Episode Transcript
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Coming to you live from our ElliotAvenue studios of Sports Radio ninety three point
three KJRFM. It's time for ourweekly conversation with former Mariners all star Brett
Boone, brought to you by VenueKings. Visit venue Kings dot com for
all your ticket needs. Now withBoony, here's Softian Dick. Well here,
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I did a little research for youabout the team that scores first,
right, I promise you I'd doa little research. Evidently I'm just gonna
trust this source tripod dot com.The team that does not score first in
Major League Baseball wins at a thirtyone percent clip. The Mariners are currently
winning at an eighteen point seven percentclip when they do not concert first.
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So clearly not pulling their weight whenthey don't score first. And Booney,
good to have you. Man,boy, did they not score first today?
There's no question about that. Isthat? I wonder what that stat
is if you if you had twodifferent, uh think groups is one one
if you're the home team, oneif you're the visitor. I'd be interested.
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Percentage that's it probably changes a littlebit, but probably not as much
as well as it would need tofor the Mariners. To be average,
that's for sure, per per yourwish. Yes, I did check out
the game today and it was ugly. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I asked
you to do that. By theway, I I I ruined a couple
hours of your day. I'm suretoday, Oh I was. I was
busy today. No no golf forme, you know. And it seems
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like for a guy that gets onme about golfing all the time, I'm
talking about Softy here, he seemsto go on quite quite a few vacations.
He's the he's the big dog now, mister golf, you know,
all over the hitting mediocre shots atall all uh, all different sides of
the globe. Anyway, ugly daytoday, Logan Gilbert. I can give
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him a mulligan. He's been sodarned good this year and it's just chalk
it up behind in the out andMinnesota came out swinging, and he just
had one of those days. AndI'm sure he will he will forget sooner
than later. So I chalk itup that thing I was looking at today.
Though, with that whole series theylost three out of four to Minnesota.
They punched out fifty three times infour games fifty three times for a
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team that was going for contact thisyear. That's that's the thing that concerns
me about this team, and ithas since day one. It's this offense.
I mean, it's really really mediocre. And it's nice having those guns,
you know, on your side,and that's starting rotation in that bullpen.
But you know, after after acertain amount of time, it's tough
when you just rely so heavily onthat pitching staff, which they have thus
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far. They're game and a halfout Texas over there. You know,
they're kind of ailing as far asbeing healthy, and they're just kind of
holding Serve and Texas and have alead with five or six guys on the
il, so they're they're probably feelingpretty good about where they are in the
standings with with how many injuries.They've kind of been decimated by injuries in
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Texas. But game and a halfout coming home, you're going to play
Oakland and Kansas City. Kansas Cityis good too. They can pitch,
Kansas City can pitch. You know, we're used to having Kansas City as
a as a you know, cellardwellers, but this year they've got some
arms out there, so that shouldbe an interesting series in Oakland playing a
lot better. But but Seattle shouldbe able to handle that. So wipe
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this one off the books and seewhat we got for the next week.
Well, Boonie, you give usa nice list there of items to talk
about. But let's let's go backto the start there with Kirby and and
get into that a little bit.Uh. You know, a guy pitching
as well as anybody, I thinkfor the last seven eight games, he
led the Majors with the lowest eR. Talking about Gilbert, he said,
you mentioned Kurkybert Kirby. I'm sorry, Logan Gilbert today. Yeah,
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I know that, I watched it. Yeah, Logan Gilbert today. We
talked about Gilbert earlier in the day. Gilbert today. But uh, I
want you to imagine you're on theteam there. You got your guy that's
kind of an emerging It's an interestingstudy, I think for me, says
is a Castillo, is a Kirby, is a Gilbert? Your best picture?
Gilbert has making been making a pushfor that title, and then he
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just gets hammered in the first inning. You know, five runs whatever,
you just you know, just whatdid you see there? And if you're
a member of the Mariners. Howhow do you react to that? How
do you interact with him? What'sthat like? In the dugout? This
this for me is a blip onthe radar. I mean, like I
said, Logan's been so good.I mean, uh, it had to
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be one of those things where guysare looking around like, WHOA, just
one of those days. It's baseball. It never happens. It's a it's
if it was somebody else. Youknow, you have concern on an outing
like that. But he's been sogood and so money for this team.
Uh, to go out and justhave one of those, it's just one
of those days. He probably didn'tknow what was going on. I saw
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he was struggling with his delivery,a little bit behind in the count a
lot, and you just some daysyou have those days where your your stuff's
not as sharp as normally as you'rebehind in the count and the hitters just
have a good day and and that'sall it was. You know, he
kept at the ball in the yardfor the most part. It was just
one of those days where he kindof knew by the third inning like this
isn't getting any better. And thenyou know, they went to the bullpen.
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But yeah, I look at thisas a blip on the radar.
You know, they kind of knewthe game was over by mid game,
so it's like, let's let's uh, let's not worry about this. We
lost this one, and let's let'smove on to the next to the next
week and the Oakland A's. Well, Hugh accidentally mentioned Kirby, and I
got me thinking about Kirby. SoI'm glad Hugh did that, because what
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is going on here? There issomething going on with George Kirby. He's
pulled on Friday after allowing one runin six innings, only eighty eight pitches,
all there's nothing wrong with them.Then he's pulled yesterday after seventy pitches
and five innings of outings. I'mlooking right here, I'm looking at his
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averages. Kirby is averaging five anda third innings per start, and he
is averaging in the low eighties inpitches per game. I mean, what's
the Is there some serious baby ingoing on here for George Kirby by the
Mariners. Well, it makes youthink about it, doesn't it. From
a year ago when he had thatkind of that you know that I'm gonna
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call it a mistake in front ofthe cameras where he said, well,
yeah, why did I even goout there for the next inning? Is
that some you know? Did weget a little bit of a look into
how he's handled, how he likesto be handled, and how the Mariners
are going about it. Is thathis comfort zone? I'd hate to say
that's his comfort zone. I wantto I want my guys to be ready
for anything, and no, I'mgoing out there to pitch an eight innings?
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Can it over the bullpen? Thatshould be the mindset, especially when
you have an arm like Kirby anda staff like they do with Castill at
the top. You should have thatmindset going in. I know it's twenty
twenty four. The game is different, now, I get it. These
guys are are brought up in theminor leagues in a different way than we
were, and I get that,but you still got to have that bulldog
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mentality of hey give me the ball. I'm going eight until you tell me
that's what I'm planning on. Butno that you make a good point to
pull them with that few pitches asoften as they do, and then couple
that with last year we had thatpress conference. Maybe there's something more into
it that we, you know,on the outside in not on the ground
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on a daily basis, really knowwhat's going on, Hugh. Just to
get put into perspective, George Kirbythis year has gone more than six innings
one time in eight starts. Lastyear in April and May he did it
eight times, eight times, wentmore than six innings. This year he's
done at once. There's something goingon here, go ahead of you,
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and it's not something we're sitting hereand we're doing as a staff. You
know, Gilbert's you know, hehad he had the nightmare outing today but
his last out and Gilbert went eightshutout innings. So it's not a staff
wise or an organization wide. POLSis what we do with our young It's
a Kurby thing. And I'm thinkingback to you know that makes that press
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conference stand out a little bit morein twenty twenty three at the end of
the season. But you know,until I really know, it's tough to
tough to really say for sure,but we can sit here and speculate.
Boonie, you mentioned the fifty threepunches in four games and the exasperation.
There a lot of punch out,a lot of punches. So uh so,
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as fans, we say that's alot of punches. Take us into
the clubhouse. Okay, so it'sgetaway day. Played the game even an
hour earlier, you're probably thinking aboutgetting to the airport and getting on out
of there. But what happens inthat clubhouse? Does Scott servis just sit
there? Does like? Is thereever a tongue last into the offense?
Is it like, hey, wegot to get in and study tape.
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Like what happens internally when you're confrontedwith those type of numbers and that type
of performance, Well, you know, I don't know, and I don't
know what the temperature is in thatclubhouse. I don't know what it's like.
I haven't been around that particular groupof guys that often in that type
of atmosphere. To your point aboutgetaway Day, and I hear this a
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lot getaway day. We want toget out of there. Let me tell
you this, Never in my lifewhen I was on a team that was
in a race or was a goodteam and we know, hey, we're
going to be a playoff caliber team, getaway Day was no different than any
any other day. It's like,no, we'll be here as long as
it takes to get the job done. Because we got a win today,
we don't care when we get homenow. I've been on teams where we
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are out of the race and it'sSeptember and it's getaway Day and end games
out. Yeah, let's let's let'smove this along. Or I've been on
teams that are really good and we'vehad a ten to fifteen game lead.
Hey, let's let's get it alonghere and hopefully we get a win in
the meantime, this early in theseason, with as much as on the
line as is, and how vulnerablethis division is this year, it's there
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for the taking. I mean,Texas is you know, they're they're decent,
but they're not they're not. Youknow, they're the defending World Series
champions, but they don't have theirhorses right now. So this this this
division is very much up for grabs. With with the Houston Astros and how
they faltered early in the season.Get Away Day, I think you treat
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that as any other day. Isno, we got to get a win,
perst. It doesn't matter how longwe're going to be here. We
got to get the WS. SoI don't think there's anything there. But
as far as you know, thepunch outs for me, Scott's service man
if I'm managing, I understand we'rein an era where punch outs are acceptable.
They really are. They're taught froma young age. You're brought up
where, hey, punch outs aren'taren't aren't necessarily a bad thing. Well,
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I tend to disagree. The oldschool part of me disagrees with that.
But if I sit there for fourdays and I watch fifty three punch
outs, you know, I don'tknow Scott's service on that level, but
I'm sure he's not happy about it. As players, at some point you
had to think, yeah, Iget it, punch outs are more acceptable
in today's climate, But come on, fifty three, it's ridiculous. You
punch out ten times in a game. That should be an anomaly, Like,
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all right, let's not let thathappen again. Fifty four. To
me, that's that's just kind ofa red flag, like and it's it's
one thing if you're hitting the ballover the wall. Actually they're they're fifth
in the American League home runs.But it's one thing if you're putting up
five, six, seven at nightand you're punching out a ton. You
take the good with the bad,but this team's not scoring a lot of
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runs and you're punching out on topof that. It really puts those those
great arms that you have in apredicament every time out them going to the
mound, going do I have topitch? Do I have to go seven
and give up one for us tohave a chance to win? That will
wear mentally on a pitching staff overtime. Well, yeah, boonie.
Just to clarify I did, Ididn't do a good job of articuling.
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What I meant was after the gameis over. Like like, I'm not
saying during the game or leading upto the game that you're like, oh,
it's getaway day, we're gonna putthis in cruise control. I'm saying,
after you had fifteen strikeouts, it'san ugly loss. You lost,
you know, three or four,you're getting on the plane. You probably
don't feel great about yourself. I'mjust I was I was trying to get
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a sense of the culture and theclimate, particularly in light, specifically with
the spotlight on the strikeouts, right, Yeah, I think it's going to
be a pretty quiet right home.I would say that clubhouse wasn't wasn't in
the best mood afterwards. I mean, as a pro, you gotta the
time you get on that plane andyou land back in Seattle, that's got
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to be over with tomorrow's new day, we start fresh. But yeah,
I'm sure that it was pretty dismal, and I'll guarantee you guys were scrambling
to get out of there. Iknow when we would go through streaks like
that, you know, Lou atthe Helm, he'd be like, get
that damn bus ready in forty fiveminutes, kind of pissed it, kind
of you didn't hear too many playerssay it, much like, all right,
we got to shower quick. Today. We can't take her our good
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old time. We got to gethome. So I'm sure it was a
dismal setting. But you're still noteven into mid May, and if this
keeps up offensively, you're gonna havemore of these days. But I think
today, yeah, dismal bad.You lost three out of four. I'm
sure they're not sitting there talking aboutthe punch outs, although they're gonna hear
about it tomorrow. When you know, all the numbers come out and people
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are gonna start talking about how muchthis team punches out, how much they're
not scoring as opposed to the greatstaff they have. But as far as
today, now, you shrug itoff. You're not in a great boots.
It's a quiet flight home, butyou get back to business tomorrow.
That's that's what you got to doas a profession Well, Booney, I
used the golf analogy yesterday with Hughand I was like, hey, there's
there's been lots of times I goout on the course and I get through
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like the fourth hole and all fourof my first four drives have ended up
in the woods, and I'm like, Okay, I don't have it today
off the tee, So what amI going to do. I'm gonna choke
down a little bit on the club. I'm gonna swing seventy five percent.
I'm gonna te it down lower,and I'm just gonna hit a nice little
two hundred yard bullet. I'm gonnaforget about the two fifty plus and I'm
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just gonna hit a little two hundredyard bullet. So can can we translate
that to baseball? Because the maritorsright now are last in sacrifice bunts.
In fact, they have zero ofthem. They are last in sacrifice flies.
They have five of them, andthey've bunted only four times for base
hits, and they're a perfect fourfor four when they have bunted for base
hits. They don't Apparently this teamdoesn't try to choke down and just play
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for singles occasionally, I think Ithink the culture and Major Baseball as a
whole. You don't see that toooften. You say it once, You
see it once in a while,and it's really refreshing to me. I
think that's a good analogy. Now, when me or you go out on
a golf course, it's it's nothow we were feeding our families. You
know, we might lose a tendollars NASA off then, but I understand
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the comparison is, Yeah, somedays you're out there and you just don't
have it. You got to finda way to survive, or maybe your
partner on the course is relying onyou to do something, make a par
find a way to not grip itand rip it. I've got to survive
today. I had many times andon the baseball field where I ain't got
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it and I'm not seeing the spinon the breaking ball, So I go
into survival mode. Today is asurvival mode. If I can, if
I can punch something, if Ican get a knock here, maybe work
a walk, I can help myteam maybe win a game. You got
to know when you don't have itand when you have it, and you
can go for the downs. Butthere is something there that I don't see
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put into play too often in thein the big leagues right now. It's
just it's something that it's almost likeyou're punching out this much. Let's go
up here and survive. Let's grindout in a bet. Maybe you don't
hit a home run, but maybeyou get a knock. You know,
I'm not gonna sit here. It'shard. Big League baseball is hard,
and there's one hundred and sixty twogames. There's nowhere to hide. Sometimes
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I've been there, so I'm notI'm not discounting the difficulty level. And
I don't want to be that explayer that sits at home on his couch
and dreams about how easy it isand yelling at the TV. But at
some point you got to make anadjustment. You're punching out that much,
Hey, today. We're not goingto punch out fifteen times. We're going
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to put it in play. Wemight not hit an the omers, but
we're going to survive. I thinkyou need to do that. I think
the Major League Baseball culture as awhole they need to do that. There's
no emergency mode, you know.I think the golf's analogy is great because
when you're out there and let's say, I don't know if you guys have
ever had it. I don't liketo talk about it, but if you
get the shanks, sure it seemslike I don't know what to do.
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I don't know how to fix it. And I always think, what if
I'm on tour and I get theshanks and the cameras on me every shot.
There's got to be an emergency mode, a survival mode where hey,
I'm not going to shoot sixty fivetoday, but I've got this going on
in my brain. I got topunch it around here and maybe shoot even
par I'm sure PGA tours have thatmode. They go to the survival mode.
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Just like hitters. We go towhere, hey, we got to
survive and we might not take theextra base, hit the homer, but
we're gonna survive here and try tomix in a knock and maybe a walk,
and that's a survive to play anotherday. I just don't see that
much, not only with the Mariners, I don't want to pick on them,
but major League Baseball as a whole, boonie. We as of now
have played twenty three point five percentof the season, so we're all almost
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at the quarterpole. The Mariners,as you know, are eighteenth in payroll.
You got the Rangers and the Astrosare both in the top six.
The Mariners are ninety million plus underthe Rangers. They're more than one hundred
million under the Astros. All thefans just say, Okay, we went
through this rebuild. Now we're goingwe're gonna spend some money. When are
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we gonna spend the money? Howwhat is it like for the players?
When do you guys start talking like, Hey, what's the club gonna do?
What would be what would be agood fit for us? Who should
we like? Those conversations must takeplace, When do they take place,
and what's the nature of them?Well, it depends depends on the ball
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club, depends on the personnel onthe ball club. If they have a
relationship with the front office. Iremember back in the early two thousands,
we'd have meetings bi weekly with managementand hey, how's the ball club?
What do you think? What doyou think? We doesn't mean they listen
to us when we tell them whatwe need, but we can at least
air out what we have to say. I don't know if this ball club,
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particular ball club right now, hasthat relationship with the front office.
As players, there's only so muchwe can control, and what's out of
our control. Is something I've beentold and heeded over the years is I
can't control what I can't control.All I can control is what I do
when the national anthem ends. Soas players, they got to go down
their win games, and then Ithink last year you saw Cal Rowley get
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pretty frustrated at the trading deadline whenthings went down. Whether somebody is trading
from the Mariners or the Mariners,don't go out and make us flash and
go for it. That's as aplayer, we want to put all the
pressure in the world on management atthe trade deadline to have to go out
and make a move because we've provenof them that we are a playoff caliber
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team. I think as players that'sall we can do because at the end
of the day we sign our contract, we're paid to play every day and
put up the numbers that we're expectedto put up. So we really as
far as making moves, that's whatthe front office is for. But all
we can do is players is putourselves in the best position. So when
we get to that trading deadline,it's almost like all those players in the
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club clubhouse looking up at the frontoffs going all right, we got you
here. Now get us that piecethat puts us over the edge, and
hopefully this year that will happen.All right, Boonie, Well, we
got some summertime weather for the nexthome stand here in Seattle early, so
we don't have to worry about themarine layer. So hopefully we talk to
you next week. We are wetalking about a couple series wins. All
right, you got it? Allright, guys, Thank you, Thanks
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Dick, appreciate that's bread. Junejoining us as he does every single week
on Thursday, and we come back. The statistics say the Washington Huskies have
been a top ten program in Americain the college football playoff era. Does
Schue Millan agree, We'll talk tothat talk to him about that next