Despite Series Split, There Was A LOT to Like From the Seattle Mariners' First Four Games

Mariners are two and two after their first four games of the season and we're going to give you our biggest takeaways from the weekend Colby in it

You are Lockdown Mariners your daily Seattle Mariners podcast part of the Lockdown podcast network your team every day

Ahoy sailors and his Monday March 30th, 2026. My name is Tate Gonzalez and I'm joined as always by my co's Colby Pat

Now today we're going to try something new. I'm sure if I'll stick this year, but we're going to try something new

And if you don't like it blame Colby it was his idea

But instead of Milbag Monday, we're going to give you our biggest takeaways from the last three games that we weren't able to talk about on the show

So we'll give you our takeaways from the lineup the pitching staff

Everything else from Friday, Saturday and Sundays games against the Guardians

And then tomorrow we'll open up the mailbag and answer some of your questions

So the Mariners go two and one over the last three games

They win on Friday by score of five to one. They lose an extra is on Saturday by score of six to five and then last night on Sunday night baseball

They shut out the Guardians eight to nothing

We'll have a lot to talk about from that game once we get into the pitching side of things

But we're going to start with our takeaways from the Mariners lineup

Where do you want to start here Colby?

I mean, I think we probably start with the elephant in the room

Which is the

production or lack thereof of your three best hitters

and

You know whether or not that's

I mean, it's certainly not a good thing, but there are some positive takeaways from some of their recent at bats and all that so

Yeah, I think I think we have any conversation about the Mariners offense has to start with Julio Cal and Josh

and

Despite the struggles of those three guys

Mostly struggles, you know, there were some some moments here and there Cal got a few walks

Julio obviously had the the heroic moment on on Saturday night, but despite the overall struggles of those guys

There actually is kind of a positive takeaway from that and that's not the Mariners scored what 22 combined runs

I believe against a pretty good guardians pitching staff in spite of those struggles

In you know late March in Seattle

You know cold and marine layer

You know filled

Team mobile park and and honestly yesterday could have been

12 runs fifth or 13 runs or whatever if not for that marine layer. So

Yeah, I mean the the three guys that you would expect to be in the middle of it

They were largely non factors and they still put up 22 against again

I think you know, not an elite pitching staff or anything like that, but Gavin Williams

Good pitcher Tanner Bobby's a good pitcher

You know can'tio had a really good run last year as a starter

And then you know slates of counties kind of their Emerson Hancock. It's kind of you know

Maybe he maybe he breaks through maybe not. He's kind of a number five, but whatever

You got him out of the game before the fifth and and so yeah, I mean

They you found a way to score a runoff of Kate Smith to force the game into extras and all that so I mean

Yeah, I think there are a lot of positives and and

You know

I think you can acknowledge that there are positives. You can also acknowledge that Josh and in Cal and Julio weren't good

Without you know having that become a referendum on their season or if this is going to be the new thing or blah blah blah because obviously

It's not

Yeah saying those guys aren't weren't good

Doesn't mean that you think they're not going to be good or that you're panicking it's just acknowledging the simple fact

Those three guys were your three worst hitters this weekend

And you were still able to score 22 runs and you were still able

To I mean and I'll honestly you probably should have gone for no

To start the year, but some situational baseball and then things like that we'll probably talk about later

preventing from doing it

And obviously again Julio Cal

Josh they had opportunities to help you win the two games you lost and they didn't come through

That'll happen

But what's not going to happen is those three guys combining to have you know

An oh 91 batting average for the entire season so yeah, yeah, that that's not good

It's very long, but you know, we should acknowledge that they were not good like can we just agree on they were not good

Yeah, yeah

Absolutely, and I mean you know, we talked about it after opening day you know when when Cal and Julio specifically combined for what six strikeouts and the seven

At bats eight played appearances in total like you probably not going to win many games when that happens

But you know again for the most part over the weekend

Cal Julio and Josh were non factors and despite that you still came away from the series with two wins

So that's a pretty big deal and a big reason for that chorus

I mean, there's a lot of reasons for that

But I think we have to start with the right field situation

Luke Rayleigh dom can zone and victor rubles all had very good weekends

Luke Rayleigh with three homers in the first three games

Four hits or hits in all four games rather dominant can zone with two homers on opening day

Victor rubles with a two for three night on Saturday

So the right field situation which we had a lot of questions about off to a really nice start

So it's like somebody's a burn in Donovan suppress a person over there, but sure we'll start

We will get to have this

Kind of MVP of the American League right now

Will it last that might be Luke Rayleigh, honestly

I chased a lotter

Maybe just live with a little bit less center field defense. So your left field defense remains elite

I just you know something to keep in mind, but um

Yeah, I think

Obviously, you know, you wanted to see especially Luke you wanted to seem get off to a hot star because

You know, you you banked a fair amount of this on on Luke, you know, his problems last year being the injuries and I think you and I both backed back

Backed him up on that we were fine with that assumption and so far it looks like that was the case

um

Looks like Luke's taken maybe a step back defensively

Uh, now it's only four games, but uh

Some rough moments that you know some plays that Luke makes

In 2024 that he didn't make and then that's not injury related, but maybe lack of wraps. I don't know

But yeah, we'll see that gets better, but yeah, he crushed some baseballs

He's a legitimate threat every time he comes to the plate. Is he gonna strike out some? Yeah, of course he is

Is he gonna drop some absolute bombs though? Yeah, can he come up with a big hit every now and then too? Yeah, can he run

Does he run the base is really well? Yeah, can he lay down a bot? He should never have to, but yes, he can

So yeah, it's Ryan Bliss can't we'll get to that later, but uh

Anyways, yeah, Luke's Luke is kind of one of those X factories a swing player

Uh for this season and for him to get off to the start that he did is is really impressive

Uh, and it's big and and you know, unfortunately, he's probably gonna find the bench for the next couple days at least to start the game

Um, but uh, yeah, it's nice to see him get off to a nice start

Especially since you remember in 2024 he was as terrible for the first like month and a half

Uh, to the point where there were some whispers out here. I think it's just going to the FM like what it is

But anyways, nice thing to get off to a hot start and then yeah can zone, you know

Couple of bombs in opening day the rest of his at bats

Pretty dumb can zone like some really terrible swings some really hard hit balls, but you know overall I think

Dom is is starting to settle into who he's going to be which is

You know streaky and probably a good weeks week on stretch or like this guy can't hit like period

The swings are ugly. He's chasing like he run he's running like

You know, he's got both legs tied together like I

Just kind of it's not a pretty uh baseball player when you watch Tom can zone, but

Results are the results. So uh, we'll see how that goes and then yeah, even Victor Robles

I mean granted it was a blue double, but whatever

He also had a hard hit ball. He did he did he looked good

Uh, which is great because he he was terrible in the cactus league this year

And he's gonna get a couple starts here uh, well, we think he's gonna get a couple starts here against some pretty good lefties

Particularly max freed. So we'll see how that goes

And speaking of speaking of him real quick, you know a thing that we learned here is uh for now

It seems like that's a true platoon him and and Luke Rayleigh on right field

Sure, although I would also like him to be used as a fourth outfielder in that like hey we're up by three

It's the eighth inning

Let's get Victor Robles in the outfield to play some defense for us uh for either Randy or Luke

Because he's better than both of those guys

But yeah, it does appear to be a appear platoon really the only part of that

That forehead and monster for two positions that didn't really contribute was rest sniper and he only got two at bat

The entire series so and there were both pretty good played appearances

I think right like he saw like 13 pitches combined he just popped up a couple pitches

So yeah, you know, not not bad at bats mighty stretch. Just didn't get a hit

You know, again, he only got two at bats, but he'll he'll get his line share

Here in the next two days. This is why you pay the guy

Which did to do what you know?

You know perform in these moments and it's kind of suck and you're like oh you have to hit lefties

And it's like yeah, but the lefties I'm facing are freed and crochet and scooble and framber, but

That's the gig man. So we'll see how he does

We also did learn that or at least for the first start that

The plan is for rest sniper to be the lead off hitter against left-handed

Pitching so that is something that we also learned so

Yeah, the right field platoon slash dh platoon those four guys

Have to like what you saw from all four of them

Even

Even rest sniper who didn't have a hit, but he still had

1314 pitch

I think 13 or 14 pitches and I think both at bats were three ball counts

I might be wrong on that. I know the first one was for sure

Yeah, so

Yeah, the the big questions of platoons

So far so good

Yeah, so yeah, we got to talk about the man with the

304 wrc plus through the first four games of the year slasher 429 556

929

Not not that good, but we will we will get to call in a second because he also had a really nice series

But yeah, Brennan Donovan in his first four games in a Seattle mariner's uniform is already worth half a win

Been as good as advertised so far and then some honestly and

You know my my call from about a week ago of him setting a career high and in homers looking good so far

And he's also, you know, had a couple of stolen base attempts as well

How did that go successful?

Yeah, the other the other one not so much

He he's on pace to go 81 home runs and 40 steals so like I mean

80 40 season my my agenda is going strong so far

Not your talk about my first two flag players care at the weekend

And then finally cool young

goes one for three last night

Also has a walk last night

Had some big hits over the course of the weekend. Obviously the

The Homer on Friday

So seeing some of that pop that we saw in the spring carry over into the regular season early on that's nice to see

I had the double to down the left field line to set up

Julio's heroic moment on Saturday and fortunately that doesn't get paid off with the win

But still that was a really nice site to see

Very jp Crawford ask that double from koi young

Something that I feel like we've seen from jp quite a few times and in some clutch moments like that. So yeah

You know all the guys that were really like propping up leading into the season all kind of had a moment or two

Over the course of the series

Yeah, Cole also made some really nice plays defensively the throwing still looks very

unnatural almost which is I just don't get it like

Even though the great play made against Ramirez it kind of looks like you like

Shot put it the ball over to first instead of making a good strong throw it

I don't know what's going on there

But the range certainly looks better than it did last year as well. And yeah the the home run the double

You know, he's doing exactly what you would want your your 22 year old, you know

Basically rookie second baseman to do at the bottom of your order find a way to contribute every game

If you know, maybe go over three, but you make a nice defensive play or or you at least

Make the opponent throw you know 18 pitches to get you out three times or whatever you find a way to contribute

You just find a way to keep your head above water

Knowing that Cole young is fully capable of going on these long stretches where he's you know an all-star caliber second baseman

And you know, he's getting to velocity better which last year was the problem

He couldn't really hit the fastball all that well

Well, the home run was off of a fastball the double was off of a fastball

So yeah, I mean again, there's gonna be ups and downs for Cole just like there is for every player

But especially so for a 22 year old, but he's found a way to contribute and just about every game

So far from the bottom of the order

Which is which is great and exactly what you need is especially when you know waiting to get JP back and and

Kind of get your middle infield and you know that'll allow

Cole to maybe not face some of the tough lefties that are coming up because then Revas

Could play second and you can kind of help him out that way. So yeah

I think Cole finding ways to contribute finding ways to get some big hits early in the season

I think that's a good thing for so we're gonna talk about the

Pitching set of things for the mayors over the last three games and just a moment

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Took you long enough tie

We're also finally

At the championship round of our top 50 mariners moments tournament

So who's moving on do we have to do anything about the

Ballot stuffy and and all that stuff from last week

No, we didn't despite the best efforts of one individual

Uh, it ended up not mattering. It skewed the results enough to give us a couple blowouts

But one of them was already going to be a blowout the double beats

Geno's grand slam

About once you remove if you remove the 70

Uh, ballots, which I mean we wouldn't remove all of them because blah blah blah

But we didn't remove any of them just for the record

Uh, because it didn't end up mattering

uh

Again, the numbers are just a little bit off

The final tally is the uh double

Double one 67.6 to 32.4

But if you remove the ballot stuff in then it's closer to 75 25

Which honestly still pretty decent showing for geno's grand slam against the double

so

And then the second match up here uh cow versus phelix

This one

Went the opposite direction in terms of the ballot stuffing

But uh as it turns out with the 70 votes

67.3% uh picked the drought ender over phelix's

Perfect game if you remove the 70 or whatever the ballot stuffing then this one is 60 40 give or take

So still a cow win, but uh much

Much closer by the end of the day both of the rightful

You know winners so to speak advance and so we get our classic one versus two matchup

We get the double versus cows drought ender

And you guys can vote on that using the description now below, but also

We're putting the pull out on twitter as well

so

Yep, it'll

You just you know click you can vote on the twitter, but so you can vote twice

You can vote in this one and the twitter poll and we will combine them up and see what happens

I have a hunch we won't have to combine them because the double will win because people can't get enough at the 1995 Seattle mariner's

Like get a lot of but i don't i don't know i don't know because again our demographics

Younger, but yeah, so so we got so we got the quintessential

Mariner moment for og mariner fans versus the quintessential mariner moment for the new wave of of mariner fans

and i feel like

More so our demographic here at lockdown is the new wave of mariner fans, so

We'll see you have the moment that you have the two moments that ended two

You know droughts one the first one 19 years the second one

Well the double didn't end the drought, but you know what i mean

uh

You know and then cowardly's drought ender of 20 what was it 21 years?

So

Yeah, we have a couple of really huge hits here from a couple of you know

The most important players in the franchises history. So we'll see how it goes

I just think the double to me is going to run away because of the nostalgia and it's just all that blah blah blah

but

whatever

95

hype

95 propaganda still live strong

So we'll just roll with that and hey edger like i'm not going to complain too much that edger wins because edger is

The most important mariner at least to mariner's fans in the franchises history

So i mean that's that's why you're at is c pat 11 specifically

So

So i wore number 11 from the day i started playing baseball until the day i

Was retired by you know

People who actually i couldn't pay to play baseball for anymore. So there you go

Taylor Williams

probably

Yeah, although he didn't pitch against us. We just got

Or you know what beat the old-fashioned way, but uh, yeah, and then he got you uh then he got you matte brush

So it was worth it. Yeah, I mean

Probably rather a played for a state title at safe co-field, but you know, whatever sure fine matte brushes

Good consolation prize. I suppose shadow told tea willy

Mm-hmm

All right, didn't think we would talk about Taylor Williams on the show, but uh, you know

You never know what you're going to get here at the lockdown maris podcast

Speaking of maris pitching but current maris pitching that is uh, let's talk about the uh the maris starting rotation

because um

I don't really want to talk about the bullpen

Personally, I know we have to segment of takeaways for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know we have to to a

Some degree, but I don't really want to talk about them. I want to talk about the rotation though

We'll start just in order of how these guys started George Kirby six strong innings on Friday night

Just one arm run on two hits six strikeouts two walks for him. I just five heart hit balls

Really nice start after you know Logan was only able to go five and a third on on opening day

And that ultimately led to the maris winning five to one on on Friday. So what did you think about Kirby's first start?

You know, we talked about him avoiding the you know the blow-up start out of the gate

Which has happened to him the last couple of years

Yeah

Really good start from George. He

You know kind of it could have been a lot worse. It could have been better. He really struggled in the fifth inning

Just lost command and control thankfully

Uh, we saw the worst send or the worst base whatever in the history of baseball

Did you see that it went viral?

It good it showed them

Because Reese Hoskins is either the biggest idiot in the history of the world or the guardians third base coaches

Because I'm not too convinced that Randy couldn't have run down Hoskins from shallow left field

To throw him out there with you know chased a lotter who's apparently all world on deck with the bases loaded

At the time, I believe that was a three three nothing game too. So

Um might have been three to one at that point, but

Anyway, yeah

You know George able to escape unscathed

But if he didn't have the the bouts with control issues there then he might have been able to give you a seventh inning

You know this early in the year that would have been

Incredible, but as it is, you know six innings really strong ball

Just again just really the one inning where he wasn't in control

But the other five he was just dominating an increased control, which you know kind of a common theme for this weekend

Mostly

Dominating pitch starting pitching from the Mariners and my plus or minus one or two hitters

Here and there, but yeah, George look great fastball look great

Saw some knuckle curves out of him

It'll be interesting to see like what kind of the primary second area is is the slider is the curve

We know that he's not necessarily shelved the split, but he's going to the change up now instead of the split

So yeah, it was really nice return now we should point out with all of these

Pictures

Cleveland's lineup is not exactly a joke or not right like it

It's not the best lineup in the world. It's not super scary, but there's still you know some dudes in it including future Hall of Famer Jose Ramirez

MVP candidate

And obviously DeLotter was red hot and man Zardo hit what 25 home runs last year and re-Sauskins can hit 20

So there's some power. There's some some dangerous spots, but it's not like an elite lineup or anything

It's not like the lineup we're about to see come into town

But it's it's fine, but it's not scary or anything like that

So we shouldn't you know caveat all these starts with with that simple fact

But George looked really good and Cleveland's a team that you know we talked about can be a bit of a good or bad matchup for him

Kind of depending on how sharp George is because they can drive up pitch counts

And George did a really nice job again just that fifth inning just kind of you know

Mard his his outing just a little bit, but aside from that

He was very very good

The plan against the scarding's lineup was pretty clear from this mayors pitching staff a lot of four simmers

A lot of four simmers from George tons of four simmers from Brian Wu as well on Saturday

He threw 59 four simmers only 10 sinkers and that was his or two simmers

However, you want to classify it and that was his second most use pitch

Usually we see a better mix of four simmers and two simmers from from Brian

But this was strictly just here's my four simmer trying hit it and for the most part the guardians didn't

Unfortunately, though towards the end of Brian's start, which was going incredibly well

You know, he gives up a couple of hits with two outs and the guardians are able to not things up at two a piece and the the game kind of flips on its head from that point forward

Stop walking the nine hitter

Yeah, why is Brian rocio the only like the only guy the only team that that guy can hit is the saddle mariders

Yeah, even last night even last night like Emerson was able to get him out

But I think at least one of the bats like rocio saw like eight pitches or something like that dude cannot hit

But for some reason you can't get him out. It is it is insane

But hardly a new thing for the Mariners. So I guess he's just the new David Fletcher

Martín Maldonado what sure sure

Insert Eric Ivar

Insert player name here, but yeah anyways. Yeah, we was great. He was cruising and then

Just that walk you know that walk to the nine hitter and he was able to get the next couple guys out

But just can't give up free passes to bad hitters

You know, and that's that's what Brian did and it's unfortunate that it really unraveled on him

And then Ramirez got him the Mariners actually did a really nice job handling Jose Ramirez in this series

It's just the few times he actually got a hit they were kind of back breaking hit so

Just you know, I think he only had two hits this entire series. It's just both of them happen to be massive RBI

You know extra bass hit so and then obviously minzardo ties it on like the blooper like

Darn like what are you gonna do, but don't walk guys

Just don't walk guys, especially you soft hitting number nine short stops like I don't understand that

But whatever Ryan was great again just one inning kind of mart is overall start

But still great and he was able to go six as well

So again back-to-back guys going six innings

Really helped the bullpen a little bit unfortunately

Hey, you know

Yeah, yeah, it wasn't very good. So yeah

But yeah to start also not necessarily put in the best position to succeed, but

We'll talk about that in just a minute

Danny boy, but yeah anyways

Yeah, we was very good and like you said, there's really not much to break down from a start because it was just here's my fastball hit it

And it turns out for the most part they couldn't

Yeah, which you know, it's hardly new from wew, but yeah, it was it wasn't a 50-50 split with the fastballs like it normally is it was just

Forseemers for seemer for seemer

Uh, you know, it wasn't even his best for seemer. He's only 95. He wasn't 97 98 like, you know, the can't be so

Uh, yeah, I mean very clearly there was a game plan here to pitch at the top of the zone

To this lineup with uh

With fastballs whatever the game plan was against a lotter was was not a good one stop there on that dude sliders in the middle of the play, but

Other than that. Yeah, Brian was was great

And honestly probably had the best start of the weekend until it you know

Somebody body snatched Emerson Hancock and replaced him with prime Felix or something. I don't know

So

Yeah, we've saved the best for last as we've long said here

On the lockdown Aaron's podcast Emerson Hancock just needed an opportunity and he would just run with it right

Always said that you especially Colby

Go read my writings on Emerson Hancock from 2020 when I said he would be like better than Logan Gilbert and better than George Kirby like

It's out there, man

Like I said those things and I've never wavered

So there is a

Lot ton pack here from Emerson Hancock start. So he goes six engines

Yeah, yeah, so it's a we'll try and speed it up, but uh Emerson Hancock goes six engines

No runs

No hits

Also very fastball heavy and that was

That wasn't necessarily the star of the show though it did lead to most of his strikeouts

The sweeper was discussing though last night, but the fastball still eight

Even has the velodip so he so he comes out. He's 95 plus

And then it goes down to about 94 to 96 in the second inning and then the third inning

It's more like 92 93 and that's kind of where he mostly sat and then he was able to pull 94 out of thin air a couple of times for

A couple of strikeout pitches as well, which was surprising because again

It was like we saw even a couple of 91s later on into the start and then boom all of a sudden 94 would show up when he needed a strikeout

So it was a really weird start from the fastball perspective

I think really the most underrated element of his start last night though was the the command was awesome

Like he was hitting really all of his spots

And it felt like when he missed he wasn't putting the ball in danger

I can't think of many high danger pitches of at all

Maybe through the command was plus with the four seemer the slider

sweeper whatever

Yeah

Didn't quite have that backdoor

Yeah, the back yeah, the backdoor sweeper. Yeah, didn't he missed on a couple of them

But but at least when he missed but at least when he missed off the plate right so

Yeah, he just didn't he didn't hit the corner. So that's

Overall, I mean, listen to this

Only this is from Mariners PR last night only two pitch only two pitchers of Mariners history have recorded outings of six plus and

ins pitched zero hits and nine plus strikeouts and obviously the nine plus strikeouts for for Emerson Hancock class

I heard the nine strikeouts for Emerson Hancock last night

um a career high from

So it was Hancock last night and the Felix's perfect game. That's it. That's the end of the list

None of the balls that were put in play against Hancock left the infield

last night

Everything was a strikeout a pop-up or a ground out. We've seen him do this before

We've seen him do it in Boston. We've seen him do it against the Padres. He's not against Cleveland a couple of times

The strikeouts are new though. We haven't seen nine before and the sweeper is new very new

As is the arm angles. So I'm very interested to watch and pitch now like I think these are legitimate changes

That could again, it's not just like oh, I added a sweeper and he said that last year. It's like yeah, but it sucked

But now he's dropped the arm angle

significantly. He's refined the sweeper

And he's getting fastball value of the nine strikeouts seven of them came on the fastball yesterday

All right, we will talk about some of the other things that we learned that we haven't gotten to just yet over the course of the weekend

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So what else do we need to talk about today colby?

I mean

You kind of can't not talk about Dan Wilson. Unfortunately. I'd love to not talk about him ever

But he seems

What's the word

Determined to make himself the biggest story every time the mariners lose, but

You know

Let's just say there were several questionable decisions and not all of them were even both unrelated. How about that? So yeah, yeah, yeah

so

the mayors have lost twice this season as you know

And in both of those losses

Dan Wilson's bullpen management has been a topic of discussion

Yeah, we'll say that now

As we said after opening day

I wouldn't say that it was the the biggest issue coming out of

Opening day and Saturday's games, but it was certainly did not have certainly did not help

We'll put it that way. Yeah, certainly did not help

Um

So yeah, so there's the the not going to spire

thing

Which that to me is way more ridiculous than anything that happened on opening day

Yeah, okay

Yeah

Leave him bizarro in to face

Stephen Kwan

After he's just walked to guys and he's thrown in that one what 22 pitches including losing roquia want to know to count and then throw him for straight balls

Right again

After this is him throwing 22 pitches after going after pitching on Friday

So this is his first back to back of the year and then and then Stephen and then Stephen Kwan splits

I posted them right after that that happened. Let me see if I can quickly

Bring them up, but like his yeah his splits against lefties and varieties in 2025

So versus lefties in 2025 Stephen Kwan hit 246 302 81 against a right easy hit 284 345 419

And you got

Maybe the best

Luffy left left left handed reliever and baseball warming up

Certainly for left on left at bats. He's one of the the very best. So yeah

Yeah

And then of course he doesn't go to him and bizarro you know

Kwan does what he does. He puts something in place softly

And it works out

Yeah, it's it's not like

It's not like bizarro like really like

Biff that in the moment, you know

It was the two walks that Kwan Kwan was just able

Kwan was just able to find grass in that situation and maybe the same thing, you know, happens against spire

The other significantly lower of that. Yeah. Yeah, so

So yeah, so that decision sucks

You know, they were able to overcome that and send things to extras and then

you know

the

The bullpen

Like the bullpen has been

An issue

To a degree through the first four games

No, I feel like it's getting a little bit overblown because like the the Andreas Munoz

Of it all

Specifically what happened on Saturday

I mean like Donovan air mills that throw in a in the right field and

Um, well, not necessarily air mill, but you know, he threw it into right field

It would have been better if he did air mill, it was there than that even, but yeah, and then you know

Munoz doesn't make a bad pitch. I mean, it's a fastball outside of the strike zone

You know on the outside corner of the strike zone and chased a lot or just makes an insane swing

You know to put it into aggers. So

It's like it's been a little bit of a problem, but also it's all it's been kind of overblown

And then you know, there's the Dan of it all and he hasn't really put these guys on the best position to succeed either

And so that's been fresh. I would just say like the whole like bullpen

Aspect of this club so far through the four first four games. That includes Dan's hand in all of it has been frustrating to say the least

Yeah, just he's not putting his guys in a position where they're most likely to succeed

As is always the case whenever you put a your closer in in a tie game

There's always the moron who's like, oh, they should never pitch in a tie game

Just remember what you're saying by that is when the mariners do not have the lead after the bottom of the eighth inning at home

You never use your closer like that's what you're saying when you say never use a closer in a tie game

Because that's the only time the closer could pitch. There's no safe. No safe can be had

So just to nip that in the bud of the many transgressions of Dan Wilson as bullpen management

Going to Munoz in the 10th is not one of them not even remotely close. So that's the correct call

Yeah, but you know having like Amina pitching one run games twice now

Sounds like they probably would have gone with Vargas if he was healthy in both of those situations

Yeah, so we got more so we got more context on that so that kind of

diminished my issues with with that my my bigger issue though if you remember on opening day was

Letting spire face Ramirez more so than it was yeah, you know having like Amina and again a situation where you have another guy

seemingly warmed up for that particular situation and then you you don't go to on the end

Both times they were ready to go

Yeah, standing there waiting looking into the field and I get in the call am I not and

Then you know trying to squeeze that extra out out of his bullpen

This is one of the few things that you know

Was really bugging me about Scott's service and then his last year or two as he managed was always trying to get that one extra out out of

The guy who was clearly cooked. Yeah, he's not in a couple times. He's not played the match-ups well

And of course the whole thing on on Friday or Saturday gets magnified when they do go to gave spire to face a little lefty

After the game is essentially over and and he gets him out on three pitches

Like yep, of course he did of course and then

That's it three pitches gave stun like

For a game that you hope is going to actress and by the way and this is to get to my biggest transgression of the week

How he handled

brine bliss

Was a travesty and just the the lead-off spot in general like I'm fine with him going to

Canzone over ref sider in the fourth. Yeah, you're going for the kill shot. Yeah, like that's that's that's fine

Like to me that was a no-brainer

But to be fair

I wouldn't have had a huge problem if they had just left rough sider in but can zone the other can zone there totally makes sense

No problem with that, but then but then you go to bliss after

Canzone has won at bat after his turn through the order comes back around and the guardians put a lefty in there and look canzone

I know historically not good against lofties, but last year was actually pretty good against lofties

And at the very least I'm more willing to take that shot on him and keep him in the game for when he eventually might face a righty

Maybe his next turn through the order then then for the then for the sake of you know having brine bliss and in the game for his first two at bats since

You know his six games or whatever and in triple A right and then yeah, and then a year ago in the majors, right

Like so my issue as a whole like I thought there was an opportunity there with the lofty on the mound in cantillo

Start the game for bliss to play on Saturday and I was a little

um

I just found that curious

Because again like I said like if you're going to put

You know when when we talked about the opening day roster like if you were going to put Ryan bliss on this roster

Given how little he played last year

You should probably play him a fair amount like it just it doesn't

It feels like a disservice to him and to yourself as a club

To bring this guy up and let him essentially waste away on the bench after he hardly played last year when he needs reps

Uh, when you have guys like Will Wilson and you know Patrick Wisdom and Connor Joe who you don't care

You don't care about yeah, you don't care and so

I do wonder and we we did speculate about this when we had that discussion

Maybe the mayor is also just don't care about Ryan blissing for

Maybe but it's still a massive disservice to the guy

First of all, you should let canzone try and hit against the lefty because you know the odds that he gets another at bat

In that game we're very good and you know he's getting another at bat in that game

It's probably going to be against Kate Smith

So I wanted I wanted to see Ryan bliss play

How he wound up playing on Saturday that was not at all what I was talking about

No

Again the whole thing is just disjointed my biggest problem would go into Ryan bliss

Instead of you know Mitch Garber who was your primary dh against lefties last year

If you're going to pinch it for canzone do it with Garber

A guy who's actually taken major league at bats in the last calendar year

A guy who might actually run into one a guy who's probably going to give you a higher quality at bat

Then Ryan bliss in his first major league at bat in over a year

And to make matters even worse though

Is you say you have a short bullpen

You've already burned the few leverage guys that you have available that day

Then the ninth inning when Cole young hits a double to lead off the inning you ask Ryan bliss

To lay down a sacrifice punt

Against one of the best strikeout pitchers in baseball

To try and force Cal Raleigh who hasn't touched a baseball yet this year. Oh for seven was seven strikeouts at that point

To put the ball in play against Kate Smith. That was your master plan. You were playing for extra innings

When your bullpen was you know

Entatters apparently and you're still playing for extras instead of playing for the win

So not only did you see yourself when you took canzone out of the game

Knowing that he was probably going to get another at bat later in the game against the righty more than likely

Because it was going to be the eighth or the ninth inning. He was going to get another at bat. He could have won you that game

So you're yourself there and then you just decide you're going to give up one of your valuable last three outs

By asking Ryan bliss

Hey, we don't know. Bliss is good at it. Based on what we saw he's not

stabbing at the ball like

Did not look comfortable trying to punt at all. Which again, it's also Kate Smith. Yeah

Yeah

That's the point though

Like it's Kate Smith you're asking Ryan bliss to get a punt down against one of the five best closures in baseball

In his second at bat in a calendar year

Because you took out your left-handed

Hitting platoon guy who actually hit lefties totally fine last year

It's three innings before because you didn't want to give him one single at bat against the left-handed pitcher

It doesn't make sense. He butchered that thing from the moment he took canzone out of that game

If you're going to pinch hit for for canzone against the lefty

It should be for Mitch Garber

It absolutely should not Ryan bliss

Like you very clearly don't trust Ryan bliss because you didn't start him in the game against the lefty

Obviously, that's the case. So why are you giving him an at bat against the lefty in high leverage situations

Right or

Dominic canzone could have gotten three at bats in high leverage situations on Saturday

Instead, he got one because Dan Wilson just overmanaged

And Stephen's about bullied him into making a poor substitution

And that is a problem and that's not the last time we'll have this problem

And on top of all that he doubled down by asking Ryan bliss to punt instead of letting him swing away

And that to me is way worse than anything he did with the bullpen because with the bullpen

We just don't know

Maybe brash wasn't available yesterday or whatever maybe for error wasn't available like we don't know

Obviously, we learned that on Thursday. Vargas wasn't even available

Because he was hurt

With the bunting stuff and the pinch hitting opportunities. We know

We know

And when you look at those things forget hindsight Ryan bliss gets the bump down. It's still a stupid decision

So it's just the same thing over and over and over again

He's not getting better at it and Dan Wilson is now managed well over 200 games in the big leagues including 12 playoff games

And he's still making the same mistake over and over and over again

And that is terrifying for a team that has everything it needs

Maybe some middle relief would be nice, but in theory has everything they need

To go to the world series and maybe win it this year your manager is still making rookie mistakes again and again and again

And he's still getting bullied by smarter managers

To make these stupid decisions late in the game

It's a problem

So

wrapping things up on a on a more positive note JP

rejoining the club a couple of days ago

And he's set to go out on a rehab assignment soon

Into coma. So starting to believe

Yeah, it shouldn't be too much longer before we see JP back with the with the club, which is nice

And you know Leo Revaus has done a really nice job holding it down in the meantime

He's had a lot of competitive, you know, at bats played appearances as we expected from him

He drove in the first run of the night last night for the mayors

So yeah, been really impressed with Revaus

Who just you know continues to come through when the mayors need him to

Yep, and I'll throw this in there at the end because we just went in entire episode without talking about him

You know, I'll start a really nice series

Who Randy or Rosarina? So there you go

So

Yeah, we went in an entire offensive segment never mentioned Randy's name. He's like the second best hitter on the team right now

So

There you go

But yeah, mostly overall four games frustrating four games

Certainly at times some minor things to kind of be like it didn't love that the bullpen mostly. Yeah, yeah

But overall, I think just almost entirely positive

for what is

Kind of a mediocre result. I think what we saw and how they got there

I think should be mostly encouraging for mariner fans and it's all four games

So when one last thing I would throw up Cole Welcox made his mariner's debut and he looked good

He's got some stuff man. He's got some stuff. That's for sure. All right

Well, that's going to do it for a show. Thank you so much for joining us here on the lock-down maris podcast

Probably the lock-down podcast that work your team every day once again

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