April 3, 2025 • 52 mins
Anderson Hirst is back for another season of Mariners weekly, and the Mariners start the season 3-4 after the series' vs the Athletics and Tigers. What are some positives and negatives to take away from the opening week? We also hear from Dan Wilson after the opening homestand.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Check check, check, okay and three two.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
All righty, Marriners fans, welcome to the inaugural episode of
Mariners Weekly.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Here.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
During the season, as you know, myself and Chuck Powell
will give you episodes of Stove, not the Stove but
Stove Podcast and the off season about weekly just to
talk about you know, the off season moves and such,
and you can find those episodes during the off season
of course still now, but we want to talk about
(00:31):
the season now, so you can find those on the
Mariner's Weekly podcast page as well. But during the season,
we will be doing a weekly podcast with just myself
and a rotating array of guests, but it will be
just myself Anderson Hurst today from KJR, so we'll be
(00:52):
doing it most likely during the Mariners off day. Now,
sometimes the Mariners don't have an off day, but it
tends to be on the Wednesday or Thursday, whether it's
the Wednesday day game at the end of the home
stand or the Thursday off day that follows before the
weekend series, then that's kind of the days that these
episodes will drop. So you can look for those every
(01:13):
week here on Mariners Weekly with Anderson Hurst. The Mariners
after a questionable offseason, I think is the right word.
A lot of fans were wondering, you know, how this
team would start.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It's still very early.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
We're exactly one week into the season, seven games in
for Seattle and they're three and four. A lot of
the same issues that fans were expecting to see have
have reared its ugly head. The offense seems to be
striking out at as similar rate as last year, even higher.
(01:47):
Of course, it's still early in the season. They've played
all their games at T Mobile Parks, so that should
even itself out when they do start to go on
the road a little bit. But the offense is sputtering,
but you do have some bright spot. I think Randya
rose Arena has been a pleasant surprise. Not necessarily his
results if you look at just his numbers, but if
(02:08):
you watch his at bats, he's hitting the ball hard,
he's taken good at bats, he's battling out there. That's
great to see. Still want to see a little bit
more defensively from him than I'd feel a little bit better,
but still I'll take the offense at this point in
the season. I think Jorge Polonko has been the story offensively,
for this early part of the season, the first week
(02:29):
of the season, he looks like a different player. He
looks like the player of the Mariners. I thought the
Mariners were getting going into the twenty twenty four season,
and you know, it comes out after the season that
he's had, you know, a lot of injury, bad luck
with his knee, you know, and there's been a lot
of stuff about coming to T Mobile Park, coming to Seattle,
(02:51):
your first year, struggling a little bit, and then kind
of getting into the groove for their second year. So
even though the Mariners declined that option for him, they
actually re signed him as he became a free agent,
but for a little bit less money. And I think
it's worked out pretty well offensively now. I do think
defensively there's some major questions with his ability to play
(03:13):
third base, mostly with the arm strength. So that'll be
something to monitor as the season goes on a little bit.
But it hasn't necessarily played into a result just yet,
but it might hear coming soon. The marriage is open
with four against the Sacra Vegasland Athletics on the website
(03:34):
on MLB dot com. They're just the Athletics, but you
know they're in Sacramento is their home home stadium at
this point. They're rumored to be moving to Vegas, but
that still isn't finalized yet and they.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Still have ties to Oakland A's.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
A lot of people think they might actually be going
back if it doesn't work out for Vegas.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I call him the Sacra Vegasland A's because they're still
kind of the Oakland A's in my head. But people
were expecting three of four, not expecting I should say,
wanting three at a four for the Mariners to take
that opening series.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I think.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I think the A's are gonna be a much improved
team and honestly maybe even the main threat to Seattle
winning this division this year. I think they're on par
with the Rangers and with the Astros and with the Mariners.
All four of those teams UH can win this division,
(04:28):
I believe. I honestly think so. The A's went out
and signed Luis Severino in the offseason. They have a
young corps of players that they've already started to lock up,
and Lawrence Butler Tyler Sodis from absolutely went off Zach Geloff,
who hasn't even played yet this season, so he'll add
some pop to that line up a little bit, uh,
and then they just have some good, young, scrappy players
(04:49):
that are that are coming up, and it's it's it's
a good A's team. I don't think they're elite, and
I don't think they're better than the Mariners, but that's
that's not a that's not the same team of the
last two years that you that you split the opening
series of the season two. So I don't think that's
a necessarily terrible result for Seattle getting going to and
(05:10):
two in the opening series against the Athletics. Opening series,
Logan Gilbert looked awesome. He looked every bit his ace
performance that he put out there last year and proved
Dan Wilson right in putting him out there for opening Day.
And the Mariners took that opening day win late with
(05:30):
a Randya Roserena home run as well as a Jorge
Polanco home run go ahead in the eighth inning. Louis
Castillo looked decent, kind of similar to the Luis Castillo
we looked we saw last year, where you know, he
looked strong, he would be pumping through guys, gets a
little bit too much hard contact. From my liking I
(05:52):
still think there can be some a little bit more
swing and miss from him, but he seems to always
come up with the pitch that you need when when
you need it. So maybe if you're up by a
couple of runs or the games a little bit out
of reach, he starts to I don't want to say
lose focus, because he's not that type of guy, but
I think he ups his game in the bigger moments,
(06:13):
which can be a useful tool, especially as the Mariners
continue to play a lot of these close games. And
then then we had the what was it Bryce Miller start?
I think he looked great. The pitching's basically overall been
what you'd expect. Brian Wu also looked great on Saturday.
(06:35):
The one on Sunday with or sorry, yes that was Sunday,
excuse me. The one on Monday with Emerson Hancock was
the one that was concerning for Seattle, and it obviously
was concerning for Jerry Depoto as well, because he didn't
even get through the first inning against a Detroit Tigers
(06:56):
team who was zero three at that point, lost their
opening series, got swept in their opening series. But they're
not an oing three team. They're a good team. The
Detroit's gonna once again battle for a playoff spot in
that Central Division. They have excellent pitching, their offense is improved.
I think they they similar to Oakland. They have a
(07:16):
lot of young guys that are kind of they're starting
to lock up a little bit. Carry Carpenter, Riley Green.
They they got they got some good dudes. The Spencer
Spencer Torkelsen at first base has been really good for them.
And of course Tyrek Schoobel Derek excuse me, I kind
of mix up that name a little bit. I shouldn't
because he's part of my alumni at Seattle University, so
(07:39):
shout out.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
To him there.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
But yeah, I think the concerning thing on Monday was
that Hancock just didn't have his stuff. And I think
this was what a lot of people, including myself, are
thinking coming into the season with all the talks of
you know, should the Mariners trade a starting pitcher to
go get a bat And the name that was thrown
out there was Louis Castillo, mainly because of how much
(08:01):
money he made and if you traded him then you
would have more money to possibly go get in free agency.
I was against that personally. I think Castillo still has
this stuff, and we saw that yesterday on Wednesday, he
absolutely shoved against a good Tiger's lineup to make sure
the Mariners didn't get swept. But but if you had
(08:24):
had traded him, it would have moved Hammerson Hancock, even
when George Kirby's healthy, into the five slot in the
starting rotation. And that's a little bit concerning for me
because this team is built on their pitching, and I
understand like the thought process behind trading away one of
your strengths to go upgrade one of your weaknesses, which
(08:44):
is your offense. A strength is your starting pitching. A
weakness is your offense. So maybe you wouldn't have the
hammer guy that you would every single day, every single
starter you throw out there like you would be expecting
for Seattle, but you would have a little bit more
room for error offensively, and I just don't think that
you would get a bat in return. That is a
(09:08):
bigger gap from what you have now. Then the gap
between Louis Castillo and Emerson Hancock, I think's he's a
major step down from the five starters that you have.
And that's not necessarily a huge knock on Emerson Hancock.
The Mariner's five starters right now, Louis Castillo, George Kirby,
Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller, and Brian wu are all like
(09:34):
probably one through five, the best starting pitching in baseball.
You could argue you don't have a true, true ace,
and I would tend to agree with that unless you
get another jump from Logan, Gilbert or O'Brian will or
Bryce Miller or Louis Castillo bounces back a little bit
to his twenty twenty two form. But one through five,
(09:55):
I would argue, you can't find anyone, especially like looking
at like the fifth spot. You look at Brian Wu there,
I don't think you can find a fifth starter anywhere
in baseball it's even close to what he is, and
I think he could. He might be actually the best
picture on the staff in the long run. So I'm
really excited for his development. But the other reason I
(10:18):
was a little bit against trading Luis Castillo or a
starting pitcher to move Emerson Hancock into the Hancock into
the rotation was as what we've seen happen now with
George Kirby is, if you have an injury, what does
that leave you behind? Everson Hancock. You got Jonathan Diaz now,
who's a fine like slot starter for a couple starts
to cover for injury like he's doing now. But that's
(10:42):
but that's not something you can rely on for an
entire season. So you're you're starting to see now the
difference between those five guys and below them, which is
Emerson Hancock, Jonathan Diaz, and then kind of nothing after
that at least that's ready to come up to the majors.
So that I think Jerry, I'm a pretty big Jerry critic,
(11:04):
as anyone who's been listening to me recently knows. I
think Jerry made the right move and sticking with his
starting rotation as his strength, leaning into what that strength is,
leaning into Tea Mobile Park as the most pitcher friendly
park in the game of baseball, and kind of going
there and seeing what you can get offensively. Now we
might talk a little bit about the offensive side of things,
(11:26):
and even if you are going to kind of work
in the margins there the types of players you can
look for. But I definitely think that they made the
right move in keeping their starting rotation together because of
what we saw on Monday from Emerson Hancock. I hope
that's an anomaly. I really do. But they did send
him down after that game, and maybe it's a get
(11:46):
right kind of stint for him down in Triple A.
We'll see what ends up happening there. But it didn't
look good from Emberson Hancock point two innings pitch. I
think it was six or in runs. It wasn't good.
It wasn't good. Granted a lot of people could see
that coming. With Detroit going on to three, they came
out with some urgency. They knew they had to kind
of jump on the Mariners a little bit, especially with
their five starter, who is really their sixth starter, but
(12:09):
with the injury to George Kerby has to be slotted up.
So I I was a tough start to the series
at the beginning part of the week, and and they
continued on. But let me go back to Monday real quick.
In that start, the Mariners were obviously probably gonna lose
the game, but they actually did get some good offense.
(12:29):
They got home runs from Cal Rawley, got home runs
from Luke Rayley, and I think it was Randy Rosereino
was the third one, and Julio got a triple. He's
started to heat up a little bit of opening series
against the A's, he didn't look great. That's gonna be
another thing to watch as as the season continues to
move on, because as we all know, the Mariners offense
(12:50):
goes as Julio goes. So I don't think they have
the firepower to withstand another Julio slump to start the season.
And if he can kind of get his stuff together,
I want to see a little bit more slug from
him than last year. I know his average was okay,
I was in the two seventies, but he just didn't
hit the ball for the long ball. He didn't hit
(13:11):
many extra base hits. It was a lot of singles,
and I understand that that kind of comes at the
territory of being as an aggressive hitter as he is.
But I also want to see him walk more, and
that is something that I have seen from him early
in this season that that I like. I like the
how much he's taking his free passes, wanting pitchers to
(13:32):
pitch to him because he can be a menace on
the baits pas as well. So don't just think that
once you know, once you walk Julia Rodriguez that you're
done kind of facing him because he is one of
the fastest players on the team, and he can cause
havoc on the baits pass.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
A la Victor Robliss as well.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So I think it's a positive sign for Julio to
start the season that he's getting on base at a
higher clip. I just want to see a little bit
more slug and and he's come up in some big
moments that that game on what was it Sunday, uh
was was huge? It was it was a huge kind
of split the series against the A's. You were down
(14:11):
by one, you had a guy on base. I think
it was the eighth inning as well, and he hits
the goat maybe a seventh inning, go ahead home run
for Julio Rodriguez, and the Mariners end up winning the game.
So let's let's let's continue to see that development from him.
And then he continued that on Monday, Mariner struggled offensively
on Tuesday on a Logan Gilbert start, he was a
(14:32):
little bit I don't want to say shakey, because I
mean it's just we have such high expectations for him
at this point that you can you can have a
a great outing for almost any other pitcher, but it
won't be enough for this team. And and it's lower
than what you would expect from Logan Gilbert.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
It was.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It was not as sharp as he was on opening
night on Thursday, so that that was something to keep
an eye on. And you really needed your guy, your
Rock Lapiedra, the guy you paid Luis Castillo to come
up big on Wednesday to kind of salvage the series
a little bit for Seattle, and he did. He was
one of that was one of his better pitching performances
(15:11):
that I've seen recently out of him. Still a little
bit of hard contact, but he was he was dowing
up that sinker. He was getting his slider to hit
the spots where he wanted to. The elevated fastballs working
well for him. And he's starting to use the change
up a little bit more, which is a huge thing
for me because he came into the Marigers in twenty
twenty two the changeup was his best pitch. He was
(15:32):
a sinker change up guy would go ride in on
the righties and then the change up would just fall
off the table against lefties and rightis and then he
kind of threw in his slider and fastball when you could.
The Mariners have since kind of changed his style of
pitching to a four seamer and a slider type of guy.
He uses that riding fastball a lot from the arm
angle and then kind of hits the slider off of that.
(15:55):
So he's really gotten away from using the sinker changeup,
which I think are still his two best pitches. He
leans into that a little bit more. I think we're
seeing a little bit more of a balanced approach from him.
He's using all four of the pitches, and he's he's
tough to hit, he's tough to square up. He may
not get the swing and miss that we saw a
couple of years ago, but he's gonna get a lot
of soft contact. He's gonna get a lot of ground balls.
(16:17):
And like I said, he makes the pitch when you
need him to and and he did that multiple times
on Wednesday against a decent Tigers lineup. So a big
performance seventh seven innings pitch tour and runs for Luis Castillo.
I think it was five strikeouts. Yeah, you needed him
to come up big in that in that moment, and
he did. And the Mariners actually got to Tark School
(16:37):
a little bit both in the first inning and in
the second inning when they got their runs, they got
a couple of guys on base, and then you know,
Mitch garverf a little flail lot bad at the end
of the first inning. Not what you want to see there,
but they they started to hit around Tark School a
little bit, which raining Cy young winner Mariners kind of
Jorge Polanco, the one guy that you've done had success
(17:01):
with offensively from a results standpoint, at least went away
for paternity leaves, so you're kind of having to throw
out a meh lineup out there. And Dylan Moore with
the home run, a couple other big hits from players
up and down the lineup as well. So Seattle ends
up salvaging the series against the Detroit Tigers to to
(17:22):
get their record at three and four for their first
off day of the season seven games in. Let's look
at the rest of the division, as the AO West
I believe all has seven games played at this point. No, actually,
two of two of the other teams have six games
played currently in first place of the Texas Rangers coming
(17:44):
out pretty hot five and two, start the the La
Angels four and two. You know, a couple could be
questioning the teams that they're playing against, but you know,
they start. They opened their against the White Sox, so
that's going to be a interesting kind of litmus test
(18:06):
moving forward if they're going to be as bad as
they were last year. And then they had the Cardinals,
who are a weird team. I don't follow the NL
as closely as I do the AL obviously, but you
think the Cardinals would be bouncing back after a really
bad year last year. But Angels won that series as well.
The Rangers, on the other hand, opened up against the
Red Sox and they won the first series. Actually sorry,
(18:29):
they split the first series, but then they put against
the Reds and they won that series. So a big
five and two star for Texas. Angels at four and two,
Seattle's at third to three and four, The Astros are
two and four. I don't think the Astros are very good,
and the Athletics are two and five to begin the season.
They're only two wins are against your Seattle Mariners.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
We'll see how kind of how the division shakes itself out.
I honestly think Angels will come back down to earth.
They're not a very well put together team. I think
Texas is gonna be a big question mark on if
they can stay healthy, especially on the pitching side, but
that offense is good. You'd expect Marcus Simeon and Corey
Seger to be just mashing the baseball. Adulis Garcia seems
(19:14):
to be having a bounce back year after a really
tough year in twenty twenty four. Houston, God, they gutted
their team, trading Kyle Tucker, not bringing back Alex Bragman.
They basically only have Jordan Alvarez from the team that
beat Seattle in the playoffs in twenty twenty two and
(19:34):
ended up going to win the World Series. Yeah, they
that's a different team. They still have Jeremy Paigne as
well at short, but he wasn't like one of their
core guys, So yeah, that's a that's a different team.
Josel twov is still there, but he's playing left field now.
It's a weird situation. That's That's one to keep an
eye on because I think the Astros are going to
fall off a little bit this year, so I expect
(19:56):
more from the A's less from the Astros. Angels will
be towards the bottom, and I I think the Rangers
will be kind of with the Mariners, and you know
Astros Athletics for battling for that spot. So keep an
eye on the Al West as we move along into
later parts of the season.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Let's let's take a quick break here.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
We're gonna come back next segment to hear from Dan
Wilson after the game on Wednesday. What are his thoughts
on the on the Tigers series. He kind of takes
a little bit of perspective going into the first seven
games of the season, your first off day kind of
all of all in a home stance. You're not gonna
go on the road for the weekend series against the Giants.
(20:38):
Let's hear from Dan Wilson on the way back. You're
listening to Mariners Weekly on iHeart. Welcome back into Mariners Weekly.
This is your host, Anderson Hurst. As mentioned before, we'll
be doing Mayor's Weekly episodes, usually on the off day
that the Mariners have each week, on Wednesday or Thursday,
but sometimes they do play on every day of the week,
(20:59):
so we'll kind of rotate when these episodes drop, but
expect it most often on a Wednesday or Thursday. Wednesday
after the day game that ends the either home standard
road trip or the Thursday off day before the weekend
series against in this case, the Giants. So we talked
a little bit last segment about just the overall first
(21:21):
seven games, you know what we have seen so far.
We're going to talk a little bit next segment about
kind of your my top three performers of the first
seven games the first week of the season, and then
one thing that I'm not necessarily concerned about, but looking
forward and keeping an eye on as we kind of
move towards the end of the first couple of weeks
(21:44):
of the season. And you know, all baseball fans and
analysts tell you it's early, tell you can't take too
much from the opening games this season. But this is
all we have to react to. So I'm just I'm
gonna do exactly that and react to these games. So
but this segment, we're gonna talk or listen to a
(22:04):
little bit from Dan Wilson after the game yesterday on
Wednesday against the Tigers, a win to kind of salvage
the series. As Luis Castillo dealt, you got a couple
of big hits from a couple uh lesser players that
you'd expect, Ellan Moore getting one of his only to
only two starts in the early part of the season,
gets a big home run, some deep, decent baseball being
(22:27):
played in that series. It's just unfortunate that you dropped
two of three, but you at least got to salvage
that last game. So let's listen to Dan Wilson after
the game on Wednesday as he looks forward to the
first off day of the season.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Excellent ball game today, you know, got a hand in
to the rock.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Just a really gutty performance today when we really needed it.
You know, seven strong h you know just uh really
handled that lineup very well from from the first pitch
all the way through.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Just an outstanding effort. Gave us what we needed.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
And then you know, offensively took a took an advantage
of of a mistake that they made in the field
and and made it pay for two runs. And then
obviously Demo's big opposite field homer there was really really
big to give us a little bit more cushion.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
They they answered back with two, but you know, bullpen
handled the rest from there.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
You know, took care of the ball. On defense, Julio
with a nice diving or you know, sliding play in
the outfield.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
Just really you know, when you look at things, uh,
the way it's been tough around here in terms of
not having a lot of luck today was it was
a big win for us considering.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
How taxurable it has been in the last few days. Quality.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Yeah, I mean that was really a veteran effort right there,
and and uh, you know, he really felt it and
and got through those innings, and and got through quickly too,
you know, very efficient in terms of pitches and was
going at him but had great stuff and and really
didn't give him anything to hit.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And and that was big I think.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Uh, you know, that's when when you see a veteran
do that, you know, you get a sense of of
what they what a veteran means.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
And and that's what that's what a veteran means. What
we saw today.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
I gave up in case I'm sure from the runner
going on or whatever, but get through the seventh and
give Gabe clean inning.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Yeah. Not only did he give us length, but he
gave us right.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
He slotted the bullpen really well, you know, gave us
an opportunity for Gabe there and the left with the
lefties in the eighth, which was you know, another outstanding
inning by Gabe, you know, just came in and and uh,
you know, did his thing and.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Which was awesome. And then Mooney in the ninth.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
You know, a couple of hiccups on that first couple
of hitters, but you know, really came and and beared
down after that and and gave us to gave us.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
The wins loaded he's kind of going away from the
play to gather and throw him. That's a hard play.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
How big is that? Yeah, I mean that's that's the
ball game, you know.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I think when you look at you know, what he
did on both sides of the ball for us today,
you know, hitting home run to give us that third
run which we needed, and then making the defensive play
there at the end of the game, uh, to save
the game. You know, that's a that's a huge effort
on the most part. Again, another veteran that you know,
that's why he's he's got that gold glove because those
(25:28):
are the kind of plays he makes.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
And that was that was one that saved the game
for sure, and plenty before.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
Just what have you seen about his confidence?
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Yeah, I mean he just kept attacking the zone and
you know, he got behind a couple of times, on
those first couple of guys, but then after that was
just attack on the zone and and I mean.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
You see it.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
It's he's difficult to even bunt and uh, Sweeny unable
to get the bunt down and and uh, once he
got that out, I think that was huge for us.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
And and from there.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
You know, he took care of the rest great at bat,
I think with McKinstry there, he just.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
You know, he just made three really good pitches and
I didn't give much a chance.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
At all a couple of losses getting one hit, you know,
to be able to come back and beat.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
A young winner going into any more significance to just
I mean, that's you know, he's a good pitcher, and
he's proven over time that that he is a you know,
a cy Young Award winner, and and he's in front
of his home fans here to some degree.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
And and uh uh you know that is a big
win for us. And you know, they came in here
and swung the bat in the first couple of games.
But for us to take that, you know, that's that's
a big w And and you know we go into
the off day now, get a little rest and and uh,
on the road for the first time. It's short, we could,
we'd come right back home. So yeah, I mean there
(26:49):
there is some significance to to get in that w today.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
And even though you might have won some more results
offensively for the first six games, I mean the type
of win today where if you guys are able to
is just an offense in traction.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I mean, if you can stack these types of wine.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah, I mean that's.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
You know, we pitch so well, we pitched so well
at home and and we're gonna be in a lot
of these kind of games. And we talked about it
in spring training a lot that that we're going to
be in a lot of one run games.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
That's just how it goes.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
We're gonna win the games in the in the late
innings because that's just how our team is built. And
uh uh So when we have these kind of games
and and they're within our grasp, it's important to execute
and and take them.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
And and today we did that. That's that's big.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
The road was double and jumps change of just how
much of a threat is he not just in the leadoff,
just knowing that he's gonna be swinging pretty much.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Yeah, I mean, Vick is really, you know, he can
affect the game in so many different ways, and today
is with his bat. Sometimes it's his leg, sometimes it's
his outfield defense. I mean, he can affect the game
in a lot in all areas. And and getting that
pitch today and driving it to left center field, I
thought initially off the bat had a chance to get out,
but it just you know, had enough to carry over
(28:05):
the glove and that's all we needed. That was a
big really a big get for us to get the
first lead of the series and uh, you know, be
able to kind of settle in at that point and
then you know, Demo's homer was was was big as
well to kind of give us a little bit bigger cushion.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
We didn't have it for long.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
But but at the same time, it was just nice
to you know, offensively, to do some things that that
we've been talking about. I think, you know, Demo able
to go the opposite field on that was big. So again,
a lot of good things you know, all over the
field today, whether it was offense, defense, pitching, everything was
was big today.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well, it was one.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
Walk away from tying his as many walks as he
had all of margin.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
A bro last what are you seeing from him as
far as like maybe a change in.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
Approach or.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, I mean, Patients is big.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
You know, he's uh, you know, he's that type of
hitter that you know teams are going to be very
careful with. And so he's you know, I think he's
beginning to understand that and mature into that. But you know,
at the same time, you know, when he hits the ball,
it goes a long way and and you know, he.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Can really do some damage.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
So he's you know, I think he's had some really
good at bats and and he's learning a lot here,
but you know, doing what he can to help the club.
That that catch early in the game was big for us,
I think on the defensive side, you know, kind of
kept them at bay again, and and you know he's
finding ways to contribute all over the place.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
All right.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
That's Dan Wilson post game after the Mariners win in
Game three of the series against the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Side note.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I love how during the postgame press conference you can
just hear the music blaring in the other room right
next to it after a win. That's always a good
feeling as a press you know, reporter that gets to
go in there. You know the guys are vibing after
a win like that. It's it's good for them to
kind of get that off their chest after a rough
first couple of games of the series, So that that
(30:08):
was a good kind of sign. And you'll kind of
hear that as as we move forward and have a
lot of these press conferences playing for you here on
maren Is Weekly. That's a sign that you know things
are things are okay when you hear the music blairing
like that, the guys are going. We have a good,
close knit group that we can counter of root for here.
So we'll come back next segment. We're going to talk
a little bit about kind of the three aspects I
(30:31):
should say of the Mariners that I'm most impressed with
or maybe even surprised with. And then one thing that
I'm looking at keeping an eye on towards the as
we move along here in the early part of the season.
Not necessarily concerned yet because it's a little early to
be saying that, but it's something that I will be
watching closely as we move forward here in the first
(30:55):
couple of weeks of the season. You can hear, you
can hear anything you want Mariner from from this podcast page.
But we'll be talking a lot of Mariners on Sports
Radio KJAR as well. Tune into the Guys morning show
Chuck and Buck that they break it down better than
anyone after each Mariner's game, give you the rundown on
what happened in the game, some some analysis, uh from
(31:15):
a former player like Bucky Jacobson, he's awesome. And then
kind of a bigger picture analyst from from Chuck Powell,
who he is great at kind of throwing things in perspective.
Then you got Mark James mj in the midday Ian
Farness from one to three every Monday, check Come, Come,
check out Molly wat Monday, it's Nathan Bishop, Chris Crawford
(31:38):
and myself. We have a good time kind of breaking
down the week of Mariners baseball. And then of course
Softy and Dick in the afternoons give a fans perspective,
shall I say, of of what the Mariners are are
doing recently. So uh, we'll have your Mariners coverage all
all day, every day on Sports Radio kJ R. We'll
(31:58):
come back next segment and do our kind of positives
and negatives from the first two series of the season.
You're listening to Marion's Weekly with Anderson Hurst. Welcome back
into Mariners Weekly. This is your host, Anderson Hurst. Thanks
so much to the Seattle Mariners and their PR staff
(32:19):
for getting us that audio from Dan Wilson after the
win on Wednesday to salvage the Detroit series and end
the home stand. Opening home stand, I should say in
the first seven games three and four. The Mariners will
go on the road and face the San Francisco Giants
this weekend before coming back home starting next week. I
(32:41):
want us to do a couple things this segment. Number one,
we're gonna I'm gonna have a little bit of a
bigger picture conversation about the roster construction of this team,
kind of recapping what we've seen so far and kind
of in response to what me and Chuck we're talking
about in the off season on the Stove podcast. But first,
I want to do a quick positives and negatives that
(33:03):
I saw from the opening week and opening home stand
of the Mariners season. Again, they're three and four, currently
third in the Al West, but of course it's a
little early to kind of be looking at standings and
all that. Jazz so three positives. I want to kind
of go from number one, HORGEE. Polanco's offense, it's we'll
(33:24):
get to the defense a little bit later. But offensively,
it's looked he's looked like a completely new player, at
least compared to last year. This is a lot more
what I expected from him coming over from Minnesota going
into last year. And I wasn't a huge fan of
the Colton Wong trade in twenty twenty three, and I
(33:44):
thought it was pretty similar to what you got from
Adam Fraser in twenty twenty two. But I thought Jorge
Polanco would be a pretty big upgrade in that sense,
and it would at least salvage the loss of a
loss of Auhenio Suarez. A lot of people think look
at the Suarez deals like, oh, it's just a straight
up salary dump and you're you're just being cheap and
(34:04):
all that stuff. I see it a little bit differently,
and I'm as big of an au Henio Suarez fan
as there is, and I still don't like the deal,
but I think that deal gets a worse rap than
it actually is, because basically what happened was you dumped
au Heno Suarez's salary to Arizona, and then you use
that salary that you dumped to go get Jorge Polanco
(34:26):
from Minnesota. So in essence, you traded au Henio Suarez
for Jorge Polonco. You also had to give up a
prospect and the deal to to get Jorge Polanco.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
But it's it's not a major one.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
So in my head, you basically traded au Heno Suarez
for Joge Polanco. But even that last year, a Suarrez
massively outperformed, especially in the second half, Jorge Polonco. So
that was the disappointing part to me. You expected Jorge
Polanco to put the ball in play a lot more,
even though his strikeout rate I had been rising for
(35:01):
the past couple of years heading into Seattle, and then
everyone's pointed out how easy it is, I guess to
strike out in Team Mobile Park. So we should have
expected maybe a little bit less from him going into
last year. But the first what is it six games
this year, because he was out in the last sorry
five games, because he was out the last two games
(35:21):
on paternity leave. It did just get announced that he
is coming back for the San Francisco Giant SERIESO so
that's a good sign, but offensively, it's less the results
because you could see how, especially this early in the season,
where you're you're doing the right things, you're you're taking
good at bats, you're hitting the ball hard, and the
results haven't come yet. Look at someone like Randy rose
(35:42):
Arena for that. He has had decent results, but I
think the expected numbers and I don't want to get
too much into that, but it shows that he could
be having an even better year to start, but that
hasn't fully been there yet. For Jura Polanco, it has
and it's great to see for him to start kind
of get off to the start that we all know
he needed playing third base now that you know the
(36:05):
second base kind of platoon of Ryan Bliss and Dylan
Moore is going on, and especially after you decided not
to bring back Josh Rojas, you needed him to step
up at least offensively in that third base spot. And
he's done a good job in the middle of the lineup.
So horgete Polanco definite positive. He's he's looking much more
comfortable at the play, he's turning on balls, he's driving balls,
(36:26):
hit a huge home run in the in the second game, sorry,
first game of the season, opening day against the A's
to kind of take the lead there and would end
up being the go ahead home run, So a big,
big outing from Jrge Polonco. Another positive, I mean, it's
hard to even call it a positive because it's just
kind of what we expect at this point. But the
(36:46):
starting pitching, it's been great to see how dominant they
have been one through four. Again, we talked about Emerson
Hancock last segment, but I think you can expect basically
the same as we've we've seen up until now. Anyone
who had any thoughts of a regression from the Mariners
starting pitching staff, because I mean it's how can you
(37:09):
be that good and not have any sort of regression,
Well they they've proved that they can. Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo,
Bryce Miller, Brian Will have all been really really good.
And then of course you're waiting for George Kirby to
come back and be healthy. So it's been exactly as expected.
And again you've played all your games at Team Mobile Park,
so there is a tiny bit of an asterisk, but
I put less on that that a lot of other
(37:29):
people do. I think you still have to deliver, and
the strikeout numbers are just are looking really really good
so far for Seattle. One more positive I'm gonna I'm
gonna go with Randy or Rose Arena. I think he has.
It was really important for him to kind of get
(37:52):
back to the player that we traded for. He did
not have a great year last year in Tampa. He
came over to Seattle and was better, But I not amazing.
You've seen him go through long stretches where he's one
of the best players in baseball, and it's been a
while since we've seen that from him. So I want
(38:13):
to say there's a little concern from Mariner fans going
into the season on if that's who he is at
this point or if he's just had a little bit
of a prolonged slump through last year and a little
bit in the year before as well. So it's good
to see Randy hit the ball really hard. He's mashing
the baseball right now. He's taken his walks. I really
like his at bats. He's battling out there a little bit.
(38:37):
I want to see a little bit more defensively from him.
But if that's if that's all, we're kind of worried
about at this point in the season, then I think
that's a positive. You'll take your lumps there and left
field with him. He still has the ability. And one
of the big things about Randy for me is that
in the big moments, he's going to come through. He
kind of reminds me the hitting version of Luis Castillo,
(38:58):
where if you're down by six runs, he might have
a couple of flailing at bats here and there, but
I just when you need him in that big moment,
and you needed him an opening Day, he hit a
massive home run to tie the game late in the game,
and if you had dropped that game, you'd be looking
at a two and five start right now. So that's
(39:20):
a big difference between two and five and three and four.
So I think Mariners are have some at least I
have some cautious optimism that Randy's gonna have a bounce
back year here, and honestly, he needs it because you
need some protection for Julio Rodriguez. We talked a little
bit about Julio and the last segment as well. I
just think Julio's there's some parts of his game that
(39:42):
I'm liking. To begin the season, he's walking more. He
seems to have a slightly different approach, more patient, which
I like. I still want to see Julio hitting leadoff,
so it'll be interesting to see how that dynamic works
with Victor Robliss. Robles did not have a great first series,
but he kind of turned it up a little bit
in the the Detroit series, so that's good to see.
(40:03):
I'm interested to see how long of a leash Dan
gives Roblists, because I mean, he was arguably your best
offensive player last year, and it's just it's so much
of an anomaly from what he was in Washington that
you wonder if that it's going to be repeatable, And
early on in the season it shows that it's not,
but I just wonder by how much. So that'll be
(40:25):
a big kind of a thing to keep an eye
on as well. But the one negative thing I want
to mention, and I don't want to say negative, is
just something that I'm going to be watching is the
infield defense. I am higher on someone like JP Crawford
defensively than a lot of the baseball analytics people are.
I still think he looks the part, He gets the
(40:46):
balls that he should, he makes the throws that he should.
His range isn't great and his arm strength isn't great,
but he he very rarely like makes mistakes on balls.
I just think you need that from your shortstop. You
need to have confidence that when it's hit near him
that he can make the play. And I definitely have
(41:07):
that confidence in JP Crawford. But there are some issues
I think, especially at the third base position. And we
talked literally earlier. Jorge Polonko was a positive offensively, and
that's why I specified offensively because defensively it hasn't looked good.
It hasn't costed the Mariners a game yet, but his
(41:30):
arm strength looks like a problem. His reaction time looks
like a little bit of a problem at least from
third base. And that's understandable from someone who has played
so little third base in his career. So that's gonna
be something I'm watching and how successful that is and
if they even consider a move back to second base,
if that ends up happening. But I think the reasoning
(41:52):
be four moving into third base is because you'd rather
have a I guess minus defender at third base you
would at second base. Because Ryan Bliss has been really
good and it's kind of it's been a couple of
years that the Mariners have had a really good defensive
second basement. I mean, you expected that from Colton Wong,
but he didn't really deliver defensively. He wasn't great. Adam
(42:15):
Fraser was good defensively in twenty twenty two for the Marriners,
and I think that was kind of most of the
value that he brought every single day. So and then
you traded for Colton Wong wasn't as good as you expected.
Definitely wasn't as good offensively. Jorge Polanco probably worse defensively
than Colton Wong even but had at least had somewhat
of a stretch of good offensive baseball and like Colton
(42:37):
Wong here, so that was a big, big plus for
Jorge to kind of get the offensive side of his
game going. But defensively, there definitely is some concern there,
and it's gone to the days of the every day
a Joheno Suarez at third base kind of locking it down.
Even Josh Rojas last year, I feel like defensively was
really good. Now offensively after his really hot April, he
(43:00):
really fell off after that. So if you can at
least get at net neutral result from Jorge Polanco moving
to third base meeting you get more offensively from him,
but then maybe you get a little bit less defensively
from him. I think that's a positive because of what
you'll get at second base with Ryan Bliss and Dylan Moore,
(43:22):
because Ryan Bliss is great defensively and we all know
Demo can can pick it at any spot in the infield,
and you have confidence in him filling in wherever he
needs to go. And I like him most at second
base because I don't think he has a relatively good
arm strength either. But I've been impressed with Ryan Bliss
specifically defensively because he's he's shown some athletic plays, and
(43:45):
especially now in a somewhat even infield, you're not able
to shift as much. The second baseman has to make
the play, and it's more important than ever before. Not
ever before, but since the shift has been somewhat regulated,
it's more important to have athletic second basement that can
(44:05):
get the balls because you won't have the shortstop coming
all the way over to help you out against left
handed batter. So I've been really impressed with Ryan Bliss defensively,
but there definitely is some concern with JP and Jorge Polonco,
even though I'm still high on JP.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Than most people.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
One more thing before we get out of here, I
just kind of want to leave you with a thought.
Listeners who are kind of tuning in, We've seen some
okay offensive stretches from the Mariners to the first seven
games of the series, and you could kind of tell
what the derogative from Dan Wilson going into the year
(44:41):
was was he wants to play a little bit more
small ball. He wants to put the ball in play
more strikeout less and that's been the goal for Seattle
for the last two years. That was the year, that
was the goal going into twenty twenty four as well.
They were not successful in doing that. After the twenty
twenty three season, when the Mariners had a then of
(45:05):
franchise record strikeout numbers, they decided they needed to kind
of change up their their approach a little bit in trading.
That's when they traded Jared Kelnick. That's when they traded
au Henio swaz and that's when they didn't pick up
the option on ta Oscar Hernandez or at least give
them the qualifying offer. I think that was a mistake personally,
and now looking kind of hindsight twenty twenty, obviously, I
(45:27):
think going into the year I was a little more optimal.
Going into last year, I was a little more optimistic
on that approach because mainly because of Jorge Polanco. But
I still think that was a mistake, mainly from au
Heniol Suaz's perspective, because I just think he's as good
of a regular, everyday third baseman that you're gonna get,
And even though it was a salary dump, like ten
(45:49):
million is nothing for him, He's he's proven to be
a really really good third basement both defensively and offensively. Yeah,
he's gonna give you a lot of strikeouts, but he's
gonna hit the ball out of the yard, and this
team is reliant on the home run ball, and that
hasn't changed since you've changed the kind of style of
your lineup. Obviously, you'd like to have guys that hit
(46:09):
home runs and don't strike out great like great go
get Won Soto then, but with the budget of this
team and the kind of working in the margins, at
least offensively, the profile of player, I think that the
Mariners mistakenly kind of went around where the gap to
(46:30):
gap hitters, the contact guys, the Victor Roblos of the world,
the Woorhead Poloncos of the world, the Colton Wongs of
the world. I just think those are the types of
players that do not have success in Seattle, especially at
t Mobile Park. If you look at the stack cast
numbers for the park itself, home runs are about average,
(46:52):
a little bit below average. But that's one of the
aspects of the park. Because they look at all these
different parts of what makes a ballpark, Like they say
that cors is the most hitter friendly park and Seattle
is the most picture friendly park, But there's different aspects
of it, right, So what makes Coors such a hitter
(47:13):
friendly park is Number one, how high it is, so
the altitude the ball carries farther, that's just how it goes.
Number two, though, is how big the outfield is. So
when they were building it, they knew in Colorado that
because of the altitude, they would need to, Okay, we're
going to move back the fences because we're going to
try and avoid having so many home runs. Now kind
(47:37):
of inadvertently, I assume.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
I don't know the details of the thought process behind
building of cors Field. But because of that, you've now
made the outfield a bigger area to defend, so more
contact heavy hitters where you can kind of hit it
where they ain't that sort of attitude. That's where those
hits fall into place a little bit. So the doubles
(48:01):
the singles are up right, so it's not necessarily the
home run ball, though those are also up at cours
because of the air. But it's more the contact hitters,
the gap to gap guys, the singles, doubles and triples.
Those are the types of hits that are easier to
get at cors Field than they are at anywhere else.
(48:22):
And it's the opposite in Seattle where because of the
marine layer quote unquote, everyone loves to talk about that,
but because of that, the Mariners actually have a pretty
close fence in comparison to the rest of the league. Right,
So home runs, even though there is a marine layer,
especially early on in the season, home runs are something
(48:43):
that is pretty standard compared to the rest of the
league and the rest of the stadiums. It's because you
move those fences in that you now have a smaller
outfield to cover and there's less space for those hit
it where they ain't type of hitters. There's less space
where a single might turn into a double because of
a big space between the centerfielder and the left fielder right.
(49:04):
So it's less singles, it's less doubles, it's less triples
that are in Tea Mobile Park than anything else. And
of course the strikeout thing as well, and that's a
whole other aspect because a player like a Suarez, a
player like Taioscar Hernandez, they're going to strike out no
matter where they are, right. So my thought process was,
(49:24):
why not lean into your park a little bit, get
a pitch, get like, build your team on pitching.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Job done, good, well done, Jerry Depoto, well done. Justin Hollander.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Offensively, let's get guys that hit long balls and guys
that are going to strike out no matter what, so
might as well take advantage of the one thing that
is at least somewhat average at T Mobile Park, and
that's the home runs. So the hitting profile of one
Auhenio Suarez, that's why he worked here, that's why he
(49:55):
was successful when he came to Seattle, and he didn't
have a fall off that we've seen from other players
like Jorge Polonco, like a Jesse Winker, like Colt wong O,
other players as well. So the Tommy Lastella's, the Cooper Hummels,
the I mean, you can argue like there's a talent
(50:15):
level difference as well, and I would agree with that.
But the derogative to try and get rid of a
lot of strikeouts and get a lot of contact, heavy
hitters going into last year I think was a mistake
and that's gonna be something I'm gonna be watching, especially
at home at T Mobile Park this season because and
(50:35):
I guess the one kind of counter to that argument
is Victor Roblos, because he's definitely not a power first guy.
He's a contact guy, to the top of the order guy,
put the ball in play, get on base, do your thing,
and he's he was awesome at that last year. So
I just have questions whether that's going to be sustainable
over one hundred and sixty two game stretch. So that's
gonna be something I'm watching. I'm curious to how that
(50:58):
develops over the course of the season. And I really
hope that I'm wrong on this. I really hope that
you know the these these contact hitters, find find a
way to have success, find a way to put the
ball in play, maybe play some small ball here and there.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
And I'm not opposed to that at all.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
I don't like bunting as much as a lot of
other people do, but I love the aggression on the
base pass to go steal. I think that we should
do that a lot more, take advantage of your speed.
So there's all these aspects to to how the offense
could be better and score more runs. And in the
thought behind, like, oh, your your team, you have strong,
you struggle scoring these runs already, so let's just kind
(51:36):
of squeeze everything we can get everything out of these
guys that we possibly can. And I don't mind that,
But I just talking about the uh, the roster construction
I do. It'll be interesting to see how it all
plays out. I personally think if you had ran back
the twenty twenty three team with a Henyo Suarez, with
ta Oscar Hernandez and a new second base and I
(51:58):
obviously you can't bring back Colton after that, but I
think if you had that team now, this team would
be talking about two straight years in the playoffs. So
that's just something I want to I'm gonna keep an
eye on going into the rest of the season and
moving forward. This has been Mariner's Weekly. Welcome, Welcome everyone.
If this is your first time listening, appreciate it. We're
gonna talk some Mariners baseball every week, usually on the
(52:21):
Mariners off day, but if they don't have an off day,
or sometimes it falls on different days, it's gonna usually
be on a Wednesday or Thursday in between series, the
first kind of series in the beginning of the weekend
and the weekend series as well. So three and four
Mariners go get two out of three at least from
the San Francisco Giants, and we'll be a little bit
more positive coming into next week with Mariners Weekly. Thanks
(52:41):
so much for listening. Catch us next week. This has
been Marriagor's Weekly with Anderson Hurst.
Check check, check, okay and three two.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
All righty, Marriners fans, welcome to the inaugural episode of
Mariners Weekly.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Here.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
During the season, as you know, myself and Chuck Powell
will give you episodes of Stove, not the Stove but
Stove Podcast and the off season about weekly just to
talk about you know, the off season moves and such,
and you can find those episodes during the off season
of course still now, but we want to talk about
(00:31):
the season now, so you can find those on the
Mariner's Weekly podcast page as well. But during the season,
we will be doing a weekly podcast with just myself
and a rotating array of guests, but it will be
just myself Anderson Hurst today from KJR, so we'll be
(00:52):
doing it most likely during the Mariners off day. Now,
sometimes the Mariners don't have an off day, but it
tends to be on the Wednesday or Thursday, whether it's
the Wednesday day game at the end of the home
stand or the Thursday off day that follows before the
weekend series, then that's kind of the days that these
episodes will drop. So you can look for those every
(01:13):
week here on Mariners Weekly with Anderson Hurst. The Mariners
after a questionable offseason, I think is the right word.
A lot of fans were wondering, you know, how this
team would start.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It's still very early.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
We're exactly one week into the season, seven games in
for Seattle and they're three and four. A lot of
the same issues that fans were expecting to see have
have reared its ugly head. The offense seems to be
striking out at as similar rate as last year, even higher.
(01:47):
Of course, it's still early in the season. They've played
all their games at T Mobile Parks, so that should
even itself out when they do start to go on
the road a little bit. But the offense is sputtering,
but you do have some bright spot. I think Randya
rose Arena has been a pleasant surprise. Not necessarily his
results if you look at just his numbers, but if
(02:08):
you watch his at bats, he's hitting the ball hard,
he's taken good at bats, he's battling out there. That's
great to see. Still want to see a little bit
more defensively from him than I'd feel a little bit better,
but still I'll take the offense at this point in
the season. I think Jorge Polonko has been the story offensively,
for this early part of the season, the first week
(02:29):
of the season, he looks like a different player. He
looks like the player of the Mariners. I thought the
Mariners were getting going into the twenty twenty four season,
and you know, it comes out after the season that
he's had, you know, a lot of injury, bad luck
with his knee, you know, and there's been a lot
of stuff about coming to T Mobile Park, coming to Seattle,
(02:51):
your first year, struggling a little bit, and then kind
of getting into the groove for their second year. So
even though the Mariners declined that option for him, they
actually re signed him as he became a free agent,
but for a little bit less money. And I think
it's worked out pretty well offensively now. I do think
defensively there's some major questions with his ability to play
(03:13):
third base, mostly with the arm strength. So that'll be
something to monitor as the season goes on a little bit.
But it hasn't necessarily played into a result just yet,
but it might hear coming soon. The marriage is open
with four against the Sacra Vegasland Athletics on the website
(03:34):
on MLB dot com. They're just the Athletics, but you
know they're in Sacramento is their home home stadium at
this point. They're rumored to be moving to Vegas, but
that still isn't finalized yet and they.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Still have ties to Oakland A's.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
A lot of people think they might actually be going
back if it doesn't work out for Vegas.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I call him the Sacra Vegasland A's because they're still
kind of the Oakland A's in my head. But people
were expecting three of four, not expecting I should say,
wanting three at a four for the Mariners to take
that opening series.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I think.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I think the A's are gonna be a much improved
team and honestly maybe even the main threat to Seattle
winning this division this year. I think they're on par
with the Rangers and with the Astros and with the Mariners.
All four of those teams UH can win this division,
(04:28):
I believe. I honestly think so. The A's went out
and signed Luis Severino in the offseason. They have a
young corps of players that they've already started to lock up,
and Lawrence Butler Tyler Sodis from absolutely went off Zach Geloff,
who hasn't even played yet this season, so he'll add
some pop to that line up a little bit, uh,
and then they just have some good, young, scrappy players
(04:49):
that are that are coming up, and it's it's it's
a good A's team. I don't think they're elite, and
I don't think they're better than the Mariners, but that's
that's not a that's not the same team of the
last two years that you that you split the opening
series of the season two. So I don't think that's
a necessarily terrible result for Seattle getting going to and
(05:10):
two in the opening series against the Athletics. Opening series,
Logan Gilbert looked awesome. He looked every bit his ace
performance that he put out there last year and proved
Dan Wilson right in putting him out there for opening Day.
And the Mariners took that opening day win late with
(05:30):
a Randya Roserena home run as well as a Jorge
Polanco home run go ahead in the eighth inning. Louis
Castillo looked decent, kind of similar to the Luis Castillo
we looked we saw last year, where you know, he
looked strong, he would be pumping through guys, gets a
little bit too much hard contact. From my liking I
(05:52):
still think there can be some a little bit more
swing and miss from him, but he seems to always
come up with the pitch that you need when when
you need it. So maybe if you're up by a
couple of runs or the games a little bit out
of reach, he starts to I don't want to say
lose focus, because he's not that type of guy, but
I think he ups his game in the bigger moments,
(06:13):
which can be a useful tool, especially as the Mariners
continue to play a lot of these close games. And
then then we had the what was it Bryce Miller start?
I think he looked great. The pitching's basically overall been
what you'd expect. Brian Wu also looked great on Saturday.
(06:35):
The one on Sunday with or sorry, yes that was Sunday,
excuse me. The one on Monday with Emerson Hancock was
the one that was concerning for Seattle, and it obviously
was concerning for Jerry Depoto as well, because he didn't
even get through the first inning against a Detroit Tigers
(06:56):
team who was zero three at that point, lost their
opening series, got swept in their opening series. But they're
not an oing three team. They're a good team. The
Detroit's gonna once again battle for a playoff spot in
that Central Division. They have excellent pitching, their offense is improved.
I think they they similar to Oakland. They have a
(07:16):
lot of young guys that are kind of they're starting
to lock up a little bit. Carry Carpenter, Riley Green.
They they got they got some good dudes. The Spencer
Spencer Torkelsen at first base has been really good for them.
And of course Tyrek Schoobel Derek excuse me, I kind
of mix up that name a little bit. I shouldn't
because he's part of my alumni at Seattle University, so
(07:39):
shout out.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
To him there.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
But yeah, I think the concerning thing on Monday was
that Hancock just didn't have his stuff. And I think
this was what a lot of people, including myself, are
thinking coming into the season with all the talks of
you know, should the Mariners trade a starting pitcher to
go get a bat And the name that was thrown
out there was Louis Castillo, mainly because of how much
(08:01):
money he made and if you traded him then you
would have more money to possibly go get in free agency.
I was against that personally. I think Castillo still has
this stuff, and we saw that yesterday on Wednesday, he
absolutely shoved against a good Tiger's lineup to make sure
the Mariners didn't get swept. But but if you had
(08:24):
had traded him, it would have moved Hammerson Hancock, even
when George Kirby's healthy, into the five slot in the
starting rotation. And that's a little bit concerning for me
because this team is built on their pitching, and I
understand like the thought process behind trading away one of
your strengths to go upgrade one of your weaknesses, which
(08:44):
is your offense. A strength is your starting pitching. A
weakness is your offense. So maybe you wouldn't have the
hammer guy that you would every single day, every single
starter you throw out there like you would be expecting
for Seattle, but you would have a little bit more
room for error offensively, and I just don't think that
you would get a bat in return. That is a
(09:08):
bigger gap from what you have now. Then the gap
between Louis Castillo and Emerson Hancock, I think's he's a
major step down from the five starters that you have.
And that's not necessarily a huge knock on Emerson Hancock.
The Mariner's five starters right now, Louis Castillo, George Kirby,
Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller, and Brian wu are all like
(09:34):
probably one through five, the best starting pitching in baseball.
You could argue you don't have a true, true ace,
and I would tend to agree with that unless you
get another jump from Logan, Gilbert or O'Brian will or
Bryce Miller or Louis Castillo bounces back a little bit
to his twenty twenty two form. But one through five,
(09:55):
I would argue, you can't find anyone, especially like looking
at like the fifth spot. You look at Brian Wu there,
I don't think you can find a fifth starter anywhere
in baseball it's even close to what he is, and
I think he could. He might be actually the best
picture on the staff in the long run. So I'm
really excited for his development. But the other reason I
(10:18):
was a little bit against trading Luis Castillo or a
starting pitcher to move Emerson Hancock into the Hancock into
the rotation was as what we've seen happen now with
George Kirby is, if you have an injury, what does
that leave you behind? Everson Hancock. You got Jonathan Diaz now,
who's a fine like slot starter for a couple starts
to cover for injury like he's doing now. But that's
(10:42):
but that's not something you can rely on for an
entire season. So you're you're starting to see now the
difference between those five guys and below them, which is
Emerson Hancock, Jonathan Diaz, and then kind of nothing after
that at least that's ready to come up to the majors.
So that I think Jerry, I'm a pretty big Jerry critic,
(11:04):
as anyone who's been listening to me recently knows. I
think Jerry made the right move and sticking with his
starting rotation as his strength, leaning into what that strength is,
leaning into Tea Mobile Park as the most pitcher friendly
park in the game of baseball, and kind of going
there and seeing what you can get offensively. Now we
might talk a little bit about the offensive side of things,
(11:26):
and even if you are going to kind of work
in the margins there the types of players you can
look for. But I definitely think that they made the
right move in keeping their starting rotation together because of
what we saw on Monday from Emerson Hancock. I hope
that's an anomaly. I really do. But they did send
him down after that game, and maybe it's a get
(11:46):
right kind of stint for him down in Triple A.
We'll see what ends up happening there. But it didn't
look good from Emberson Hancock point two innings pitch. I
think it was six or in runs. It wasn't good.
It wasn't good. Granted a lot of people could see
that coming. With Detroit going on to three, they came
out with some urgency. They knew they had to kind
of jump on the Mariners a little bit, especially with
their five starter, who is really their sixth starter, but
(12:09):
with the injury to George Kerby has to be slotted up.
So I I was a tough start to the series
at the beginning part of the week, and and they
continued on. But let me go back to Monday real quick.
In that start, the Mariners were obviously probably gonna lose
the game, but they actually did get some good offense.
(12:29):
They got home runs from Cal Rawley, got home runs
from Luke Rayley, and I think it was Randy Rosereino
was the third one, and Julio got a triple. He's
started to heat up a little bit of opening series
against the A's, he didn't look great. That's gonna be
another thing to watch as as the season continues to
move on, because as we all know, the Mariners offense
(12:50):
goes as Julio goes. So I don't think they have
the firepower to withstand another Julio slump to start the season.
And if he can kind of get his stuff together,
I want to see a little bit more slug from
him than last year. I know his average was okay,
I was in the two seventies, but he just didn't
hit the ball for the long ball. He didn't hit
(13:11):
many extra base hits. It was a lot of singles,
and I understand that that kind of comes at the
territory of being as an aggressive hitter as he is.
But I also want to see him walk more, and
that is something that I have seen from him early
in this season that that I like. I like the
how much he's taking his free passes, wanting pitchers to
(13:32):
pitch to him because he can be a menace on
the baits pas as well. So don't just think that
once you know, once you walk Julia Rodriguez that you're
done kind of facing him because he is one of
the fastest players on the team, and he can cause
havoc on the baits pass.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
A la Victor Robliss as well.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
So I think it's a positive sign for Julio to
start the season that he's getting on base at a
higher clip. I just want to see a little bit
more slug and and he's come up in some big
moments that that game on what was it Sunday, uh
was was huge? It was it was a huge kind
of split the series against the A's. You were down
(14:11):
by one, you had a guy on base. I think
it was the eighth inning as well, and he hits
the goat maybe a seventh inning, go ahead home run
for Julio Rodriguez, and the Mariners end up winning the game.
So let's let's let's continue to see that development from him.
And then he continued that on Monday, Mariner struggled offensively
on Tuesday on a Logan Gilbert start, he was a
(14:32):
little bit I don't want to say shakey, because I
mean it's just we have such high expectations for him
at this point that you can you can have a
a great outing for almost any other pitcher, but it
won't be enough for this team. And and it's lower
than what you would expect from Logan Gilbert.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
It was.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
It was not as sharp as he was on opening
night on Thursday, so that that was something to keep
an eye on. And you really needed your guy, your
Rock Lapiedra, the guy you paid Luis Castillo to come
up big on Wednesday to kind of salvage the series
a little bit for Seattle, and he did. He was
one of that was one of his better pitching performances
(15:11):
that I've seen recently out of him. Still a little
bit of hard contact, but he was he was dowing
up that sinker. He was getting his slider to hit
the spots where he wanted to. The elevated fastballs working
well for him. And he's starting to use the change
up a little bit more, which is a huge thing
for me because he came into the Marigers in twenty
twenty two the changeup was his best pitch. He was
(15:32):
a sinker change up guy would go ride in on
the righties and then the change up would just fall
off the table against lefties and rightis and then he
kind of threw in his slider and fastball when you could.
The Mariners have since kind of changed his style of
pitching to a four seamer and a slider type of guy.
He uses that riding fastball a lot from the arm
angle and then kind of hits the slider off of that.
(15:55):
So he's really gotten away from using the sinker changeup,
which I think are still his two best pitches. He
leans into that a little bit more. I think we're
seeing a little bit more of a balanced approach from him.
He's using all four of the pitches, and he's he's
tough to hit, he's tough to square up. He may
not get the swing and miss that we saw a
couple of years ago, but he's gonna get a lot
of soft contact. He's gonna get a lot of ground balls.
(16:17):
And like I said, he makes the pitch when you
need him to and and he did that multiple times
on Wednesday against a decent Tigers lineup. So a big
performance seventh seven innings pitch tour and runs for Luis Castillo.
I think it was five strikeouts. Yeah, you needed him
to come up big in that in that moment, and
he did. And the Mariners actually got to Tark School
(16:37):
a little bit both in the first inning and in
the second inning when they got their runs, they got
a couple of guys on base, and then you know,
Mitch garverf a little flail lot bad at the end
of the first inning. Not what you want to see there,
but they they started to hit around Tark School a
little bit, which raining Cy young winner Mariners kind of
Jorge Polanco, the one guy that you've done had success
(17:01):
with offensively from a results standpoint, at least went away
for paternity leaves, so you're kind of having to throw
out a meh lineup out there. And Dylan Moore with
the home run, a couple other big hits from players
up and down the lineup as well. So Seattle ends
up salvaging the series against the Detroit Tigers to to
(17:22):
get their record at three and four for their first
off day of the season seven games in. Let's look
at the rest of the division, as the AO West
I believe all has seven games played at this point. No, actually,
two of two of the other teams have six games
played currently in first place of the Texas Rangers coming
(17:44):
out pretty hot five and two, start the the La
Angels four and two. You know, a couple could be
questioning the teams that they're playing against, but you know,
they start. They opened their against the White Sox, so
that's going to be a interesting kind of litmus test
(18:06):
moving forward if they're going to be as bad as
they were last year. And then they had the Cardinals,
who are a weird team. I don't follow the NL
as closely as I do the AL obviously, but you
think the Cardinals would be bouncing back after a really
bad year last year. But Angels won that series as well.
The Rangers, on the other hand, opened up against the
Red Sox and they won the first series. Actually sorry,
(18:29):
they split the first series, but then they put against
the Reds and they won that series. So a big
five and two star for Texas. Angels at four and two,
Seattle's at third to three and four, The Astros are
two and four. I don't think the Astros are very good,
and the Athletics are two and five to begin the season.
They're only two wins are against your Seattle Mariners.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
So.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
We'll see how kind of how the division shakes itself out.
I honestly think Angels will come back down to earth.
They're not a very well put together team. I think
Texas is gonna be a big question mark on if
they can stay healthy, especially on the pitching side, but
that offense is good. You'd expect Marcus Simeon and Corey
Seger to be just mashing the baseball. Adulis Garcia seems
(19:14):
to be having a bounce back year after a really
tough year in twenty twenty four. Houston, God, they gutted
their team, trading Kyle Tucker, not bringing back Alex Bragman.
They basically only have Jordan Alvarez from the team that
beat Seattle in the playoffs in twenty twenty two and
(19:34):
ended up going to win the World Series. Yeah, they
that's a different team. They still have Jeremy Paigne as
well at short, but he wasn't like one of their
core guys, So yeah, that's a that's a different team.
Josel twov is still there, but he's playing left field now.
It's a weird situation. That's That's one to keep an
eye on because I think the Astros are going to
fall off a little bit this year, so I expect
(19:56):
more from the A's less from the Astros. Angels will
be towards the bottom, and I I think the Rangers
will be kind of with the Mariners, and you know
Astros Athletics for battling for that spot. So keep an
eye on the Al West as we move along into
later parts of the season.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Let's let's take a quick break here.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
We're gonna come back next segment to hear from Dan
Wilson after the game on Wednesday. What are his thoughts
on the on the Tigers series. He kind of takes
a little bit of perspective going into the first seven
games of the season, your first off day kind of
all of all in a home stance. You're not gonna
go on the road for the weekend series against the Giants.
(20:38):
Let's hear from Dan Wilson on the way back. You're
listening to Mariners Weekly on iHeart. Welcome back into Mariners Weekly.
This is your host, Anderson Hurst. As mentioned before, we'll
be doing Mayor's Weekly episodes, usually on the off day
that the Mariners have each week, on Wednesday or Thursday,
but sometimes they do play on every day of the week,
(20:59):
so we'll kind of rotate when these episodes drop, but
expect it most often on a Wednesday or Thursday. Wednesday
after the day game that ends the either home standard
road trip or the Thursday off day before the weekend
series against in this case, the Giants. So we talked
a little bit last segment about just the overall first
(21:21):
seven games, you know what we have seen so far.
We're going to talk a little bit next segment about
kind of your my top three performers of the first
seven games the first week of the season, and then
one thing that I'm not necessarily concerned about, but looking
forward and keeping an eye on as we kind of
move towards the end of the first couple of weeks
(21:44):
of the season. And you know, all baseball fans and
analysts tell you it's early, tell you can't take too
much from the opening games this season. But this is
all we have to react to. So I'm just I'm
gonna do exactly that and react to these games. So
but this segment, we're gonna talk or listen to a
(22:04):
little bit from Dan Wilson after the game yesterday on
Wednesday against the Tigers, a win to kind of salvage
the series. As Luis Castillo dealt, you got a couple
of big hits from a couple uh lesser players that
you'd expect, Ellan Moore getting one of his only to
only two starts in the early part of the season,
gets a big home run, some deep, decent baseball being
(22:27):
played in that series. It's just unfortunate that you dropped
two of three, but you at least got to salvage
that last game. So let's listen to Dan Wilson after
the game on Wednesday as he looks forward to the
first off day of the season.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Excellent ball game today, you know, got a hand in
to the rock.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Just a really gutty performance today when we really needed it.
You know, seven strong h you know just uh really
handled that lineup very well from from the first pitch
all the way through.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Just an outstanding effort. Gave us what we needed.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
And then you know, offensively took a took an advantage
of of a mistake that they made in the field
and and made it pay for two runs. And then
obviously Demo's big opposite field homer there was really really
big to give us a little bit more cushion.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
They they answered back with two, but you know, bullpen
handled the rest from there.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
You know, took care of the ball. On defense, Julio
with a nice diving or you know, sliding play in
the outfield.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
Just really you know, when you look at things, uh,
the way it's been tough around here in terms of
not having a lot of luck today was it was
a big win for us considering.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
How taxurable it has been in the last few days. Quality.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Yeah, I mean that was really a veteran effort right there,
and and uh, you know, he really felt it and
and got through those innings, and and got through quickly too,
you know, very efficient in terms of pitches and was
going at him but had great stuff and and really
didn't give him anything to hit.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And and that was big I think.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
Uh, you know, that's when when you see a veteran
do that, you know, you get a sense of of
what they what a veteran means.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
And and that's what that's what a veteran means. What
we saw today.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
I gave up in case I'm sure from the runner
going on or whatever, but get through the seventh and
give Gabe clean inning.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Yeah. Not only did he give us length, but he
gave us right.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
He slotted the bullpen really well, you know, gave us
an opportunity for Gabe there and the left with the
lefties in the eighth, which was you know, another outstanding
inning by Gabe, you know, just came in and and uh,
you know, did his thing and.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Which was awesome. And then Mooney in the ninth.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
You know, a couple of hiccups on that first couple
of hitters, but you know, really came and and beared
down after that and and gave us to gave us.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
The wins loaded he's kind of going away from the
play to gather and throw him. That's a hard play.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
How big is that? Yeah, I mean that's that's the
ball game, you know.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I think when you look at you know, what he
did on both sides of the ball for us today,
you know, hitting home run to give us that third
run which we needed, and then making the defensive play
there at the end of the game, uh, to save
the game. You know, that's a that's a huge effort
on the most part. Again, another veteran that you know,
that's why he's he's got that gold glove because those
(25:28):
are the kind of plays he makes.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
And that was that was one that saved the game
for sure, and plenty before.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
Just what have you seen about his confidence?
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Yeah, I mean he just kept attacking the zone and
you know, he got behind a couple of times, on
those first couple of guys, but then after that was
just attack on the zone and and I mean.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
You see it.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
It's he's difficult to even bunt and uh, Sweeny unable
to get the bunt down and and uh, once he
got that out, I think that was huge for us.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
And and from there.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
You know, he took care of the rest great at bat,
I think with McKinstry there, he just.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
You know, he just made three really good pitches and
I didn't give much a chance.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
At all a couple of losses getting one hit, you know,
to be able to come back and beat.
Speaker 6 (26:14):
A young winner going into any more significance to just
I mean, that's you know, he's a good pitcher, and
he's proven over time that that he is a you know,
a cy Young Award winner, and and he's in front
of his home fans here to some degree.
Speaker 4 (26:29):
And and uh uh you know that is a big
win for us. And you know, they came in here
and swung the bat in the first couple of games.
But for us to take that, you know, that's that's
a big w And and you know we go into
the off day now, get a little rest and and uh,
on the road for the first time. It's short, we could,
we'd come right back home. So yeah, I mean there
(26:49):
there is some significance to to get in that w today.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
And even though you might have won some more results
offensively for the first six games, I mean the type
of win today where if you guys are able to
is just an offense in traction.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
I mean, if you can stack these types of wine.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Yeah, I mean that's.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
You know, we pitch so well, we pitched so well
at home and and we're gonna be in a lot
of these kind of games. And we talked about it
in spring training a lot that that we're going to
be in a lot of one run games.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
That's just how it goes.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
We're gonna win the games in the in the late
innings because that's just how our team is built. And
uh uh So when we have these kind of games
and and they're within our grasp, it's important to execute
and and take them.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
And and today we did that. That's that's big.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
The road was double and jumps change of just how
much of a threat is he not just in the leadoff,
just knowing that he's gonna be swinging pretty much.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Yeah, I mean, Vick is really, you know, he can
affect the game in so many different ways, and today
is with his bat. Sometimes it's his leg, sometimes it's
his outfield defense. I mean, he can affect the game
in a lot in all areas. And and getting that
pitch today and driving it to left center field, I
thought initially off the bat had a chance to get out,
but it just you know, had enough to carry over
(28:05):
the glove and that's all we needed. That was a
big really a big get for us to get the
first lead of the series and uh, you know, be
able to kind of settle in at that point and
then you know, Demo's homer was was was big as
well to kind of give us a little bit bigger cushion.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
We didn't have it for long.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
But but at the same time, it was just nice
to you know, offensively, to do some things that that
we've been talking about. I think, you know, Demo able
to go the opposite field on that was big. So again,
a lot of good things you know, all over the
field today, whether it was offense, defense, pitching, everything was
was big today.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well, it was one.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
Walk away from tying his as many walks as he
had all of margin.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
A bro last what are you seeing from him as
far as like maybe a change in.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
Approach or.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, I mean, Patients is big.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
You know, he's uh, you know, he's that type of
hitter that you know teams are going to be very
careful with. And so he's you know, I think he's
beginning to understand that and mature into that. But you know,
at the same time, you know, when he hits the ball,
it goes a long way and and you know, he.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Can really do some damage.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
So he's you know, I think he's had some really
good at bats and and he's learning a lot here,
but you know, doing what he can to help the club.
That that catch early in the game was big for us,
I think on the defensive side, you know, kind of
kept them at bay again, and and you know he's
finding ways to contribute all over the place.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
All right.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
That's Dan Wilson post game after the Mariners win in
Game three of the series against the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Side note.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
I love how during the postgame press conference you can
just hear the music blaring in the other room right
next to it after a win. That's always a good
feeling as a press you know, reporter that gets to
go in there. You know the guys are vibing after
a win like that. It's it's good for them to
kind of get that off their chest after a rough
first couple of games of the series, So that that
(30:08):
was a good kind of sign. And you'll kind of
hear that as as we move forward and have a
lot of these press conferences playing for you here on
maren Is Weekly. That's a sign that you know things
are things are okay when you hear the music blairing
like that, the guys are going. We have a good,
close knit group that we can counter of root for here.
So we'll come back next segment. We're going to talk
a little bit about kind of the three aspects I
(30:31):
should say of the Mariners that I'm most impressed with
or maybe even surprised with. And then one thing that
I'm looking at keeping an eye on towards the as
we move along here in the early part of the season.
Not necessarily concerned yet because it's a little early to
be saying that, but it's something that I will be
watching closely as we move forward here in the first
(30:55):
couple of weeks of the season. You can hear, you
can hear anything you want Mariner from from this podcast page.
But we'll be talking a lot of Mariners on Sports
Radio KJAR as well. Tune into the Guys morning show
Chuck and Buck that they break it down better than
anyone after each Mariner's game, give you the rundown on
what happened in the game, some some analysis, uh from
(31:15):
a former player like Bucky Jacobson, he's awesome. And then
kind of a bigger picture analyst from from Chuck Powell,
who he is great at kind of throwing things in perspective.
Then you got Mark James mj in the midday Ian
Farness from one to three every Monday, check Come, Come,
check out Molly wat Monday, it's Nathan Bishop, Chris Crawford
(31:38):
and myself. We have a good time kind of breaking
down the week of Mariners baseball. And then of course
Softy and Dick in the afternoons give a fans perspective,
shall I say, of of what the Mariners are are
doing recently. So uh, we'll have your Mariners coverage all
all day, every day on Sports Radio kJ R. We'll
(31:58):
come back next segment and do our kind of positives
and negatives from the first two series of the season.
You're listening to Marion's Weekly with Anderson Hurst. Welcome back
into Mariners Weekly. This is your host, Anderson Hurst. Thanks
so much to the Seattle Mariners and their PR staff
(32:19):
for getting us that audio from Dan Wilson after the
win on Wednesday to salvage the Detroit series and end
the home stand. Opening home stand, I should say in
the first seven games three and four. The Mariners will
go on the road and face the San Francisco Giants
this weekend before coming back home starting next week. I
(32:41):
want us to do a couple things this segment. Number one,
we're gonna I'm gonna have a little bit of a
bigger picture conversation about the roster construction of this team,
kind of recapping what we've seen so far and kind
of in response to what me and Chuck we're talking
about in the off season on the Stove podcast. But first,
I want to do a quick positives and negatives that
(33:03):
I saw from the opening week and opening home stand
of the Mariners season. Again, they're three and four, currently
third in the Al West, but of course it's a
little early to kind of be looking at standings and
all that. Jazz so three positives. I want to kind
of go from number one, HORGEE. Polanco's offense, it's we'll
(33:24):
get to the defense a little bit later. But offensively,
it's looked he's looked like a completely new player, at
least compared to last year. This is a lot more
what I expected from him coming over from Minnesota going
into last year. And I wasn't a huge fan of
the Colton Wong trade in twenty twenty three, and I
(33:44):
thought it was pretty similar to what you got from
Adam Fraser in twenty twenty two. But I thought Jorge
Polanco would be a pretty big upgrade in that sense,
and it would at least salvage the loss of a
loss of Auhenio Suarez. A lot of people think look
at the Suarez deals like, oh, it's just a straight
up salary dump and you're you're just being cheap and
(34:04):
all that stuff. I see it a little bit differently,
and I'm as big of an au Henio Suarez fan
as there is, and I still don't like the deal,
but I think that deal gets a worse rap than
it actually is, because basically what happened was you dumped
au Heno Suarez's salary to Arizona, and then you use
that salary that you dumped to go get Jorge Polanco
(34:26):
from Minnesota. So in essence, you traded au Henio Suarez
for Jorge Polonco. You also had to give up a
prospect and the deal to to get Jorge Polanco.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
But it's it's not a major one.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
So in my head, you basically traded au Heno Suarez
for Joge Polanco. But even that last year, a Suarrez
massively outperformed, especially in the second half, Jorge Polonco. So
that was the disappointing part to me. You expected Jorge
Polanco to put the ball in play a lot more,
even though his strikeout rate I had been rising for
(35:01):
the past couple of years heading into Seattle, and then
everyone's pointed out how easy it is, I guess to
strike out in Team Mobile Park. So we should have
expected maybe a little bit less from him going into
last year. But the first what is it six games
this year, because he was out in the last sorry
five games, because he was out the last two games
(35:21):
on paternity leave. It did just get announced that he
is coming back for the San Francisco Giant SERIESO so
that's a good sign, but offensively, it's less the results
because you could see how, especially this early in the season,
where you're you're doing the right things, you're you're taking
good at bats, you're hitting the ball hard, and the
results haven't come yet. Look at someone like Randy rose
(35:42):
Arena for that. He has had decent results, but I
think the expected numbers and I don't want to get
too much into that, but it shows that he could
be having an even better year to start, but that
hasn't fully been there yet. For Jura Polanco, it has
and it's great to see for him to start kind
of get off to the start that we all know
he needed playing third base now that you know the
(36:05):
second base kind of platoon of Ryan Bliss and Dylan
Moore is going on, and especially after you decided not
to bring back Josh Rojas, you needed him to step
up at least offensively in that third base spot. And
he's done a good job in the middle of the lineup.
So horgete Polanco definite positive. He's he's looking much more
comfortable at the play, he's turning on balls, he's driving balls,
(36:26):
hit a huge home run in the in the second game, sorry,
first game of the season, opening day against the A's
to kind of take the lead there and would end
up being the go ahead home run, So a big,
big outing from Jrge Polonco. Another positive, I mean, it's
hard to even call it a positive because it's just
kind of what we expect at this point. But the
(36:46):
starting pitching, it's been great to see how dominant they
have been one through four. Again, we talked about Emerson
Hancock last segment, but I think you can expect basically
the same as we've we've seen up until now. Anyone
who had any thoughts of a regression from the Mariners
starting pitching staff, because I mean it's how can you
(37:09):
be that good and not have any sort of regression,
Well they they've proved that they can. Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo,
Bryce Miller, Brian Will have all been really really good.
And then of course you're waiting for George Kirby to
come back and be healthy. So it's been exactly as expected.
And again you've played all your games at Team Mobile Park,
so there is a tiny bit of an asterisk, but
I put less on that that a lot of other
(37:29):
people do. I think you still have to deliver, and
the strikeout numbers are just are looking really really good
so far for Seattle. One more positive I'm gonna I'm
gonna go with Randy or Rose Arena. I think he has.
It was really important for him to kind of get
(37:52):
back to the player that we traded for. He did
not have a great year last year in Tampa. He
came over to Seattle and was better, But I not amazing.
You've seen him go through long stretches where he's one
of the best players in baseball, and it's been a
while since we've seen that from him. So I want
(38:13):
to say there's a little concern from Mariner fans going
into the season on if that's who he is at
this point or if he's just had a little bit
of a prolonged slump through last year and a little
bit in the year before as well. So it's good
to see Randy hit the ball really hard. He's mashing
the baseball right now. He's taken his walks. I really
like his at bats. He's battling out there a little bit.
(38:37):
I want to see a little bit more defensively from him.
But if that's if that's all, we're kind of worried
about at this point in the season, then I think
that's a positive. You'll take your lumps there and left
field with him. He still has the ability. And one
of the big things about Randy for me is that
in the big moments, he's going to come through. He
kind of reminds me the hitting version of Luis Castillo,
(38:58):
where if you're down by six runs, he might have
a couple of flailing at bats here and there, but
I just when you need him in that big moment,
and you needed him an opening Day, he hit a
massive home run to tie the game late in the game,
and if you had dropped that game, you'd be looking
at a two and five start right now. So that's
(39:20):
a big difference between two and five and three and four.
So I think Mariners are have some at least I
have some cautious optimism that Randy's gonna have a bounce
back year here, and honestly, he needs it because you
need some protection for Julio Rodriguez. We talked a little
bit about Julio and the last segment as well. I
just think Julio's there's some parts of his game that
(39:42):
I'm liking. To begin the season, he's walking more. He
seems to have a slightly different approach, more patient, which
I like. I still want to see Julio hitting leadoff,
so it'll be interesting to see how that dynamic works
with Victor Robliss. Robles did not have a great first series,
but he kind of turned it up a little bit
in the the Detroit series, so that's good to see.
(40:03):
I'm interested to see how long of a leash Dan
gives Roblists, because I mean, he was arguably your best
offensive player last year, and it's just it's so much
of an anomaly from what he was in Washington that
you wonder if that it's going to be repeatable, And
early on in the season it shows that it's not,
but I just wonder by how much. So that'll be
(40:25):
a big kind of a thing to keep an eye
on as well. But the one negative thing I want
to mention, and I don't want to say negative, is
just something that I'm going to be watching is the
infield defense. I am higher on someone like JP Crawford
defensively than a lot of the baseball analytics people are.
I still think he looks the part, He gets the
(40:46):
balls that he should, he makes the throws that he should.
His range isn't great and his arm strength isn't great,
but he he very rarely like makes mistakes on balls.
I just think you need that from your shortstop. You
need to have confidence that when it's hit near him
that he can make the play. And I definitely have
(41:07):
that confidence in JP Crawford. But there are some issues
I think, especially at the third base position. And we
talked literally earlier. Jorge Polonko was a positive offensively, and
that's why I specified offensively because defensively it hasn't looked good.
It hasn't costed the Mariners a game yet, but his
(41:30):
arm strength looks like a problem. His reaction time looks
like a little bit of a problem at least from
third base. And that's understandable from someone who has played
so little third base in his career. So that's gonna
be something I'm watching and how successful that is and
if they even consider a move back to second base,
if that ends up happening. But I think the reasoning
(41:52):
be four moving into third base is because you'd rather
have a I guess minus defender at third base you
would at second base. Because Ryan Bliss has been really
good and it's kind of it's been a couple of
years that the Mariners have had a really good defensive
second basement. I mean, you expected that from Colton Wong,
but he didn't really deliver defensively. He wasn't great. Adam
(42:15):
Fraser was good defensively in twenty twenty two for the Marriners,
and I think that was kind of most of the
value that he brought every single day. So and then
you traded for Colton Wong wasn't as good as you expected.
Definitely wasn't as good offensively. Jorge Polanco probably worse defensively
than Colton Wong even but had at least had somewhat
of a stretch of good offensive baseball and like Colton
(42:37):
Wong here, so that was a big, big plus for
Jorge to kind of get the offensive side of his
game going. But defensively, there definitely is some concern there,
and it's gone to the days of the every day
a Joheno Suarez at third base kind of locking it down.
Even Josh Rojas last year, I feel like defensively was
really good. Now offensively after his really hot April, he
(43:00):
really fell off after that. So if you can at
least get at net neutral result from Jorge Polanco moving
to third base meeting you get more offensively from him,
but then maybe you get a little bit less defensively
from him. I think that's a positive because of what
you'll get at second base with Ryan Bliss and Dylan Moore,
(43:22):
because Ryan Bliss is great defensively and we all know
Demo can can pick it at any spot in the infield,
and you have confidence in him filling in wherever he
needs to go. And I like him most at second
base because I don't think he has a relatively good
arm strength either. But I've been impressed with Ryan Bliss
specifically defensively because he's he's shown some athletic plays, and
(43:45):
especially now in a somewhat even infield, you're not able
to shift as much. The second baseman has to make
the play, and it's more important than ever before. Not
ever before, but since the shift has been somewhat regulated,
it's more important to have athletic second basement that can
(44:05):
get the balls because you won't have the shortstop coming
all the way over to help you out against left
handed batter. So I've been really impressed with Ryan Bliss defensively,
but there definitely is some concern with JP and Jorge Polonco,
even though I'm still high on JP.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Than most people.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
One more thing before we get out of here, I
just kind of want to leave you with a thought.
Listeners who are kind of tuning in, We've seen some
okay offensive stretches from the Mariners to the first seven
games of the series, and you could kind of tell
what the derogative from Dan Wilson going into the year
(44:41):
was was he wants to play a little bit more
small ball. He wants to put the ball in play
more strikeout less and that's been the goal for Seattle
for the last two years. That was the year, that
was the goal going into twenty twenty four as well.
They were not successful in doing that. After the twenty
twenty three season, when the Mariners had a then of
(45:05):
franchise record strikeout numbers, they decided they needed to kind
of change up their their approach a little bit in trading.
That's when they traded Jared Kelnick. That's when they traded
au Henio swaz and that's when they didn't pick up
the option on ta Oscar Hernandez or at least give
them the qualifying offer. I think that was a mistake personally,
and now looking kind of hindsight twenty twenty, obviously, I
(45:27):
think going into the year I was a little more optimal.
Going into last year, I was a little more optimistic
on that approach because mainly because of Jorge Polanco. But
I still think that was a mistake, mainly from au
Heniol Suaz's perspective, because I just think he's as good
of a regular, everyday third baseman that you're gonna get,
And even though it was a salary dump, like ten
(45:49):
million is nothing for him, He's he's proven to be
a really really good third basement both defensively and offensively. Yeah,
he's gonna give you a lot of strikeouts, but he's
gonna hit the ball out of the yard, and this
team is reliant on the home run ball, and that
hasn't changed since you've changed the kind of style of
your lineup. Obviously, you'd like to have guys that hit
(46:09):
home runs and don't strike out great like great go
get Won Soto then, but with the budget of this
team and the kind of working in the margins, at
least offensively, the profile of player, I think that the
Mariners mistakenly kind of went around where the gap to
(46:30):
gap hitters, the contact guys, the Victor Roblos of the world,
the Woorhead Poloncos of the world, the Colton Wongs of
the world. I just think those are the types of
players that do not have success in Seattle, especially at
t Mobile Park. If you look at the stack cast
numbers for the park itself, home runs are about average,
(46:52):
a little bit below average. But that's one of the
aspects of the park. Because they look at all these
different parts of what makes a ballpark, Like they say
that cors is the most hitter friendly park and Seattle
is the most picture friendly park, But there's different aspects
of it, right, So what makes Coors such a hitter
(47:13):
friendly park is Number one, how high it is, so
the altitude the ball carries farther, that's just how it goes.
Number two, though, is how big the outfield is. So
when they were building it, they knew in Colorado that
because of the altitude, they would need to, Okay, we're
going to move back the fences because we're going to
try and avoid having so many home runs. Now kind
(47:37):
of inadvertently, I assume.
Speaker 1 (47:38):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
I don't know the details of the thought process behind
building of cors Field. But because of that, you've now
made the outfield a bigger area to defend, so more
contact heavy hitters where you can kind of hit it
where they ain't that sort of attitude. That's where those
hits fall into place a little bit. So the doubles
(48:01):
the singles are up right, so it's not necessarily the
home run ball, though those are also up at cours
because of the air. But it's more the contact hitters,
the gap to gap guys, the singles, doubles and triples.
Those are the types of hits that are easier to
get at cors Field than they are at anywhere else.
(48:22):
And it's the opposite in Seattle where because of the
marine layer quote unquote, everyone loves to talk about that,
but because of that, the Mariners actually have a pretty
close fence in comparison to the rest of the league. Right,
So home runs, even though there is a marine layer,
especially early on in the season, home runs are something
(48:43):
that is pretty standard compared to the rest of the
league and the rest of the stadiums. It's because you
move those fences in that you now have a smaller
outfield to cover and there's less space for those hit
it where they ain't type of hitters. There's less space
where a single might turn into a double because of
a big space between the centerfielder and the left fielder right.
(49:04):
So it's less singles, it's less doubles, it's less triples
that are in Tea Mobile Park than anything else. And
of course the strikeout thing as well, and that's a
whole other aspect because a player like a Suarez, a
player like Taioscar Hernandez, they're going to strike out no
matter where they are, right. So my thought process was,
(49:24):
why not lean into your park a little bit, get
a pitch, get like, build your team on pitching.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Job done, good, well done, Jerry Depoto, well done. Justin Hollander.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Offensively, let's get guys that hit long balls and guys
that are going to strike out no matter what, so
might as well take advantage of the one thing that
is at least somewhat average at T Mobile Park, and
that's the home runs. So the hitting profile of one
Auhenio Suarez, that's why he worked here, that's why he
(49:55):
was successful when he came to Seattle, and he didn't
have a fall off that we've seen from other players
like Jorge Polonco, like a Jesse Winker, like Colt wong O,
other players as well. So the Tommy Lastella's, the Cooper Hummels,
the I mean, you can argue like there's a talent
(50:15):
level difference as well, and I would agree with that.
But the derogative to try and get rid of a
lot of strikeouts and get a lot of contact, heavy
hitters going into last year I think was a mistake
and that's gonna be something I'm gonna be watching, especially
at home at T Mobile Park this season because and
(50:35):
I guess the one kind of counter to that argument
is Victor Roblos, because he's definitely not a power first guy.
He's a contact guy, to the top of the order guy,
put the ball in play, get on base, do your thing,
and he's he was awesome at that last year. So
I just have questions whether that's going to be sustainable
over one hundred and sixty two game stretch. So that's
gonna be something I'm watching. I'm curious to how that
(50:58):
develops over the course of the season. And I really
hope that I'm wrong on this. I really hope that
you know the these these contact hitters, find find a
way to have success, find a way to put the
ball in play, maybe play some small ball here and there.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
And I'm not opposed to that at all.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
I don't like bunting as much as a lot of
other people do, but I love the aggression on the
base pass to go steal. I think that we should
do that a lot more, take advantage of your speed.
So there's all these aspects to to how the offense
could be better and score more runs. And in the
thought behind, like, oh, your your team, you have strong,
you struggle scoring these runs already, so let's just kind
(51:36):
of squeeze everything we can get everything out of these
guys that we possibly can. And I don't mind that,
But I just talking about the uh, the roster construction
I do. It'll be interesting to see how it all
plays out. I personally think if you had ran back
the twenty twenty three team with a Henyo Suarez, with
ta Oscar Hernandez and a new second base and I
(51:58):
obviously you can't bring back Colton after that, but I
think if you had that team now, this team would
be talking about two straight years in the playoffs. So
that's just something I want to I'm gonna keep an
eye on going into the rest of the season and
moving forward. This has been Mariner's Weekly. Welcome, Welcome everyone.
If this is your first time listening, appreciate it. We're
gonna talk some Mariners baseball every week, usually on the
(52:21):
Mariners off day, but if they don't have an off day,
or sometimes it falls on different days, it's gonna usually
be on a Wednesday or Thursday in between series, the
first kind of series in the beginning of the weekend
and the weekend series as well. So three and four
Mariners go get two out of three at least from
the San Francisco Giants, and we'll be a little bit
more positive coming into next week with Mariners Weekly. Thanks
(52:41):
so much for listening. Catch us next week. This has
been Marriagor's Weekly with Anderson Hurst.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.