Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Won't Win Any Games Playing Like That

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

Join Locked On Mariners hosts Ty Dane Gonzalez and Colby Patnode as they assess the damage of the Mariners' brutal 11-2 loss to the Astros. Afterwards, they discuss Jarred Kelenic's defensive struggles and whether or not the team would be better off with Taylor Trammell. Lastly, the duo gets you set for tonight's matchup between Logan Gilbert and Jake Odorizzi.Be sure to follow or subscribe to Locked On Mariners wherever you prefer your podcasts! For questions and other inquiries, email: [e-mail] the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @danegnzlz | @CPat11For more of Ty and Colby, check out their Patreon: http://patreon.com/controlthezone/StatHeroStatHero, the FIRST Ever Daily Fantasy Sportsbook that gives the PLAYER the ADVANTAGE. Go to StatHero.com/LockedOn for 300% back on your first play.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. This episode of Locked-on Mariners is brought to you by Rock Auto. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. Visit Rockado.com and tell them Locked On sent you. It is Tuesday, September 7th, 2021. This is the Lockdown Mariner's podcast.

Your home for Daily Seattle Mariner's News and Analysis. I am your host, Tadie Gonzalez. You can find me at Dane Gonzalez on. Twitter that's D-A-N-E, G-N-Z-L-Z, and on Seahawk Maven at sI.com. I am joined as always by my co-host, Colby Patnode. You can find him at CP-E-P-E-L-Evon on Twitter.

That's C-P-A-T-1-1. Be sure to check out our Patreon, where we talk more about the Mariners and also getting into some non-baseball talk twice a week. We will have a new episode on there tomorrow. Visit patreon.com forward slash control the zone for more information on that. But on today's episode of Lockdown,

Mariners, we will be talking about yet another brutal blowout loss at Minutemate Park. This series starting a lot like the last one. The Mariners played down in Houston dropping the first game to the Astros by a score of 11 to 2 on Monday night. We'll assess the damage. And then we'll discuss whether or not this team would be better off with Taylor Trammell than Jared Kelnick. And we'll get you set for tonight's matchup between Logan Gilbert and Jake Ode Rizzi. If this is your first time joining us on Lockdown Mariners, welcome to the show. please give us a follow or subscribe wherever you're listening to this.

We greatly appreciate it. Colby, not a ton of positives to take from an 11 to 2 loss, especially with a golden opportunity to make up ground in the AOL wildcard race, both the Red Sox and the Yankees losing last night. The Mariners had a chance to pull within two games back, but now they're instead tied with the Toronto Blue Jays for that first team out of the second wildcard three games back of the Red Sox. Abraham Toro provided the lone offensive production for the Mariners on the night,

driving in two on a double, but it was a rough night for him defensively, bad night all around for the defense, actually. And we're going to be talking more about that in the show. You say Kukuchi walked three batters in a row to start the second inning, but he then induced a would-be double play ball. However, Toro commits an error and what would have been a one run for two-out situation, turned into two runs and none out,

and the Astros went on to score six runs and the inning enforced Kikuchi out of the game before he could escape the second. A lot of misses with the fastball for Kikuchi. It was more of what we've mostly seen from him since early July. And his regression could not have come at a worse time. Colby, what should the plan be with Kikuchi over his final few starts the rest of the way?

Because you can't really rely on him right now, but you also can't really justify, and now the rotation because you don't really have any other options. Yeah, there's there's nothing really you can do. You're kind of stuck with what this is and, you know, it's, it's worth noting that Kukuchi was pretty good his last time out. And this is also the third time in his last four starts. He's faced Houston.

So they're pretty familiar with him at this point. So it's just, you know, it's one of those things that you just don't have another option. I mean, it's James Paxton's not walking through that door. and there still is certainly upside with Kakuchi. So you're just going to have to wear this one and accept that this is kind of who he is. And what you're going to get is a big mystery. You don't know what Kakuchi you're going to get on a day and a day out basis. So showing how much you can do.

You can be a little more quick with the hook, so to speak. But, you know, it's a tough situation for Scott to be in where, yes, every single game matters. And you're trying to win every single game. But at some point, you know, you can't. you can't just say, well, screw tomorrow. I have to try and win this game today when it's already, you know, four to nothing or whatever. So it's just, you're in a really tough spot there.

So you got Kikuchi out after an inning in two thirds. I thought that was, I mean, I thought he left him in there too long. After three straight walks, I'm taking out pretty much any pitcher. But, you know, guys have to get ready and all that stuff. But obviously he didn't have it. And then after, after, you know, the damage was done, he probably should have just left him in because I know you've done it once or twice, but you're not coming back from a six-run deficit against Lance McCuller's.

Like, that's not going to happen. So make him wear it a little bit. And it sucks to do that to a player. But hey, you know what? I got to think about Tuesday and Wednesday because those games matter too. And, you know, I kind of got lucky a little bit, Boston lost. Oakland's off today. you know the Yankees lost as well so

Toronto is now tied with me but I'll take that and try and save my bullpen so now much you can't do you're just kind of stuck with what you have at this point yeah you just kind of have to to eat it because you just you have no other other place to turn really I mean would you rather have Robert Dugger Ian McKinney etc and you say Kikuchi probably not probably not i think you're going to just you know take your chances and see what kukchi can

give you on a nightly basis and you know really you you made a great point there last three starts or last three of or three of his last four starts rather have come against the astros and that's statistically the best offensive baseball this year so um you know hopefully he gets it figured out against, you know, once he starts pitching against some other teams here, I think his next start will be against Arizona. Am I correct on that? Is that who they play next?

Yes. Yeah. So he will be in the like second to last or final game in that series. So that's a good soft landing spot for him. Not a great lineup there. Definitely better you know, than than you'd think,

especially but to tell Marte back in there. But definitely a much softer landing spot there for him. So hopefully you can bounce back there and, you know, give them some quality any of the rest of the way because they're really going to need it. But I think, you know, the leash has to be short with him the rest of the way now. If you see any signs of these struggles, you got to yank him because right now you're in the middle of a playoff race. And you can't just, you know, wait and see with him anymore, wait and see if he can figure it out. You got to be very quick on that yank with him. Because if not, it's just going to blow

up in your face and you're going to see this happened because you say is not very he hasn't shown an ability to be able to bounce back from from adversity in game a lot of the time it's usually if things go south things are going to stay south

and you just got to be you got to be you got to be quick on that trigger the rest of the way here because if not you're just going to you're going to suffer a blood loss at a very critical time in the season where you just can't take those else anymore. No, I,

you can avoid it. Right. And, you know, like you said, you say is not a guy who finds it. He either has it or he doesn't. And it's pretty evident, pretty clear. I mean,

even the double play ball that was botched was pretty hard hit. And when he wasn't walking guys, he was giving up hard, loud contact. It was just a mess. And you knew that wasn't going to get better because you say it's not a guy who finds it on the mound, hardly ever.

It's not part of his skin. skill set. And I don't know. Like, I get it, but also for me, it's, you're carrying like an 11 10 man bullpen right now. What's the point of doing that if you're not going to be super quick with, with you say, when you know he doesn't have it. What's the point? You don't need 15 pitchers, you know, if you're not going to be very aggressive with your bullpen. So I don't really get it. Not to mention a couple of those guys can give you multiple innings like Sheffield and, and, and Andres. Andres.

Yeah. And which they did yesterday. But it just, I mean, I don't know. When a guy walks two in a row, you should probably get somebody up right away and get them hot. And then certainly after the double play botch,

get him out of there. Because nothing good is going to happen after that. So it was, you know, simultaneously Scott left him in too long. And then when the damage was done, he took him out too quick. So kind of a fine line you have to walk sometimes as a manager.

But, you know, are the decisions that set you up, you know, how good is, how, and how good of shape is your bullpen today? It's in pretty good shape, and they have the off day on Thursday, so it shouldn't be awful, but those are the things, man. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the game so you don't sacrifice too. Real quick, you know, before jumping to our next segment, what are your overall thoughts about you say Kukuchi, the pitcher right now?

I would say this. if you're the Seattle Mariners and you say Kukuchi is back on anything more than the one-year $13 million player option, you have failed as an organization. This guy cannot be a part of your long-term plans. I'm not wild about even a two-year deal at a similar AAB. I just, he's not a guy that you can rely upon. He'll take the ball every five days. He hasn't missed a start due to injury yet.

But you never know what you're going to get ever since they made the change back to a five-man rotation. He's been mediocre at best and, you know, bad more often than not is probably the more accurate way to phrase that. He can't be, you can't go into next year saying, yep, you say Kukuchi is one of my five starting pitchers. You can't do it. You have to be better than that because you just, you can't sit around and just, oh, well, you know, he'll figure it out. He'll figure it out. We're three years in now. and we're about,

we have about as much, you know, information from this year saying that he's bad as we do that said he was good. And so I like the guy. Obviously, he has very good stuff.

And when he's on, he's, you know, a number three, number two type of arm. But you never know when he's going to be on. You don't know for how long. That's going to,

that's going to be the case. And you just, you cannot rely on that guy. So if Kukuchi is back on any kind of multi-year deal, I think that's a pretty big failure. on the Mariners part, unless it's such a ridiculous value that, you know, you'd be dumb not to, not to, like if it's two years at 15 million total, then fine, whatever. But you have to protect yourself here in Kukuchi.

You cannot rely on that guy for anything right now. So I, I'm very confident they're going to decline that option. And right now, I'm pretty confident Kukuchi's going to take that option because he has been bad for the last two months. and I can't imagine that he's going to get much more than $13 million next year from somebody who doesn't know him as well as Seattle does. Yeah, they need to get more dependability in those rotation. It's not just dependability in terms of health.

It's also production. And you can't rely on that from UC, even though that he was your lone All-Star this year, even though that he was fantastic through the first half of the season for at least most of it. Um, you just, he hasn't shown you any reason really to rely on him. And the, the struggles just continue here into September at a very critical time in the Mariners season.

And it's just, uh, I'm not sure how you move forward with that. Um, but we'll see, we'll see how it turns out and we'll see how he's able to finish out the rest of the way. Uh, coming up, despite a solid series in Arizona, Jared Kellnick has reverted back to his struggles at the plate. but there's another part of his game that's had some serious regression as well. We're going to tell you what that is and whether or not there's a solution to the problem in a moment. But first reminder that this episode of Lockdown Mariners is brought to you by Stat Hero.

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So we all know how much Jared Kelnick has struggled at the plate this year. Of course, he's had his moments. He had a game winning single against the Diamondbacks this past weekend. He's hit for some power. But overall, he's been a rough watch for most of the year. and now it's becoming more than just the bat. Kelnick's glove has gotten progressively worse as time has gone along. We've seen him whiff on balls.

We've seen him take some really strange routes, and it's becoming a bit of a problem. Colby, what have you noticed about Kelnick's defense lately, and what about it is troubling to you? It's almost like he's a newborn deer out there sometimes. You know, you mentioned the bad routes in Arizona. No idea where the wall was, and he pulled up, and that cost him a couple runs.

You know, yesterday he went backwards on a ball that was clearly a jam shot, and then he had to run in, and they couldn't make the play. And it's bad. He's not getting good reads. He's not taking great routes. He's butchering balls that are on the ground. We've seen him drop a couple. On the transfer, we've seen him just kind of kick one or two.

It's bad. It appears that he's carrying his offensive struggles out into the field with him. And if that's the case, then, you know, whether he's the only center fielder on the roster or not, it's not good for the player and it's hurting your team. So we're getting dangerously close to a point where, you know, worse defense or not, Jared Kelnick cannot remain on the major league roster. Or at least, he cannot be out there in center field every single day because it's just getting worse and worse and worse. And at some point, you have to protect the player over.

you know these 10% playoff odds and I think we're if we're not there already we're days away from that I don't think the Mariners are going to pull that trigger though but I think they should strongly consider it so you know we've talked in the past about

who do you replace Kelnick with because you don't really have many options right now Jake Freely is on the IL you have Marcus Wilson who strikes out ton on the 40-man roster. You have Luis Liberato down in in AAA. You have Eric Fulia down in AAA.

You also have Taylor Tremel, who's been with you a couple of times and has had some moments. But since being sent down to AAA on July 15th, Tremel's hit 212, 330315 with a 67 WRC plus, 22.8% strikeout rate. But again, if Kelnick isn't... even contributing to you defensively, if he's hurting you defensively, rather, along with the, you know, consistently bad offense aside from, you know, a couple games here and there. Would you be worse off with Taylor Tremel than Jared Kelnick? Because at least Tremel played a pretty good center field when he was up with the big league club this year.

Yeah. to me, I think we're there. You know, so I would, I think I would make that change because, like you said, you know, is the back going to be, you know, a big upgrade over Kelnik? No, probably not. And even Kallnick has shown some moments at the plate where it looks like he's, like, the at-bats are better, but they're still not good a lot of the time. So, yeah, it's the, the bat is probably going to be a lot.

wash but the glove itself is going to be better with Taylor Tremel. He's more mature. He can handle that, that struggle at the plate without taking it out to the field with him. He's played professional baseball longer than Kelnick has. So he's more suited, I think, to be that guy. And so, yeah, to me, you know, it's, look, it's not great for for Trammel to come up and struggle either. But right now, you know, Kelnick is digging himself a deeper and deeper and deeper.

whole and you know you do have to worry about his psyche and and how that's going to uh how that's going to play into what's happening here so yeah it's it's it's brutal it is but you know i i think you have to do what's best for the player uh in this case and that's kelnick and what's best for the player is taking some pressure off of him and uh and you know really uh you know trying to help him get back into the right head space where he can actually help you um maybe in a couple weeks, but more realistically, probably next year. Yeah, yeah. I just say you got to do something about this.

And I think with Tremel, you know, at least we've seen some stuff with the power this year. And for some reason, the power really hasn't translated back to Tacoma on his second stent in Tacoma, which is weird because he was dominating in Tacoma and his first stent down there. I'm wondering if there's a swing change. there, some kind of mechanical tweak, and it's just, it's not carrying over in the games quite as well as you would hope right now. But again, Tramel is going to give you, like, Tremel can give you everything that Kelnick's giving you at the plate right now, and his defense is just going to be better, you know, and there is a point of diminishing returns here where, look, for example, right, just like catcher. We see a lot of Tom Murphy. We see a lot of Calioli. We haven't seen

Terence behind the plate, I think maybe twice since he was recalled. I get it. Terenz has not been a good defensive catcher, but we're to the point now where you kind of need your best offensive player out there because you can win games eight to seven. You can't win games, you know, zero to negative one. You know what I mean? So at some point, there's a tipping point where defense just kind of you sacrifice it because you need that offensive player.

and you don't want to do that at catcher or center field or shortstop or, you know, really anywhere up the middle. But we're getting there. And if, you know, Tremel can come up and even for two weeks be an average big league bat, that's a tremendous upgrade over what you have right now in center field. So it's probably worth looking at. And, you know, like I said, Kellnick's been better, but still pretty bad. Over his last 32 games, he's hitting 203, 280, 373.

which again, bad. But, you know, considering on the day he was called, he was demoted, he was hitting 096, 185, 193, it is improvement. So, yeah, it's just, it would be nice to be able to just give him the rest of this year and see what he can do. But I don't know what 24 games left if that's what a contending team should be doing. Well, it's just you don't really have any other options. And you probably should have traded for an outfielder at the trade deadline. Probably shouldn't have. Stop the train at just Abraham Toro with the bat acquisitions.

But, you know, hindsight is 2020, I guess. Shifting our focus back to the Mariners current series with the Astros, we're going to look at tonight's matchup and tell you of Seattle can do some damage off of Jake Otorizzi. Before that, however, let me tell you about direct TV stream. Does this sound familiar to you? You've got one device that lets you catch the game live, another that lets you stream your favorite shows, you're watching sports highlights on your phone, and you've got your neighbor's best friends login for the good stuff. Well, I want to tell you about a simple way to get all that entertainment you love without

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they have driven in nine runs all earned in 20 and a third innings pitch. You like to see the bats get going a bit more here. Colby, how do they get that done? They become brand new hitters overnight. Yeah, you know, it's lately the problem has been they build these opportunities and then nobody can come up with the big hit. And it's it's been very frustrating and it's quite annoying that. that it seems like every night there'll be three guys who are having a good night at the plate, and then six who are just kind of hanging on waiting for the other three to get a big hit.

You can't do that. You need to have a lineup that can hurt you one through nine. And if you can't do one through nine, it's got to be one through eight. And if you can't do that, it's got to be one through seven, like whatever. You need that to click right now. And Odor is he's not an overpowering guy. He's kind of a kitchen sink number four starter who's pretty much kept the Mariners off balance. and it's inexcusable how well Oterizzi has pitched against Seattle.

So because he's just, he's not that type of guy. And I mean, sure, maybe he goes six and gives up three, but, you know, that's better than what the Mariners have been doing off of Oterizzi.

I would take that. So yeah, you just, you kind of have to go up there with it with a better game plan because what they've been doing isn't working. And when you have an opportunity to score off of him, you need to take advantage of it. you need to come up with that big hit.

I mean, can we have the bases be loaded once and not just get a sacrifice fly? Like, how about a double? How about a basis clearing double? Can somebody do that for me tonight? I mean, Grand Slam,

obviously great, but that's not that likely. So how about a double? Can somebody hit a freaking double with the bases loaded? Instead of, oh, well, there's a soft ground ball.

Is it going to turn two? Nope, all right, we got one. And then the next guy pops out or strikes out. And we get one out of bases loaded, one out. Can somebody hit a freaking double?

I mean, I don't care who at this point. Somebody do it. The number of times you have bases. Probably has activated the Mariners hit a double challenge. I just, the number of times the past, I don't know, 10 days or so,

the Mariners have had the bases juiced and they go strike out, sacrifice fly, ground out and get one run out of that. Oh, it's incredibly frustrating. It's insane. Put the ball in play.

Yeah. For the love of God, make them make a play at least. I just, it's so frustrating to sit there and go, oh, well, I wonder how they're going to figure out how to get one or zero out of this situation. Figure something out. I don't care what it is. Run a suicide squeeze. Do something. I don't care.

Figure out a way to get more than one in those situations. And if you don't do that, you're going to get your doors blown off by the Houston Astros, particularly in Minutemade Park. You don't stand a chance if you don't take advantage of those bases loaded. one out situations or those runners on second and third and nobody out situations. You need to take advantage of that. You need to put crooked numbers on the scoreboard or you are going to lose. It's really

that simple. Yeah. And you're going to lose big too because this is a these games are going to be high scoring affairs at least for one side. This ballpark is very conducive to you know, high run totals. You're going to

have to win a game like like you said earlier, eight to seven. Seven to six, something like that. That's how you're going to have to win these games against against Houston down in Houston because crazy things happened in that ballpark. And, you know, it's just,

and that offense is really good. It's a really good offense for that ballpark. I think you've reached the maximum number of times. You can beat the Astros one to nothing in the season. Oh, yes. It's two. All right. So stop trying to go for a third time doing that.

Yeah. get a freaking hit with the bases loaded. So for Logan Gilbert, you know, a solid bounce back start for him against this very same team last week. Yeah. How does he stay on the right track and keep a win with and reach tonight? It's got to have the slider. It's really, it comes down to that. We know the fastball is going to be a solid pitch for him.

We know that it's the one pitch we can kind of count on with him to throw strikes with. It's a right-handed heavy lineup. So the change-up, it would be great if he could show that against Tucker and Alvarez and Brantley. But really what it's going to come down to is does he have the slider? Can he get Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve and Yuli Gurriel? Can he get them to with? Can he get them to not have hard contact off of that slider? And last time he was able to do that.

Can he do it in back-to-back starts against the same team? Not loving my chances with that one, but who knows? It's certainly not impossible, but I just, you know, I don't, I don't trust it. But that's really what it's going to come down to. And we'll know, you know, the funny thing with Gilbert is, is that you like to say, oh, we'll know early if he has his stuff. We really won't because typically the first time through the lineup, he's fine. It's that second time through where, you know, he loses the release point or he loses

feel and the slider's bouncing away in the left-handed batters boxes and the change-up is, you know, in the right-hand is in the middle of the right-handed batters box. So yeah, it's kind of a time bomb situation with Gilbert right now. You're kind of waiting for him to go off. And if he doesn't, then you have a good chance to win. But if he does, this game's probably over before it started. So you're just hoping that you get good Logan Gilbert. But anytime a pitcher sees a good offense and back-to-back starts. I'm automatically going to assume that that second start is going to be worse than the first one. But hey, I am more than happy to say, you know, I was wrong tonight if that's the case.

And Logan does have that upside. So you never say never, but yeah, I'm not loving the odds of a repeat performance from Logan tonight. Yeah, score some runs, guys. It would be the best way to go about this one. think. So that's going to do it for today's show. Thank you so much for joining us here on Lockdown Mariners. For Colby Pat node, untiday, Gonzalez. Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L-O-O- underscore Mariners. You can follow me at Dan Gonzalez. That's D-A-N-Z-L-Z and Colby at C-P-E-Pat-E-L-Z and you can also find all that stuff in the description of this episode. Have yourself a beautiful

baseball day and we'll see you tomorrow. Betting on Major League Baseball doesn't have to be a guessing game. if you listen to the new Lockdown Betts podcast hosted by your boy Q and handicap and expert Lee Sterling. Get daily picks, blowout specials, wrong team favorite picks and Lee Sterling's lock of the day. Follow the Lockdown Betts podcast brought to you by betonline.org, wherever you get podcasts.