Mariners Reliever Gabe Speier on Vibes, Playoff Hopes, Role, Wilson

Seattle Mariners relief pitcher Gabe Speier joins Dave Softy Mahler and Dick Fain to talk about the vibes of the ballclub right now after another rough stretch, the hopes for the playoffs still existing within the team, his role out of the bullpen, how much watching of the scoreboard he does, Dan Wilson’s job as manager and his behavior with players.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now back to Softie and Dick, brought to you by
Emerald Queen Casino, bringing you the best in live music, entertainment, dining,
and gaming. Whether it's your favorite games, food, concerts, MMA,
or professional boxing, it's all at Emerald Queen Casino, always entertaining.
For more info, visit EmeraldQueen.com.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
All right, boys and girls, we're back on a busy
Tuesday night right here on 93.3 KJRFM. And we're a
lot of folks talking about the Seahawks starting tomorrow against
the Patriots, Huskies, and the Apple Cup on Sunday. But
Mariners have got to start getting some wins and piling
them up fast. Big, big, big, did I say big,
three-game series with the Rangers starting tonight. And a guy
who's having a hell of a year in the Mariner bullpen,

(00:41):
Gabe Spire, with us right now on the radio show
from T-Mobile Park before first pitch against the Rangers tonight. Gabe,
how you doing, man?

Speaker 3 (00:49):
I'm good.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
Thanks for having me, guys.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Happy to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, appreciate you jumping on. Thanks for doing this. So,
what's the vibe like, man, inside that clubhouse right now?
I mean, there's no reason to kind of sugarcoat anything.
You guys need to start winning some games and winning
them as fast as you can, obviously, with as many
as you can. So, talk about that. What's the vibe?
What's the atmosphere like in the clubhouse right now, man?

Speaker 4 (01:12):
Yeah, you know, it's been a tough stretch. It's been
a tough season overall, but, you know, to be, you know,
still in it and is a blessing and, and, uh,
we need to take advantage of it. And like you
guys said, start winning some ball games and, um, you know, um,
it's always good to have this kind of rivalry with
the Rangers come in. I think it'll fire us up
and hopefully get the ball rolling here. And, um, but yeah,

(01:34):
every game is, is really big from here on out.
We need to start stringing some wins together and, um,
you know, we're looking forward to the challenge. Um, And, uh,
you know, can't wait to kick it off tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Gabe, what does you mentioned being in it? What does
being in it look like to you? Like how many
games do you need to stay back by this date
or this date? How do you, how do you determine
whether you guys are still in it or not?

Speaker 4 (01:56):
You know, it could be out of our hands to
be honest. I mean, if the Astros and Rangers decide
to win every ball game from here on out, there's
not much we can do. You know, all we can
do is focus on, you know, each game every night, um,
and try to do our best, uh, to win each
game and, you know, the rest is kind of out
of our hands. And I think the best way to
go about that is just, you know, pitch to pitch,

(02:16):
inning to inning, kind of breaking it down into smaller
pieces and try to win just each at bat and
go about it that way. And then, you know, hopefully
the wins will stack up. But like I said, you know,
we're kind of in a spot where we're also relying
on other teams to lose games. So it's a tough
spot to be in. But like I said, all we
can do is handle our business and and try to

(02:36):
do our best to win each game.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, Gabe Spire, Mariner reliever with us before the M
start a three-game series with the Rangers. And I guess,
how did we get here, right? Like, this is a
team that was eight outs away from the World Series
a year ago. How did we get to a point
where the following year, on the 8th of September, we're
six out in the wild card, six out in the division,

(02:59):
and scratching and clawing our way just to be a
factor in this thing? What happened?

Speaker 4 (03:05):
You know, I wish I had a clear-cut answer for you.
You know, my mind, when you ask that question, my
mind goes straight to injuries. You know, we've had a handful,
you know, missing Cal, Donovan. Donovan was a huge addition
for us this offseason. And, you know, he hasn't been
on the field all that much, unfortunately. And, you know,
Matt Brash is a big piece of our bullpen. So,
you know, my, you know, first thought goes to that, injuries. But,

(03:27):
you know, at the same time, you know, we're disappointed
in the way the season's gone. And I wish I
had a better answer for you. But, you know, we've
been injured and we kind of had this like snowball
effect of kind of like just playing bad games, bad baseball,
and it's been hard to stop the snowball. And, you know,
it's all we can do is just take it one
day at a time and grind these, you know, last

(03:48):
games out and try to win as many as possible. And,
you know, it's, you know, it's tough to, you can't
dwell on the past, you know, we're all disappointed in
the way the season's been up to this point, but
it's time to flush that and really just kind of
focus on these last couple of weeks here and and
try to squeeze into the playoffs and get hot.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Well, Gabe, you mentioned you got to flush it at
this point and move on. Gabe Spire with us. Your teammate,
Bryce Miller was on with us a week ago and
he told us on the air that he thought there
was too much chatter up until recently about what happened
a year ago in 2025. Do you kind of share
those same thoughts or no?

Speaker 4 (04:26):
Oh, you know, I don't know about that. You know, I,
I know that, you know, there was a lot of
expectations going into this year and, We all kind of
felt them, but, you know, we were up for the challenge.
You know, I'm thinking back to spring training. Everyone was
super excited, you know, being that close to playing the
biggest series in the world. You know, everyone wanted to
get back to that point. And it's been a frustrating

(04:48):
year for a lot of guys. I know a lot
of individual people on this team have not had the
years that they wanted to have individually. And, you know,
as a team, it hasn't gone the way we've hoped. But, yeah.
But like I said, I'm just going to go back to,
you know, we need to flush that and really just
focus on these next couple weeks.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
Well, you are one of those players that has had
a very, very good season, and you've only thrown 39 innings.
So let's just talk about what type of workload can
Gabe Spire have between now and the end of the season,
because you're well under what you pitched last year due
to the.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Time being out.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
Yeah, I mean, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling fresh. I'm
You know, I'm going to take the ball every time
that phone rings, and it's for me, no doubt. And
it is, you know, it's August, so the body, you know,
it's not feeling great. You know, I have thrown in
quite a few games. But at the same time, for it,
I'm sorry, it's September. For it being September, I'm feeling

(05:44):
pretty good and ready to take the ball whenever they ask.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
Well, Gabe Spire with us, and Gabe, I don't know
how much sports talk radio you listen to. First of all,
do you? Do you flip on sports radio in the
car on the way to work?

Speaker 4 (05:57):
Oh, I don't. I'm an Apple Music guy, but I
always love joining with you guys and others. It's fun
to talk on the radio. sports talk show.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
So for sure, if you were listening, you would have
probably heard a lot of talk about the skipper, right?
I mean, whether fair or unfair, you know, as well
as I, that's one of those jobs where you get
all the blame and maybe not enough credit, right? When
things are going well. So Logan Gilbert was on with
us a few weeks ago, right?

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Dick.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
And we asked him about Dan. I want to ask
you the same thought. If you were to flip on
this radio station or any other, and you heard criticism
of Dan Wilson, What would your reaction be to that?

Speaker 4 (06:39):
You know, Dan is a great manager in my mind.
I've had a few here in the big leagues, and
I love Dan. I think he's a great baseball mind,
you know, Mariners legend. He led us to, you know,
almost the World Series last year in his first, you know,
full year managing. So, you know, he's got what it takes,
and we're behind him. It's really not– there shouldn't be

(07:01):
much blame on him. It should be on us. You know,
we haven't played– good baseball and it's not Dan's fault. So, um, um,
I love Dan. I think he's doing a great job and, um,
I hope he stays for the long haul.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Well, he's pretty consistent in his, uh, post game speeches.
Like he never raises his voice above like a two
out of 10. Does he raise his voice with you guys?
Is he different in the clubhouse? Maybe after one of
those stinkers that you guys have had that, uh, you know, does,
does he get after a little bit or does he
stay calm all the time?

Speaker 4 (07:30):
You know, 99% of the time he's calm, but he
does have a switch and we have flipped it. So
it happens. But yeah, he's intense when he needs to be.
But like I said, 99% of the time he's pretty
even keeled.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Well, Dick asked about how many games out do you
have to be? How close do you have to be
before you kind of still feel like you're in it
or maybe even out of it? How much are you
scoreboard watching? You know, we're doing that every day. We're
checking the standings. We're reading the scores of the Astros
game and the Ranger game on the air. I mean,
you're in the bullpen, so you would have to look
obviously above your head to see the scoreboard. But do

(08:06):
you check the scores on a daily basis? Are we
doing that yet? Yeah, I am.

Speaker 4 (08:12):
You know, I want to make the playoffs, so I
want to see where we're at and kind of know
the standing. So, yeah, I'm not going to lie. I
check it. But I think I honestly need to stop,
you know, because we just need to focus on winning
our ballgames, and the rest is kind of out of
our hands. We can only control what we can control,
and that's getting, you know, our ballclub wins and not
worrying about what the other teams are doing.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
I got you. Well, Gabe, why don't we do this?
We'll just agree to do this. You give us your number,
and we'll just text you when we think you need
to know something. All right. How's that?

Speaker 4 (08:42):
That's fine.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
That's fine.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
But we're going to fight to the end, no matter
what the number is.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
I got you. All right, man. Hey, go get him
tonight and we'll talk down the road. Appreciate it, man.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
All right.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
You bet. Gabe Spire with us, Mariner Reliever on the
radio program. And look, I mean, you're just you're not
going to get a guy to say a bad thing
about Dan Wilson. He is light in that locker room.
He's Nobody has ever said that Dan Wilson is a
jerk or an a-hole or a bad dude. He's a
good dude. Everybody likes Dan. But is that what this

(09:15):
team needs right now? That's the important thing. I don't
care what you are, what your personality is, how you behave,
how you treat other people. You just give me what
this team needs to win. And if that's you being
a jerk, then go for it. If that's you being
a hard ass, then go for it. If that's you
being everybody's buddy, if that's what gets me a World

(09:37):
Series dick, then go for it. But it's kind of
becoming increasingly obvious that whatever Dan's doing is not what
this team needs.