Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Who Are the Most Important Mariners Down the Stretch?

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Ty and Colby answer your questions then recap the Mariners' series win over the Rangers.Check out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYTime to fuel up and turn it up with 5-hour ENERGY®️ Transfusion! Go to https://5hourenergy.com today and use my promo code LOCKEDONGOLF to receive 20% off your order. This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. The code is not good on subscription orders.  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!OpenPhoneStreamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at www.openphone.com/lockedonmlbGameday HueLet your colors talk—because colors speak louder than words. Right now, you can get 15% off with code MLB15 at GamedayHue.com. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at monarchmoney.com/lockedonmlb for 50% off your first year.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY 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.

The deadline has come and gone. The Marrains just took three or four from the Rangers, and you've got questions. Let's answer them. Colby, hit it. 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 Monday, August 4th, 2025. This is Ted and Gazzalas and Colby Patnode for the Lockdown Marys Podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This episode is brought to you by 5,000,

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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. Let's open up the mailbag like we do here every Monday and answer some of your mayor's questions. Jake is going to kick us off here.

Once to know, outside of Julio, pick one pitcher and one hitter whose production will be most crucial to the club for these last two months. Yeah, on the pitching front, it's pretty easily Logan Gilbert. Yeah. You know, his season in a statistical sense has been mostly fine. He's never missed more bats. He's not walking a ton of guys. So, you know, you look at those numbers. The ERA is okay.

Like it's certainly not bad or anything like that, but you watch him. And he's just not the same guy. He has these long innings where he, you know, he'll get two strikeouts, but he'll throw 24 pitches and basically cost himself another inning. And you look at how many times he's gone six innings this year. I think it's been twice, maybe three times. And, you know, we can keep making excuses for him. Like I know he's probably still pitching through something in his elbow.

But, you know, people made, oh, well, he was really good except for one in. or oh, well, he was going to dominate the Yankees, but there was a rain delay and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it just seems like a lot of people are making excuses for him because they know what you and I know and something that the numbers don't show as clearly, at least certain numbers don't show as clearly, is that this version of Logan Gilbert isn't Logan Gilbert.

He's not a staff ace. Like he is, you know, again, having a pretty good year when you look at strikeouts and walks and ERA, but he's not going deep into games. He's not getting guys out regularly. He's not giving you a great chance to win every time he goes out there. He has been bailed out by his offense more times than he has bailed out the offense. And that's a big difference.

So, yeah, it's Logan. He's got to go deeper into games. He's got to find a way to go six or seven every time give up two runs or less. Strikeouts are fine. Like keep them if you can, but you got to be efficient. you know, you got to eat innings here because the Mariners didn't go get a number five starter. So anytime they can get five out of that spot, it feels like, you know, a gift and they didn't go out and lengthen their bullpen. So, you know, it's kind of a double-edged sword there where you can't have your number five starter, only go five innings every single time.

And then your number one starter also only go five. Like that's just not going to work. And it's unfair to ask Brian Wu or Luis Castillo to kind of carry that workload. because Wu is obviously still a young pitcher who has injuries of his own. And Luis isn't the same guy he was. He's still pretty good. But, you know, he's just not that guy. So at the very least with George Kirby, we have seen starts of dominance.

And we really haven't seen that much with Logan this year. So the answer to me is Logan on the pitching front. Yeah. I'm in total agreement with you on that front as well. You know, Logan hasn't given up more than four runs in a start this year. But like you said, the real issue is that he's not getting deep. He's putting a lot on the shoulders of the bullpen. It's putting a lot on the shoulders of the offense as well.

Because you don't know what's going to happen after he leaves the game with how many danger areas are still in this bullpen. The other thing, too, that kind of sends up red flags and makes me feel a bit concerned that we could see an eventual, like, real blowup start from Logan. is that he hasn't really been able to avoid the meltdown any. Like you said earlier though, like, or just going back to something that you said earlier, even if they added the fifth starter, even if they added another bullpen arm, sure those things absolutely raise the floor of the team

and make up for some of the issues that Gilbert has presented this year. But like I said on Thursday, what this team ultimately needs is Logan Gilbert to be Logan Gilbert. And that is regardless of if they went out and added those things, or not. And so he hasn't been that guy. And so you need him to be that guy. And it feels, again, it feels weird saying that about a guy who has a 3,

four, five, ERA and a 275 FIPP. But again, it really comes down to those meltdown innings and the red flags that those send up and the lack of Indians pitch, especially for the league in any of pitch last year. Yep. Right. Obviously, the injury is going to limit his

total number of endings, but he's averaging like five and a third a start. That's just not good enough. Yeah. So it's been six. It's been five. It's been six and a third. So that's fine. But then five and a third, five and a third, four and a third, five and a third, five, five and two thirds, five, five and two thirds, five, and then seven on opening day. Yeah. Just it's not going to get it done. So, uh,

yeah, offensively, the answer is Julio, but since he's not on the table, There's a couple different ways you can go here. It does feel like, you know, Cal Raleigh has been dreadful. He had a terrible series this weekend. But it doesn't feel like picking him is fair, although, you know, I suppose it's totally valid. I think it's probably between Naylor and Gino. Gino has always been a streaky hitter. So it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, he might have a bad series.

or he might have a bad week, but at some point he'll flip it around the other way. So I think it's Naylor. I think you kind of need that consistency in the middle of your lineup, just the guy who you can count on day after day, give you a hit, you know, give you a double, occasionally pop the big home run, just give you real quality at bats.

And Naylor's going through a little bit of a strikeout issue right now, because of course he is, because that's just what the Mariners do. But, yeah, I think Naylor, that consistency in the middle, because if Gino's not hitting home runs, it's like, okay, well, we still have Cal, we saw of Randy, we sell polo, like if, like we saw yesterday. Yeah. What you don't really have is you don't have that kind of consistent, like this guy is going

to give you a great app bad every time he goes up there and he's always going to move the line. Yep, he's always a threat to get on base. He's a threat to hit home runs. So I think I'd say Naylor is probably the guy that you would need to perform. If Naylor performs like he did in Arizona for Seattle, I think that is a different. difference maker because he's just a little bit different from everybody else in the lineup. And obviously, we know what kind of impact he can have offensively when he is on. So I think Naylor and Gino, you can pick one or the other, but I'll go nailer.

Yeah, it could be a number of guys. It could be Randy because you're guaranteeing him the most at bats right now in the lineup. Obviously, Cal, because that's your MVP candidate. And he's struggled a bit here as of late. We'll talk a bit more about that a little later on. We have a question about him. Yeah, I like the nailer call, though, because again, he is very different than, you know, he's not home run dependent like a lot of these guys in the lineup right now.

And he needs that because this team as a whole, as a result, is very much home run dependent. So, yeah, you need Naylor to be that guy in the middle of the lineup that can just kind of move the line. Like, you got a runner on second two outs and he's able to put one through the hole. And once now, worried about Gino. He doesn't look very good so far in his at bets. I mean, he's a handful of feet away from having two home runs and a big game time double this weekend. So, no, I'm not worried about him.

We know that Gino's going to strike out, especially now that he's in Seattle. We know that the home runs are going to go down a little bit now that he's not in Arizona. He's now in Seattle. But yeah, not concerned. We saw some pretty good things out of Gino this weekend. just the results ultimately didn't really back that up. All right, we are going to answer more of your questions here in just a moment. But first a reminder of this episode of the lockdown Maras podcast is brought to you by five-hour energy.

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Be sure to tune in to the Marriss Postcast with Anderson Hurst and Christopher Cros. offered available on both the long time errors YouTube and podcast feeds let's get back into your questions here on mailbag Monday Nick wants to know it's Cal slumping or have pitchers just figured him out or are they just pitching around him he's still getting the occasional dinger but striking out a ton it feels or is he just up there hacking it's like a 36% K right since the all-star break for Cal now obviously that has significantly ballooned over the last two days with seven strikeouts and two games. But yeah, Cal hasn't been Cal.

Now, you remove those last two games. He's been a 110 WRC plus bat since the All-Star break. I do feel like the slump has been a bit overblown. Like he still found ways to contribute. He had you take out the last two games. He has hits and all but two games since the All-Star break. He obviously has four home runs. But he's striking out way too much right now.

Even if you take away the two games yesterday, He's still striking out of a 30% club since he all-star break. So, yeah. Yeah, we started to see this before the break a little bit. Teams are starting to attack him with velocity up, which is unfortunate because up in the strike zone and Major League Baseball is like at the belt. And so it seems like an ideal pitch to hit. But Cal really feasts, you know, at below the zone, like around the thigh level is where he likes his pitches.

and also he has some success way above the belt, like chest high. But that zone between his chest and the belt line is a pitch that he's struggling with right now. He's popping it up a lot when he is making contact. Because he's fouling that pitch off frequently, he's in a lot of 02 counts, which obviously is going to decrease the odds that you can do any real damage significantly. And we started to see, you know, it's a pretty common attack plan. It's velocity up. It's breaking stuff and changeups down below the knees.

And he's just not able to chase or he's just not able to stop himself from chasing those pitches because he's falling behind so often. So the league has made its adjustment successfully to Cal and Cal has to make his adjustment. Remember, he's way up on the plate this year. He basically stands right on top of it. And so teams are just hammering him inside up and in with fastballs with velocity and seen as he has the bat speed. to get to that ball. And right now he doesn't. So Cal needs to make his adjustment to the league.

But, yeah, it's a little bit of everything. I think mostly the league has made an adjustment to Cal and they found a hole in the swing. And now Cal has to make some kind of adjustment back to that. Otherwise, yeah, it could be pretty bad. And, you know, it's just kind of starting to look a lot more like 2022 Cal Raleigh, more so than 2025 Cal Raleigh. That's still a good player. It's still a valuable player, but it is not, you know, anywhere near what he was in the first four months of the season.

And he's, you know, failed in his quest to narrow the gap in the MVP race with Judge on the IL. So it's a bummer, but I think this is more about the league figuring something out, and Cal is still trying to figure out how to counteract that. So we'll see how quickly you can do it. But, yeah, it was a bad weekend for Cal. And, you know, nobody wants to talk about it. the defense has also gotten worse this year for Cal Raleigh. So, you know, when the offense is doing good doing what it was, nobody cares.

But now that the offense is taking a step back, it'd be nice to see elite pitch framer Cal Raleigh again, you know, so. But yeah, I think this is just the league making their adjustment. And Cal is trying to work through his adjustment right now. All right. Next question here from Aidan, favorite non-Mariners trades from around the league this deadline, any of that made you think the Mariners couldn't beat this. There was one

deadline in particular that stood out to me, but not for the reason that you would think. So I'm going to kind of take this question into a different direction. Colby will probably have more of an answer that you're looking for. But bear with me.

The Royals just did what I wanted the merits to do in 2023. I think they're a great example of explaining what my argument was a couple of years ago. The royals were, what, 52 and 55, I think, when they made the Randall Gritchick trade. They had a few teams to leapfrog, but they were also only three and a half back of the wild card.

But they went out, they didn't do anything huge, but they just kind of raised the floor of their club. They have a talented club that has underachieve this year. And they went out and they got some veterans that kind of just help reinforce everything, like the Mike Yostremskis of the world and the Randall Gritchicks of the world. And they went out and they got, you know, a solid back into the rotation starter. Bailey Falter who's also going to be there beyond this season. You know, so they also bought for not just 2025, but also 2026 and beyond. That's what I wanted to see the 20203, see how Almaris do. That's what I was ultimately upset about that they didn't go out and they traded, you know,

they, they weren't willing to go out and trade the whatever, like guys that you've never heard of, guys that maybe I've never even heard of covering the team for a couple of months of Tommy fam. I thought that was just ridiculous that they weren't willing to go out and do that. And that's why I was upset about the 2023 deadline. Not that they took advantage of the Paul Seawald market. I mean, look look at what Dom Kanzone is doing right now for you. So yeah, I had no issues with the Seawald trade.

It was just what they did after that or rather did not do after that. And the Royals did exactly what I was wanting them to do. Uh, Phil Mayton. Uh, and, uh, Danny Coulomb, both of those trades, obviously we saw this weekend, and both of them pitched well for Texas this weekend. Yeah, those were, again, those trades, that's like Tai Pete, Michael Morales type of prospects,

those two guys to get one of those dudes and really lengthen your bullpen. Yeah, I thought that was a trade that the Mariners should have made. Ryan Halsley, that one was iffy. The prize there is kind of, a fringe top 100 prospect and Seattle had already traded Locklear. And so, you know, it's maybe you can get Typeet there to get Ryan Helsley, give him up. But yeah, it's it's the bullpen that bothers me still.

And it is, you know, when I look at the deals that are made, it's the two that Texas made on deadline day for the bullpen pieces. If you could have snagged one of them, I think that would have drastically changed how how even this weekend played out because you, well, there are a lot of reasons. You lost Saturday. But one of them was that you lack the quality, you know, leverage arms in your bullpen right now.

And if you had Gloam, if you had, you know, if you had meton, you're probably not thrown legamina in the 11th, although if you just use the one decent bullpen army had left at that point, even though there were no left use up, then maybe you win that one.

So yeah, I think. And technically has better numbers against Radies on Casey Legamina, but I digress. Yeah. I mean, to be fair to Casey, he did get BAPib to death. And kind of Matt Brash too. So again, not 100% their fault, but whatever, this is why you need another guy. So you don't have Casey Legamina. So you don't have Jackson CoR throwing high leverage endings because once you use Brash,

once you use Munoz and Spire, eh, you know, so I think the Maiton or the Fulom trade would have been something I would have really like Seattle to do. All right, we have a few more of your questions to go over here

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Open the Fandual app today and visit Fandual.com slash Lockdown. That's L-O-C-E-D-O-N to get started. And you're listening to the Lockdowner's podcast. It's Mailbag Monday. Let's get back into your questions. Aaron wants to know. I know this is an odd time to ask, but do you ever look back at the trade deadline last year and wonder why the Marys didn't find a way to offer more than the Yankees and trade for Jazz Chisholm? It seemed like a good fit, like such a good fit up until the recent Gino trade.

I think there were concerns about how you would fit in the clubhouse, whether those are founded or not. It's up to you to decide. But, yeah, I think there were questions about the fit there. And obviously, clubhouse fit is a huge part of the mayor's evaluation of players and whether or not they're going to spend significant resources to acquire set players. It seems like jazz is fitting great in New York, from the outside looking in.

And obviously, he's already been an all-star. Yeah. So has had a lot of success? I was, we'll just ignore that. I mean, he.

Totally spaced out on a new field pop-up and then double it down and said he didn't make a base running mistake. So now, now to be fair about the home run derby thing, no, about the home run derby thing. Why was he allowed to participate in that right after coming off of an oblique injury? I don't know. Plus, Gino wanted to do it like, whatever. Yeah. Yeah, the Mariners very clearly place the good deal of value on clubhouse.

and I'm not sure if that's because of like the Gene Seguera thing and the in the Robinson Canoe thing. But yeah, Seguerra kind of had that reputation when they acquired him as well. So he's a little rough in the clubhouse. He's going to rub some people the wrong way. So, yeah, I do think that that played a factor. But in general, do I wish the Mariners had jazz chisholm? Yeah, yeah.

And so do I think the Mariners could have beaten that offer? well, you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And this was a year ago. So like the Harry Ford's of the world, their stock was going down. And nobody really quite knew what to make of Cole Young and all that. So it's tough to say that, yes, they absolutely could have beaten that deal a year later. But in theory on paper, they could have. And you kind of wish they would.

But, you know, would you have traded six years of Cole Young, seven years of Cole Young for Jazz Chisholm? I don't, would you have had to? I don't know. But I think that's mostly, like Ty said, because of the clubhouse stuff. I think there was some concern there. And the Mariners obviously care about that. Matthew wants to know, where would have the six prospects the mayor's traded at the deadline ranked in your updated rankings if they were still in the system?

I had recently moved Locklear from about 18 to 13, I believe. So he was not quite in the top 10, but yeah, the changes he made were legit that he was the best guy that they moved. Garcia, I believe I had, and I again, keep in mind, I'd already put in the draft picks at this point that I was going to rank. So they were all counted. Garcia, I had around 20, I believe. Yeah. Izzy was I want to say

24, 25 somewhere in that range he had taken a big step back this year and then I didn't have Burgos ranked who am I missing Ty who are the other crossback Cranton and Jeter Martinez Yes

Jeter Martinez wasn't in my top 30 either and Cranton was 22 Yeah So I had Locklear 12 at Garcia 19 at Cranton 25 Gita Martinez didn't make the list Ashen Izzy didn't make the list for me yeah and Burgos I had on the fringe of like 30 so relative to my personal rankings

the mayor's didn't give up much at the deadline line. Yeah, two top 20s, maybe at most for top 30s. And half of those top 30s were, you know, outside the top 25, 22. So they didn't give up a ton. They really didn't. So yeah, it was getting really good deadline. But yeah, they traded number 13, number, I believe 19. Then I want to say 22, 25, and then two on rank guys for me. yeah by the way we will be probably doing our prospect rerank next week all right final question of the day comes from daisy and the dingo do you guys think harry ford and cow raleigh can officially efficiently exist on the same roster these next few years cal is already deaching more than he has in the past and it could give him more plate appearances over a full season uh yeah can they coexist yeah sure

Why not? Sure. Assuming Ford survives the winter, he'll be added to the 40 man this winter. And yeah, because very naturally you have the backup catcher spot open. And be able to give it to Ford instead of paying Garber five, six million bucks, you know, this team is probably going to be looking for some cheap options around the diamond because they have quite a few players they need to decide. they're trying to extend or whatnot. That's not to count the guys they may have to trade because blah, blah, blah,

ownership sucks and, you know, guys are getting raises. So yada, yada, yada. So yeah, having a backup catcher who can run, who can draw a walk, who's running into power and can do that all for the league minimum is going to be pretty valuable to Seattle. And we saw that because they just weren't willing to give Harry Ford away. Yeah.

So, yes, they can. I think in order for it to make a great deal sense, Harry is going to have to learn how to play some outfield this winter. He's certainly athletic enough to do it. It's just a matter of getting the reps and doing it that way. So yeah, Ford is a catcher. Like the Mariners have been very clear about that. Harry Ford is a catcher in their eyes. But obviously, he's a young player. You don't want him to just have a traditional backup catcher role. You want him to play a little bit more

than that. So having him being able to go, you know, hang out in right field or left field, you know, once a week could give him that extra. Yeah, Cal Raleigh, you know, D-Hing a little bit more, maybe getting some true days off instead of, you know, deaching would help. He's still played a lot this year, even though he's D-H more than he ever has. And I do wonder, side note here, if the Mariners, now that they've built this really deep lineup, if we might see Cal just get more days off. Like, because you can, you take Cal Raleigh out of this lineup for a day and it doesn't look like you have no shot of winning a game, you know, so I do hope that maybe they start

to give Cal real days off here down the stretch because you're going to need them in September and October, hopefully. And you can't do that if you run them into the ground this month like you have for most of the year. So, but yeah, they can have. Garver has been competent and he's been good behind the plate. And then, you know, in the box, he's been competent. He's been about a league average bat.

And if you really need it, if you really need, you know, to pinch it for Garber in the eighth, whatever, Cal can catch an inning. It's not a big deal. So, yeah, hopefully they do give Cal some more time off. But yeah, I do then carry forward because he can do a lot of things to help you on the baseball field with the base running and, you know, drawing the walks. And again, emerging power as we speak. And he's a really good athlete. I do think there is a pretty easy fit there where it's, you know, hey, maybe Harry catches twice a week or three times a week.

Cal DHS two of those days and he gets one day off. And then Harry gets a game in right field or left field or whatever to kind of, you know, keep them fresh and keep the player development going. So, yeah, they can absolutely coexist. And again, Harry has to survive the winter. He's going to be another hot commodity. So, but yeah, they can coexist, absolutely, especially, I mean, Garber right now is complicating things because he's playing well enough that you really don't need to make that swap.

And you don't want three catcher-onlys on the roster. So, but yeah, I think we'll see Harry work on, on some outfield stuff this winter. And then I think he'll enter spring training as the heavy favorite to make the opening day roster as the backup catcher slash corner. or outfielder. And they can get them enough playing time that way to make it make sense. And if he struggles, they could always just send them down back to AAA for a little while. So yeah, they absolutely coexist. And it could help Cal to have more days off and to have even more DHS days.

And who knows, maybe even learn to play a little bit of first base. If you, you know, if you want to start that transition a couple years early. But yeah, they can coexist, absolutely. You got a couple of minutes here. You want to talk real quick about the, we can see. series sure felt like there was real ball played between these two clubs a lot of balls put in play a lot of stress put on the defenses a lot of guys emotion on the base pass all that um you know these teams just kind of punch him back and forth especially be you know from games

two through four maybe not really game one but um yeah I thought it was a really cool series uh just like from a pure baseball perspective. And also, you know, once again, like we talked about on Thursday, you know, stacking up this, uh, juggernaut of a Mariners offense against the, the juggernaut of a Rangers pitching staff, um, you know, you kind of look at like what these two teams did at the deadline and how, you know, the Rangers in part going on and get Merrill Kelly and Danny Kulom and Phil Maton is, you know, in response to what the marriage just did and what they built on offense. And, you know, that pitching staff is,

being further strengthened in part to try and stop that offense, right? And for the most part, it was advantage Mariners over the weekend. You know, and even when this offense, I would say that this really encouraged me because I felt like this offense maybe played it. It's like 50th percentile at best over the weekend. And if like their 50th percentile is still being able to score four or five runs in the most offensive suppressive ballpark against arguably the, best pitching staff in baseball, then look out.

Right. So it just kind of felt like over the course of these games, eventually one or two of these guys were going to be able to break out. And you saw that especially yesterday where you're not getting really anything out a cow. Like you did have the big walk to set up Julio's home run, but like you didn't really get anything out of cow. You got nothing out of Naylor and Gino.

But still, like, Polo has the solo home run. JP is starting to hit a little bit again. He has the two run home run. It makes me excited about what this office. offense could eventually be. Yeah. You know, even in the couple games where Texas pitching looked like they had held down, you know, held the Mariners down, you know, on Friday,

again, the Mariners had like, what, four foul balls that just hooked around, hooked by the pole and like almost went out. Yeah, they could have easily scored 10 on. Yeah. And then they had, I don't know, three or four warning track balls that just died at the track. Like, Geno's double was foul by like, you know, foot. They were probably a combined 15 feet between all these batted balls away from putting up, you know, seven, eight, nine runs against, against Texas. And then obviously, you know, Kelly pitched well yesterday until he kind of forgot the rules of baseball for an inning.

Saturday. Yeah, Saturday. And, you know, even the best lineups are not going to be good. And Kelly was really good in his first ranger start. So the fact that they got that game to extras and still had a good chance to win it, you know, bummer that they didn't because if they did, like if they had swept Texas, the Rangers season might be over. Like, because a four-game lead with the tiebreaker also, it's real tough for Texas to make that up in 50 games. Not impossible, but it's tough. As I think standing right now, a two-game lead over Texas with the tiebreaker also.

still you know tex has some work to do but it's it's within the it's within their graphs grasp certainly but uh yeah it was a big series when we talked about this this is an underrated series it's four against the team tied with you and you know you really couldn't afford if we said if either team sweeps this this series it might end the season for the other guys uh and you know obviously right after the deadline is a bad time for you to realize like uh oh we're probably not making the playoffs. So, yeah, it was a really good series win. Could have been a sweep, could have been a split, but the Mariners find a way to win three of these four. And really, the offense was as advertised. And by the way, it was this good

without really getting anything of consequence from Cal Raleigh, Gino Suarez, and Josh Nailor. So that just, again, goes to show why a deep lineup is critical and how much much pressure that puts on the pitching staff. Arguably, your three best hitters, three of your four best hitters, didn't do anything this weekend, and you still won three or four against a playoff caliber pitching staff.

That's pretty good. Well, and that's because, you know, on top of having Cal Raleigh and A.U. Honey, Oswara, there's a couple of guys who are MVP candidates this year, and having a Josh Naylor, who's been one of the better hitters in the game this year. You also have Randy Rosa Rana having, you know, his best season of his of his career. You have Julio and we know what Julio can do and we know what J.P. Crawford can be when he's at the top of his game.

And Jorge Polanco, we've seen, you know, stretches of just excellence from Jorge Polanco over the course of this year. And, you know, you're actually getting real contributions out of Dom Canzone and Cole Young's really starting to come into his own. And just there are no free outs really one through nine right now, especially with Canzone. kind of doing what he's been doing against some tough lefties over the last few days. And I know that's an incredibly small sample size. But, you know, Canzone going up against the, the Coulogams of the world and the Garcias of the world. And he's actually, like, being able to do some damage.

He's either drawing a walk or getting a big time single to set up a walk off home run. All that. That is huge. And if he can continue to just do that and just hold his own against lefties, like I texted you to do this yesterday, still feel like they should have gone out and gotten a platoon partner for for Dom. But if he can hold his own against lefties, I think the Baron is right now as they are currently constructed justifiably platoonless. Yeah. I mean, it sure would have been nice as they could

have set themselves up with a really good platoon because it does feel like, you know, Dom against lefties and Cole Young against tough lefties. Like, you know, it's not ideal, certainly. But they're holding their own right now. And the good thing about them holding their own is that you can't really bully Dan Wilson like managers have this year to put in just non-major leaguers like Dylan Moore and Donovan Solano. Like you just can't force their hand by, you know, bringing in a lefty out of the bullpen, which is great because we've seen Houston do that. And Houston's got a lot of lefties, which is a big part of the reason why I wanted them to go

get a righty who could hit lefties. But, you know, we'll see what happens. I know Robles is making good progress, but still a month away if you get him back at all. And then we'll see what the bench looks like with Luke Grayley, you know, assuming he returns with his back problem. We'll see how they maneuver him and can zone and all that. But yeah, you know, the lineup again, it's deep. It's not necessarily matchup base per se in terms of platoons and stuff like that. And, you know, the bench, it does have some speed on it.

It's about all I can say, you know, about the bench. So, yeah, I still think the bench is a problem. I still think the bullpen, the depth in the bullpen was on display. I think the warts that the Mariners still have after the deadline were displayed this weekend, but so too were the strengths and why the Mariners are a legitimate playoff team and a World Series contender. Those were also equally on display this weekend. So, yeah, it was a great series. You get a much needed day off.

You know, you have played on 34 of the last 35 days of like the regular season. Obviously, you had the all-star break in there, which is great. But, you know, on days where Major League Baseball games were being played, you played in 34 of the last 35 of them. And now the longest stretch you go between days off is 10 games. And it's almost one day off a week for the rest of the season. And that should help your bullpen also, which is huge. So, and your rotation, give guys extra days off.

So the gauntlet is is over. Of course, it's never really over in baseball. You know, it's always a grind. But yeah, the long, you know, two weeks plus without a day off thing, that's done for the rest of the year. And so now you can, you can, you know, manage your bullpen a little easier. You can manage your rotation a little easier. And hopefully, you know, the Mariners can get a couple guys back to really help their bench because right now it is non-existent. no but there is a path here to to it to a looking legitimate in about six weeks time all right

that's going to do it for our show thank you so much for joining us here on the locked down marries podcast with colby pad note i'm tennie gonzalez be sure to give us a follow on twitter at l o underscore merriers you can follow me at tiding gzalus and colby at c pat 11 that's cpat 1 1 we're also on blue sky you can follow me at tdg colby at m lb colby in the show at locked on mariners You can also find us on Instagram at Lockdown Mariners. Have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time. Peace.