com! Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. FanDuelRight now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. 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.

Who are the 2025 Seattle Mariner's? We'll discuss that of more coming up here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast. Colby, hit it. You are Locked on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariner's podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors. It is Friday, June 6, 2025.

This is Tadding Azales and Colby Patnode for the Lockdown Marr's podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This episode is brought to you by Fandul. new customers can get $200 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. And as always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more and help support the show, you can check out our Patreon. All you have to do to check that out is click the link in the description of this episode. On today's episode, Who Are the 2025 Marys?

We'll talk about that and we'll also get you set for this weekend series with the Angels. But yes, who are the 2025 Seattle Marys? Colby. I don't know. Yeah, that's kind of the issue, right? Right. I mean, we're, we got about, what, 100 games left to go, and we really don't have any idea who this team is.

You know, the first month of the season, they were playing about 95 win clip in the last month or so. They've been playing at about a 95 loss clip. So it's one of those things where at this stage, you should have a pretty good idea of who you are, what your strengths are, what you need to, you know, help fix and all that stuff.

And right now, I don't know. I don't know because on paper, the Mariners pitching should be their strength. It's clearly not. In the first month, the offense was the strength. And this month, it's greatest weakness by far. The bullpen seems like it's in a good place for a couple weeks. And then all of a sudden, boom, you know, you get hit and you lose a couple games,

and you blow a couple saves. And yeah, you just kind of look at it. and you kind of go, I don't really know where this team is. And it puts you in a really weird spot because, you know, over the next six weeks, seven weeks, we're going to pretty much know where they're going to be just based on how they play. Because if they play well over the next six weeks, they're probably well positioned to win the American League West. And as we know, you get into the playoffs, anything can happen. And, yeah, you, in theory, you're set up well to do.

well in the playoffs and you have all this ammo to go out and add to your roster. If you don't play well over the next six weeks, you really have no business going out there and trying to buy rentals or anything like that. And you're probably looking to sell and you probably should be because you'll be one of the best sellers positioned out there. But what are you going to do with more prospects? You know, you're kind of in this weird spot where because of how poorly you've played over the last five weeks, the next six weeks are not just about survive.

they are about, you know, you have to thrive. You have to play good baseball. And we're a couple weeks away from that big stretch we talked about for the last couple of weeks where you play 17 games in 17 days. And with your pitching where it's at and the offensive struggles that you've had, like this was supposed to be kind of the homestand to start stacking wins. You had a bad Nationals team. You had a bad Orioles team and you went one in five against those. those teams. And, you know, thankfully, you found a way to win that Minnesota series, uh, somehow. Uh, so that I can't really salvage when you go three and six, but it could have been a lot worse.

Uh, but it also could have been a lot better. I mean, the Mariners have had an opportunity to win what their last seven games, like a good opportunity to win their last seven and they've won three, you know, it's just one of those things where in April they were winning four or five of those and, and they would do that over and over again. And, and right. now they're finding ways to lose games rather than win games so i don't know who they are and the fact that i don't know that right now that i'm not comfortable in saying this is who they are this is about how good they are uh is in and of itself that's an indictment of of the ball club so yeah it's a really tough question to uh to answer there's just so many injuries that a team can

suffer and survive through there are just so many guys that you can shuffle through, you know, and the next man up mentality and all that stuff, right? And we've finally kind of seen that come to a head. We've finally seen some of that hit its expiration date. And then, you know, this pitching stuff, like you said, like, look, Brian Wu and Luis Castillo have been really good this year. But they haven't been a lead, right? And there's just so little room for error with the way that this offense is playing right now.

And then, you know, after Wu and Castillo, it's Emerson Hancock, who's been a nice surprise, but there's still obviously kind of a cap on who he is. And then, you know, Bryce Miller is still trying to pitch through this forearm thing. Doesn't seem like that's going to get better with the way that he's talked about it. It seems like the only thing that's going to completely get rid of that is surgery. We don't know what Logan Gilbert's going to look like when he gets back. George Kirby has struggled mightily since returning to the rotation. And that kind of has to be your strength right now with, again, the way that the offense is playing. Because right now the offense is just solely home run dependent.

Over half of the runs scored since the start of May have come via the long ball. And since May 9th, they're one in seven in games in which they fail to hit a home run. They really only have one way to win right now. That's a huge problem. And the bigger problem, too, is that it's mostly Cal Raleigh doing the heavy lifting and everyone else is struggling right now. Like, you're getting nothing out of Randy or Rosa Raina. He's completely disappeared. I mean, we've talked a lot about Jorge Polanco disappearing.

And, yeah, Polo's been worse than Randy has been. But Randy has done nothing to help pick up the slack here. And while Julio's having a more consistent start to the year than in years past, he's not being the co-star that the bearers need to Cal Raleigh. Daniel Kramer put out a stat yesterday after the after the loss over the Mariners 5 and 10 stretch

dating back to May 20th Cal Raleigh is slashing 345, 424, 862 with nine home runs every other hitter on the Mariners roster right now is slashing 214 204 with nine home runs

that's why you're losing ballgames right there I don't think we really need to talk about anything else other than that stat specifically right. But on top of that, again, like I mentioned, the pitching has not been as good and as healthy as it's been the last two seasons. You can't just rely on them to be able to come through and help you win a lot of close games. This iteration of the mayor is needs an offense that can carry the load at times. Like it did in April and a little bit there at the start of May. And what a one nine consecutive series.

So that's the problem right now. no part of your roster is a strength. I just honestly, I don't know how much of this you can, you know, blame on injuries. Obviously some. Like you, you, this team needs Victor Robles, like that energy in that, you know, style. But this talking point has been beaten into the ground. We beat it into the ground. Anyone who covers baseball in the mayor has beat it into the ground in the months leading up to the season.

But this all ultimately ties back to the, to the off season, right? It's not the only reason for this. but ultimately you can link it all back to the offseason and not putting in enough safeguards and especially the things that they were banking on going right like Victor Robles being able to repeat what he did last year Ryan Bliss being able to take second base and run with it both of those things ended quickly

due to injury unfortunately if you had at least more safeguards maybe you would at least be able to weather the storm a little bit better if you had done more in the off season right but at the end of the day Like the Mariners aren't losing these games that they were winning in April because, you know, Miles Master Pony is not contributing anymore because, you know, Rowdy Telles is basically just trying to hit a home run. And if he does great. And if he doesn't, he's worthless.

And, you know, Donovan Solano and Mitch Garver, they're not the reason. I mean, they're contributing. But the reason is is that Randy at Rosarena and Jorge Polanco have been your worst hitters for the last couple of weeks. And I got to tell you, Randy just looks almost. disinterested in that in that Baltimore series like there's very little energy played played with by that club over the last three games and it's one of those things where somebody's got to step up and somebody has to be that guy you know in the past it was gina last year a little bit it was it was victor at the end of the year where like there needs to be something here like the they're

kind of going through the motions it's pretty listless right now and Julio had a terrible series Randy has had a terrible, I mean, a couple, I don't know, a week, week and a half, two weeks, whatever it is. I mean, Randy now for the second year row is running a sub-2-20 batting average with a sub-400-sucking percentage. Since May 10th, he's walked three times. Right. That was always the thing that was keeping him, you know, above water is that, well, he's at least going to walk. He's going to get on base. Polo's been terrible. Like, it is the guys that you counted on that are failing you right now with the extent.

exception of Cal, obviously, and also with the exception of JP, who's having a really good year and has been pretty darn good for most of this season. Julio, again, solid so far, but he had a dreadful game yesterday and then came up in a couple of big spots and couldn't get it done. And so, yeah, you're not like, it turns out you need more than one, like, elite hitter to score runs. It takes more than Cal Raleigh to score runs. And right now the Mariners, it's Cal Raleigh, it's J.P. Crockford, everybody else is way off scroft. It's way down here. Like JP and Cal are basically generating all the offense right now.

And they're getting a little bit of contribution from, you know, Ben Williamson at the bottom of the order lately. But really, that's it. And everybody else is kind of, you get a little bit from Lioti, you get a little bit from Rowdy here and there. you get a little bit, you know, from Williamson. And you're not getting anything from Randy. You're not getting anything from Jorge. And, yeah, if Julio's not going to go into God mode, and those two guys are going to be as bad as they've been for the last three or four weeks,

you're in trouble. And that obviously gets compounded by the fact that you don't have Luke Rayleigh, who is also capable of getting on one of those insane hot streaks. and you don't have Victor Robles, who, you know, does a lot of different things to help the offense score runs. So you're in a tight spot right now. And I, but I do think that, you know, the whole like, oh, it's just the injuries. It's just the injuries thing. It's like George Kirby's back in the rotation and he's yet to pitch all that well.

Like Logan Gilbert, we're assuming he's going to come back and be great. I don't know. Yeah. It hasn't been good. Like it's obviously impossible to have a conversation about this team without acknowledging injuries. But it definitely isn't the only reason. guys just have to play better. So will they still be buyers by the deadline?

We'll talk about that in just a moment. But first, a reminder, this episode of the Locktime Marys podcast is brought to you by Trade Coffee. Let's be real for a minute. Coffee isn't just a drink. It's a ritual, a lifeline, the thing that gets you from half asleep to fully functioning. If it's that essential, why settle for anything less than amazing? That's where Trade Coffee comes in. Trade is the number one coffee destination in the U.S.

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for 50% off your one-month trial. Drink-Trade.com slash locked-on MLB. And you're listening to the Lockdown Merris podcast for instant reactions following every Marrers game. Be sure to tune in to the Marriss Postcast with Anderson Hearst and Christopher Crawford available on both the Lockdown Merr's YouTube and podcast feeds. I feel incredibly about.

for Anders and Chris for the last few games that they've had to cover on that show. Appreciate you guys going over there and still showing them some love, though. Hey, before we get back into talking just about where the mares are at and all that good stuff, let's give you an update on our Feeding America fundraiser. We have a bunch of new donations. We have already surpassed $2,500, which was our goal. We are now at $3,76,000. raised. Before I go through these donations, Colby, just give the folks a quick reminder of what we got

going on. Yeah. For the second time in our show's history, we're partnered with Feeding America to raise money to essentially buy food and buy meals for those facing food insecurity in our country, which is over 50 million people right now. They do not know where their next meal is going to come from, including one in five children. Now with school out for the summer and the rising cost of groceries, a lot of kids are losing the access to that one guaranteed meal they were going to get. So this feels like a great time to partner up with them again. Feeding America takes every dollar that is donated to them and they were able to turn that into 10 meals by working with, you know, distributors and wholesalers and the like to buy food

at a drastic discount. So every dollar we raise is 10 meals that is going to somebody who desperately needs it. And so right now you guys have already raised, would that be 37,000 meals and some change, which is awesome. Last time we did this, so we got to 15,000. I don't know if we can get there again. But yeah, it's a great cause, really good bank for your buck. Every dollar can literally, you know, change somebody's life. So it's a great organization. We're very happy to do this again. And if you guys want to donate or you, you know, or you already have and you'd like to help more, you can do that. And you could also subscribe to the YouTube channel for every new subscriber we get for the duration of our fundraiser.

Ty and I are donating 10 cents, which is a meal. So you can donate a meal just by clicking a button right there. And it all adds up and it all really helps. So, yeah, Feeding America is great. And we're really happy to be able to do this again. And we're off to a good start. Although yesterday, the donations slowed down a little bit. Probably because we didn't do a show.

Sure. Accountability. Right. Let's get into these donations here. Let me know down in the comments below if I missed you. But Antonio came through with a $16 donation. Harry with $500. That was awesome.

I think that's what got us to $2,500 or over $2,500. Were we already over $2,500 the last show we did? I can't remember. But that's incredible. Thank you so much for your generosity, Harry. $10 from Anonymous, $20 from Anonymous, $20 from Jack, $5 from Max, $25 from Luke, 100 from Daniel, 30 from Anonymous, and then 50 from Anonymous. Thank you guys so much for your generosity. And let's continue to see how far we can take this thing.

We also had a $76 donation made by a 76-year-old. So that was right after. Oh, there is. It was right after we wrapped on Wednesday. Yeah. Yeah, from Jim, this is a wonderful cause. Why I'm donating $76 because I just turned 76 years of age. Happy birthday.

Thanks so much, Jim. Appreciate it. All right. So, Colby, will this bearers team still be in a position where buying makes sense by the deadline, given all the red flags that we just talked about? Oh, no. Yeah. I mean, we are, like, I think people think this is hyperbole or this is, you know, chicken little stuff.

The season will literally be defined by what the Mariners do over the next six weeks. Yeah. Because if they continue to play like this, they are not going to be anywhere close. Like, really look at it for what it is. The Mariners path to the postseason is winning the American League West. That's how they're going to get in. They're probably not going to want a wildcard spot. The Central is too good.

the east we'll see i mean some guys some teams are playing pretty well right now who haven't played well in the past so we'll see how that all shakes out but your path is is through the american league west and if you don't play well for the next six weeks and you're five six games out of the west by you know uh let's call it you know july 20th or whatever john stanton is not going to write the check now he might not write it anyways but like it wouldn't make sense to you know invest that much in a very small window to make the playoffs. I think you'd probably see a deadline very similar to what we saw in

2023. And remember they traded Paul C-Wold and they got some guys who could help them at the major league level from that trade. And maybe they still try to do that. But they were also on the verge of trading Thai France and they were on the verge of trading to Oscar Hernandez. So we could very well see them do something like that. And they were in a similar spot.

They were four or five games out of a playoff spot at that point. And so I think that's, I think it's fair to say that that's how they would operate if the Mariners continue to play like they have for the last month. Yeah. If they play like they did in April, it's going to be basically impossible for Stan to justify not allowing Jerry and Justin to be as aggressive as they can be in going to acquire these players. Because not only if you are in contention or in first place to win your division, not only are your odds of making the playoffs significantly higher. And therefore your investment is more likely to pay off.

You're also guaranteed to get home playoff games at least two. And those are worth, you know, $10 million a piece. in revenue. So yeah, it's one of those things where I don't know if they're going to be in a position. And that is, again, why I don't think it's hyperbole to sit here and say, like,

their season is going to be decided in the next six weeks. They have to play well. And they have to be in a position, a reasonable position that you could look at and be like, yeah, they don't need to go, you know, 40 and 18 over the last 58 games to win the division, like to have a shot to make the playoffs. They can go and play, you know,

they could go 30 and 20 and have a good shot to win the division or whatever it is, right? And so, yeah, the next six weeks are absolutely crucial. It really started already and you already, you know, fumbled that bag early on. And so now you're kind of out of margin of air. You have to play really well for the next six weeks before we can answer that question. And even if something were to pop up, like there was a legitimate trade that came up in June, based on how the mayors are playing right now, based on where they sit in the standings,

do you feel comfortable that they're going to be like, yeah, let's take that shot this early. Probably not. They probably want to wait and see how this club looks. Yeah, I don't know. It is the answer. And it's a lame answer, sure,

but it is, I think, the correct one. Because I don't believe that John Stanton's going to look at this team as it sits right now and says, this is a team worth investing in. I mean, he never has in the past. So, I don't know. don't know. I don't know. And again, could they do something like 2023? If they're not in it? Sure. Could they maybe still try and acquire a controllable asset at the deadline for 2026? Maybe. But who's making that call for

2026? Is it Jerry? Is it Justin? Is are they are they, you know, fighting for their jobs by that point? Yeah. Because you've, you know, we've talked about, we talked about this heading into the season. Like if it's a third consecutive year where you don't make the playoffs and it goes pretty similarly to the way that 2023 and 2024 went and it kind of feels like we're on a very similar trajectory right now with the way this season is going.

Yeah, I mean, again, like the main person to blame or the main entity to blame here is ownership. It's John Stanton, it's ownership. But this is sports. You don't perform. You eventually get fired. If you're a general manager, if you're a president of baseball operations, if you're a manager

or whatever. We saw it with Scott Service last year, right? With, you know, if you fail again for the third year in a row, does John Stanton finally go, you know, it's done. We're done with Jerry. We're done with Justin Hollander. Right. Is that finally kind of the straw that breaks the proverbial Campbell's back, right?

Right. I know we've talked about this in the past, but like Jerry is really good at what John actually cares about, which is just being competitive enough to keep the ballpark filled. So does that come to play here? Yeah, it does, but at some point there's a tipping point where the negativity of keeping Jerry DePoto around is so toxic to the fan base that they don't care if you're in contention because they'll just know what you're doing. And so at the very least, you can bring in a new face and try and, you know, bring up some new hope for the fan base, even if the goal is to do exactly what Jerry just did. and there's going to be no shortage of people who will take the Mariners job, you know, if Jerry is fired, even with the crappy ownership, because, one, there's only 30 of these things available.

And two, it's a pretty good job. Jerry's done a really good job with stock in the farm, and there's a lot of young major league talent on this roster. And there's a lot of things you can do with it. Cal Raleigh's under contract forever, you know, Julio's under contract forever. So, yeah, it's one of those things. know. I don't know what John would do if this continues to go down that track. I would tend to think he cares more about money than winning. So my guess is Jerry probably gets one more shot at it. But I don't know because Jerry got his one shot. And again, right now, it's not looking great. Could

that change over the next six weeks? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, we might be heading to that conversation though. And that's, that's, uh, right. And that isn't going like, that is going to impact this deadline because if you don't think Jerry is going to be around after this year, you're probably not going to be that inclined to sign off on some of the stuff he wants to do. So you're in a tough spot here. And that's, again, another reason why these next six weeks are so critical. Yeah. It's not just about 2025.

It's also about setting up 2026 and beyond. So, yeah, it's a weird spot. So again, once again, the answer to the question is, I don't know. Yeah. To answer the initial question of this episode, who are the 2025 Seattle Mariners? They're mediocre, right? The one saving grace here potentially for them is that the rest of the ALS is mediocre. So, yeah, you know, they're 32 and 29, which isn't a bad record at this point in the year.

It's totally fine, totally acceptable record at this point in the year. and they're only a game and a half out of first place in the American League West because again the Astros are mediocre. The Rangers are mediocre. The A's, the angels, etc. So that's probably the only thing that's going to keep them afloat here. But as we talked about over the course of this entire episode, there are a litany of red flags throughout this roster.

That just, it kind of makes it feel like more spiraling, down in the loss column more spiraling down in the standings seems likely all right so the bears are heading down to anaheim to kick off a road trip we'll talk about their upcoming series with the angels in just a moment but first a reminder of this episode of the lockdown airs podcast is brought to you by fan duel the NBA finals are here and every game delivers highlight worthy performances major momentum shifts and can't miss moments whether it's a game winning shot or a breakout player never been a better time to get in on the action. Fanduel makes it easy to stay in the game before tip off and live.

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If it wins, you'll get $200 in bonus bets. Make every moment more with Fandul, official sports betting partner of the NBA. And you're listening to the Locktime Marriss podcast of the M's, kicking off a three games set against the Angels down in Anaheim this weekend. All starts tonight with Bryce Miller versus Kyle Hendricks. So let's talk about that. Bryce Miller's second start since returning.

from the IL. Tell me what you saw from his returning start against the twins and kind of what your expectations are heading into this one for him. Bryce is hard to really hard to have fuel for what Bryce is going to do. The Angels have been scoring some runs recently. So it's certainly not an easy lineup to pitch to. Mike Trout is back. We know how that usually goes as well.

So the angels. And he's hot right now, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. So as Taylor Ward is just hitting home runs left and right as well. So yeah, it's the angels always play the Mariners tough. And they're actually swinging it pretty good right now, whereas the Mariners are not. So yeah, it's a tough spot to be in. Bryce has not been very good, really, in any of his starts, you know, this year.

He's either not gotten deep or he's, you know, gone five and a half. or five and two-thirds or six, but he's giving up four or five runs. And so you're in a weird spot with Bryce. And, you know, based off of his last start, the first inning was great. Everything after that was not. And so, yeah, and these are important starts for Bryce, too,

because I think how the Mariners are going to handle Bryce for the rest of the year is going to be determined by the next, you know, three, four, five starts that he's going to make. And that'll determine whether or not they'll shut him down or they'll put him on the IL again or whatever. So these are big starts for Bryce. And obviously, you know, the Mariners are on a three-game losing streak. And they just lost, they got swept by the second worst team in the American League. And now they're facing another bad team.

They need to stop the bleeding. And, you know, unfortunately, based on how he's pitched this year, it's hard to feel great about Bryce doing that. And it's hard to feel good that, you know, this offense will have his back. And even if he doesn't pitch well, well, that's okay. the offense will find a way to score six, seven runs. I don't know. They could. That hasn't been the case for the last four or five weeks.

No, Anaheim's got like really bad pitching, but the Mariners have really bad offense. So, you know, typically bad pitching beats bad offense. Like, it's just the way it works. So, yeah, it's hard to feel great about tonight's game, even though you're playing a bad team because you just played a bad team. And they kicked your butt. I mean, so. And Bryce hasn't been Bryce. So you're basically hoping that Miller comes up and he's good right away and that he's,

or, you know, that he's back to 2024 Price Miller. And I just don't know how you have any confidence in that, and that being the case right now. Could he be? Sure. And that would be amazing. But would you bet on it right now? Probably not.

Tomorrow it's going to be Jack Kohanowitz against Luis Castillo and then Sunday, Tyler Anderson against George Kirby. So we'll see how the Kirby start goes. like we talked about on Wednesday. Kirby, pretty good in his last start. I was able to battle. Gave up quite a bit of hard contact, but it was all singles for the Orioles

and a couple of CNI singles as well. So some bad luck here and there. I would say, again, like I said on Wednesday, he was kind of just somewhere in the middle. He wasn't necessarily good for the entire start. He wasn't necessarily bad for the entire start. So we'll see if he can, kind of just build upon that.

And we'll see how he's feeling physically. Again, it seems like he just came away from getting him in the face with a bruise and cut lip. So hopefully it's nothing else. But yeah, so let's talk about Luis Castillo. So Castillo quietly is running almost a near sub three ERA. He's not a 303ERA right now. But a 328 FIPP too.

So there isn't really much of a discrepancy there. but the you know the k-per-9 is down once again you know it went from 10.01 in 2023 to 8.98 last year and now 724 this year walk rate is is up but again the teams just aren't scoring a ton of runs off of them. He's had a couple of blowups here and there but for the most part he's been able to manage he's been able to get through lineups rather efficiently how is he doing that well it's been really over his last three or four starts, he's started to return to the guy that we remember. And a large part of that is the fastball velo is way up. He's showing a lot of 97, 96, 97, where in April it was, you know, 93, 94.

And so that obviously buys a margin of error on his fastball. We know because of his arm angle that the fastball is always going to play up pretty well when he gets to the top of the zone. And he's doing that more. and so it's you know the whiffs aren't where you want them to be but right now he's finding a way to get outs and even the the hard contact are usually you know fly balls that are shallow flyballs and it's because it's really hard to square out that fastball up at the top of the zone particularly when it's 96 97 as opposed to 93-94 and in his last outing he had the best

slider we've seen from him in a couple years I mean he had a 90% whiff rate on that slider with all those righties in the lineup. So yeah, it's most, I think a lot of it is, is finding value in the fastball again. I mean, the slider was the story in his last start, but he also had a 31% whiff rate on the four seamer, which again, anything over 30 is elite on a four seam fastball. So he's getting value out of the fastballs again.

And he started to find the slider a little bit now. He's had the slider for like one, maybe two starts. So you never know that's going to be the case. but he is more in sync. He's throwing fewer, he has fewer, like really bad glove side and arm side misses. He's finding the top rail more often, and he's doing it with added velocity.

So really the Luis Castillo kind of rebrand is kind of similar to his old brand, where it's still fastballs, but it's 96, 97, and instead of getting a lot of swing and miss on that, he's getting a lot of, relatively easy outs, even if they are leaving the bat at high exit below. They're also leaving the bat at like a 43 degree launch angle and they're just flying out to Julio. So yeah, he's been really good over his last, over the last month or so. And, you know, the whiffs might get there again.

But for now, you take what he's giving you. And he's finding a way to be a, you know, kind of a, I mean, he's pitched like a number two for the last couple of weeks. and so hopefully you can do that again. But he has been massive, absolutely massive, for this rotation and for this club when they've really needed him to be. And it hasn't always gotten the support from the boys that he's deserved, but he's hanging in there and he's giving you some really good bulk quality innings and finding ways to help you win ball games.

So we talked about how important the next six weeks are going to be for this team. tonight and this weekend is a good of start as any to kind of get on the right track in that regard. So we'll see if they can make it happen. That's going to do it for our show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Lockdown Marrars podcast for Colby Pat node. I'm Tadden Gazzalas. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at LO underscore Marrers. You can follow me at Tading Gonzalez.

Colby at CPAT 11. That's C-PAT-1. We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG, Colby at MLB Colby in the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on TikTok and Instagram. Instagram at Lockdown Marius. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and a beautiful baseball weekend and we'll see you next time. Peace.