Tag Archives: Gabe Speier

The Mariners Won 1 Game Per City On Their Last Road Trip

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I guess it’s lucky the Rangers have been so atrocious lately, but the Mariners are free-falling, and I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done to fix it.

We lost 2 of 3 to the awful Mets. Then, we lost 2 of 3 to the average Reds. After a 1-0 victory to open up the Rays series, we lost the next 3 games to fall to 79-64, and as of Monday morning, up by only half a game over the Rangers for the final wild card spot (lost in all this has been the fact that the Blue Jays have been on a tear, winning 8 of 10 as we lost 7 of 10 on that road trip).

And, really, we were lucky to win two of those games. So, this hasn’t been the funnest September, after a record-breaking August.

The 1-0 win was everything this team needed. Dominant Luis Castillo start (6 innings, 4 hits, 4 walks, 8 strikeouts) and lockdown bullpen work by Campbell, Brash, and Munoz.

My hopes for a bounce-back series against the Rays were dashed the very next night, with another off-kilter performance by Kirby. He gave up 2 runs in a ragged first inning where he couldn’t throw strikes, then settled down through the sixth. We had a 4-2 lead heading into the seventh, but then we tried to squeeze another inning out of Kirby (who, in spite of a tough first inning, had a reasonable pitch count and probably should’ve been able to go one more). Kirby ended up getting one out before giving up a double and a game-tying homer before being pulled, turning a quality start into a no decision. Campbell entered the game and gave up a 2-run home run of his own, before Dominic Leone gave up a solo homer in the eighth to give the game its final score of 7-4.

Kirby didn’t have pleasant words to say about being put out there for the seventh. He questioned the manager’s decision, which I’m sure a lot of fans did as well. Kirby predictably walked those words back the next morning – heat of the moment and whatnot – but I’m sure a lot of fans were mixed. There’s the younger fans – who’ve become accustomed to what baseball is in today’s age – and a segment of Anti-Servais Mariners fans, who probably sided with Kirby.

Then, there’s the old timers, and the Unwritten Rules crowd (usually comprised of ex-players like Roger Clemens, who got his ass roasted on Twitter for wading into the conversation). Someone even had the gall to compare Kirby to Erik Bedard for … reasons. They point to Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan, who would regularly throw 120-150 pitches per game, trying to go the full nine if at all possible.

I don’t like this argument. Yeah, complete games are cool. But that’s not what baseball is today. Instead, you’ve got starters regularly throwing in the high-90s, and that kind of strain isn’t conducive to throwing 110+ pitches very often, if ever (unless you’re a unicorn). Not if you want them to make it through an entire season, or multiple seasons, without arm surgeries. It’s a Get Off My Lawn stance, and I won’t hear it. Just accept that things change, and it’s never going to be the way it was when you were younger.

That being said, you have to take it in context. It’s early September. We’re in the midst of a 10 games in 10 days East Coast road trip. We don’t have an off-day until this upcoming Thursday, and after that we only have one more off-day until the end of the season. We’re also breaking in not one but TWO rookie starting pitchers, whose outings need to be carefully managed (including the occasional skipped start, as with what happened to Woo on Saturday). That means the bullpen gets taxed. We also – for better or for worse – traded our best and most-consistent reliever at the deadline, which means that taxed bullpen is that much less-effective. We brought in three veterans (Thornton, Weaver, and Leone) who look(ed) objectively terrible, we have another rookie in Campbell who is just trying his best, but is by no means a lockdown guy, and other veterans we brought in – like Saucedo, Speier, and even Topa – have shown serious cracks as this season has gone on.

To be blunt, the bullpen is over-worked, and that falls on the starters. That falls predominantly on guys like Castillo, Gilbert, and Kirby, who have experience, and should be able to go out there in the seventh inning, on 94 pitches, and take care of business for another three outs.

The home run Kirby gave up was to the #9 hitter! It’s not like we were asking him to take on the heart of the order for the fourth time through. This is a backup catcher!

I 100% see why Servais did what he did. If this was April or May, or if our starters had been rolling a little more of late – allowing our bullpen to stay fresh – Kirby would’ve handed over the ball after getting out of the sixth inning, and all would’ve been right with the world. But, it’s early September, in a pennant chase, and we desperately needed our second-best starter to squeeze another inning out of his arm. He failed. He failed with a questionable mix of pitches and locations. And, if he missed his spot, that’s on him. If he hit his spot, that’s still partially on him and partially on whoever was calling this game (either the catcher or the manager in the dugout). Maybe Servais should’ve walked him. I dunno. That’s a conversation. But, I’m not blaming Servais for his handling of the bullpen. And, I’m certainly not blaming him for his handling of Kirby. Kirby, more often than not, has had it easy. The team doesn’t ask him to over-exert himself very often. He could’ve done us this solid. And, quite frankly, he should’ve taken his loss like a professional, rather than whine about it to the press after the game.

Saturday was, *sigh*, a bullpen day. Trent Thornton got the opener role, couldn’t throw strikes in the first, and ended up going 2 innings, giving up just the one run. He gave way to Luke Weaver, who gave us the Luke Weaver Special (4.1 innings, 4 runs), and then was thankfully DFA’d by Sunday. I hope we never see him again, unless it’s on an opposing team’s pitching staff.

We, at one point, led 4-1. Then, the Weaver Experience left us trailing 5-4. We miraculously tied it in the eighth, before Saucedo lost it in the bottom of the ninth with a 2-run homer. We were 1/8 with RISP, and once again starting a backup catcher who failed to finish the game, necessitating us to overwork Cal Raleigh, as per usual this time of year.

I’m happy to say I didn’t see one iota of our 6-3 loss on Sunday, what with NFL football dominating the day. Bryce Miller stunk up the joint (5 innings, 5 runs), and I don’t even feel like talking about the rest.

Next up, we have the Angels in town. Then, it’s the Dodgers, then it’s the home stretch. One way or another, this season is almost over.

This Mariners Road Trip Has Been Pretty Fucking Miserable

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The Mariners have gone 2-4 on this road trip so far, and have seen their lead in the A.L. West become eliminated. Now we’re a game behind the red-hot Astros, and it’s starting to feel like that cartoon dog inside the burning house meme.

We lost to a Bullpen Day on Monday, 6-3. Bryan Woo stunk up the joint at first, eventually going 5 innings and giving up 5 runs. The offense consisted of solo homers by Julio and Mike Ford, and a meaningless RBI single by J.P. Crawford in the ninth. Disaster times.

We followed that up with one of your more brutal losses of the season, 7-6. This was a game we – at one point – led 5-1, and at another later point still led 6-3. Then, Justin Topa gave up a 3-run bomb in the bottom of the 8th to tie it, followed by Andres Munoz VERY predictably blowing it in the bottom of the 9th.

We managed to get a relatively good start out of Bryce Miller (5 innings, 1 run), but then turned the game over to Dominic Leone, who gave up 2 homers in 2/3 of an inning. Between Leone and Weaver, I don’t know what the hell we’re doing. These guys are useless bums and you can’t magically turn around a player’s fortunes in the middle of a fucking pennant chase!

While Leone’s underwhelming performance was expected, Justin Topa has been pretty phenomenal this season. Nevertheless, you could tell right away he didn’t have it, and was a 3-run home run just waiting to happen. Munoz, I still don’t understand how he got August Reliever of the Month. You’re telling me there weren’t ANY relievers who didn’t blow two games and lose a third in the month of August? So far, his September is so bad I’m hoping it convinces the MLB to rescind the award and retroactively give it to literally anyone else.

It’s too bad, because the offense did more than enough to win this one. Teoscar continued his hot run he’s been on, with a first inning 2-run home run. Julio broke things wide open with a 3-run dinger in the fifth, and then he backed it up with another homer in the seventh. It’s a little concerning that we scored so many of our runs this series off of the long ball, but the Reds do play in a bandbox, so what do you expect?

We were at least able to salvage an 8-4 victory yesterday, though even that wasn’t particularly easy. Logan Gilbert was rolling until he wasn’t, finishing with 5.1 innings of 3-run ball. Even though we scored 7 runs in the first four innings, winning this game was all that mattered, so we went right to the top-end of our bullpen. Brash got us out of the sixth, Speier and Topa bridged the gap, and Munoz closed it out for the not-save (giving up a solo homer in the process, of course). You shouldn’t have to use those guys in a game where you lead by 4-5 runs, but that’s what happens when you blow so many fucking winnable games on this road trip. You have to buckle down and still struggle to keep it all together.

Ford had a 2-run homer, J.P. had a 3-run bomb, Cal added a solo homer, and Ty France had his first good hitting day in (seemingly) months. I am, nevertheless, done with France. He should be gone after this season. Fresh start somewhere else or whatever. But, he’s clearly a guy already on the decline, and it’s only going to get worse.

This was also the first great Suarez game we’ve seen in quite some time. Really need one of those two guys to get things going down the stretch if we want to get over the hump.

Now, we’ve got a 4-game set in Tampa, one of the best teams in all of baseball. Just what a slumping ballclub needs: a fucking freight train coming right for ’em.

The Mariners Looked Like Their Old Selves, Losing 2 of 3 To The Mets

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I hated almost every minute of this weekend when it came to the Mariners. I’m not going to say I saw the losing series coming, but I also can’t say that I’m entirely surprised.

The 2-1 loss on Friday was easily the most frustrating game of the series. It’s frustrating that we struck out 13 times, it’s frustrating that we were 0 for 7 with RISP, it’s frustrating that we squandered another awesome start by Logan Gilbert, it’s frustrating that Andres Munoz blew yet another one late (how he ended up winning the Reliever of the Month Award for August is beyond me), it’s frustrating that he just STOPPED throwing off-speed pitches to Daniel Vogelbach (who was timing him up pretty well, and only needed a bleeder of a single to get the go-ahead run home), and it’s even frustating that we got saddled going up against their lone quality starter, in an otherwise miserable season for the Mets.

We won Saturday’s game 8-7, but it shouldn’t have been that difficult. We were up 3-0 early, before Castillo gave it all back. Then, we took a 7-3 lead, before the combination of Castillo and Speier gave most of it back again. 5 innings and 5 runs for our “Ace”. Saucedo ended up blowing the save in the bottom of the 8th, but luckily J.P. Crawford was there to homer in the top of the 9th to give us the margin of victory.

Sunday’s game was a real nothing-burger from the whole team. George Kirby had an even-worse start than Castillo, going only 3 innings, giving up 4 runs (3 earned). From there, the bullpen was just eating innings, with oldcomer-turned-newcomer Dominic Leone, Isaiah Campbell, and Trent Thornton going 5 and giving up 2. We hit back-to-back homers (Canzone and Ford) to score our only three runs in the 4th, but otherwise the offense was garbage against a lot of garbage pitching.

What, did we spend all weekend going to Broadway plays and partying until five in the morning? Cincinnati should offer much less in the way of distractions. Of course, they more than make up for it in having a better baseball team to go up against, including one of the most exciting players in the league in Elly De La Cruz. So, that’s fun.

The Mariners Are All Alone In First Place In The A.L. West, For Now (Maybe Forever)

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Oh that’s just a jinx! That’s a jinx waiting to happen! That’s so much of a jinx it just burped its way through a murder confession while still on microphone!

The Mariners swept the Royals over the weekend. This series wasn’t quite as rough and tumble as the one in Kansas City last week. Not a lot of crazy back and forth. Just some solid, all-American good play by the home team.

Friday, we had Bryce Miller not giving us his best stuff; he went 4 innings and gave up 3 runs before we opted to pull him and overwhelm the Royals with bullpen arms. Thankfully, the offense came to play, scoring two in the 1st, two in the 4th, and two in the fifth. The bullpen wasn’t perfect – Matt Brash gave up a 2-run bomb (I have some real concern about his arm wearing down, based on recent comments by management in the media) – but thankfully that was the only blemish.

We had 16 hits in this one, including a very respectable 5/15 with runners in scoring position. Crawford, Suarez, and Raleigh all led the way with 3 hits each; Canzone and Julio had 2 hits each. This was a 7-5 victory that, quite frankly, we should have against a team like that, with the terrible pitching they’re saddled with.

Saturday’s 15-2 drubbing was an onslaught for the ages. Between the bottom of the third and the end of the game, we scored in every inning, with a 7-spot leading the way. The following players had two hits: J.P., Cal, Teo, Ford, and Rojas. Teo led all parties with 6 RBI, including 2 homers. Cal, Julio, Ford, Rojas, and Marlowe also homered (giving us 7 on the day). It was just pure annihilation!

To add insult to injury, Logan Gilbert made it look easy. He finished 7 innings, giving up 1 run, 2 hits, 1 walk, while striking out 7. That’s all on only 83 pitches, so he easily could’ve gone longer if need be. Luke Weaver – after a marvelous Mariners debut where he struck out 5 White Sox in 2 innings – came down to Earth with a run given up on a couple hits, but that was it.

Sunday’s 3-2 victory was the game most in jeopardy, but we managed to hold it together at the end. Luis Castillo went 7 strong, giving up zero runs on 1 hit and 1 walk, while striking out 6. We had cobbled together a 3-0 lead through that point, thanks to another Teo homer, and another Julio 2-run bomb. Gabe Speier gave them two runs right back in the 8th inning to make it tight, but Topa got us out of the jam, and Munoz sealed it with an easy 9th.

Most importantly here, as the title indicates, the Mariners have climbed all the way into first place by themselves in the A.L. West. That’s thanks to the Mariners going 9-1 in their last 10 games, while the Rangers have gone 1-9 (I shit you not), with the Astros going a mediocre 4-6. We’re 74-56, one game over Texas and Houston. We have the third-best run differential in the American League. And, even if the shit hit the fan over the next month, we’re still riding a 3.5 game lead over the Blue Jays (the first team on the outside looking in on the wild card).

But, clearly, we’re not thinking about the wild card anymore. I mean, we’d take it if we had to settle for it, but we’re 130 games into this season and we’ve got the division in our grasp!

Remember when we were 50-50? That was a thing! In the last 30 games we’ve gone 24-6, which is IN-sane!

We start a 3-game set against an already-eliminated Athletics team, before an off-day and then a lengthy 10 games in 10 days East Coast road trip. It’s going to be fun, boys and girls!

The Mariners Bookended A Perfect Road Trip With Two Walk-Off Losses

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The Mariners have been on a tear of late. They’ve had two separate 8-game winning streaks in the month of August alone! Including on this most recent 8-2 road trip. Since July 24th – when we were 50-50 through 100 games – we’ve gone 21-6. Just outstanding!

But, you can’t literally win them all, not even against the dregs of the dregs.

I’m trying to not get worked up over Andres Munoz blowing yet another game, this time in the finale yesterday. I’m holding myself back from officially labelling him my least-favorite player on this team. But, I’ll tell you what I also told you on Twitter (I’m not calling it X, fuck you): I was in a meeting and took a peek over at the television in the bottom of the 9th. Munoz was on the mound, there was a runner on second, and we were nursing a surprising 1-run lead (I had missed the previous couple innings, so this development was momentarily delightful to me); my initial thought as I turned my attention quickly back to the meeting was, “Oh, he’s going to blow this.” By the time my meeting was over, the game was over. The only shocking event was that the game went to extras, and wasn’t lost then and there in the 9th.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. A series win is a series win! Even if it should’ve been a sweep. I’m not excusing the loss by any means; these games all count the same, and as I’ve stated repeatedly: our margin for error is razor thin. But, I’m just not going to let it ruin my day. The Mariners are enjoying what figures to be a rare off-day the rest of the way, before returning home to play – on paper – the two worst teams in baseball. We’ll see how that goes.

Game 1 of this White Sox series was such a massive blowout that they ended up firing their executive vice president and their GM. It’s been a disappointing year for the south siders, but apparently a 14-2 defeat to the Mariners was the final straw.

Just to get it out of the way, Luis Castillo was masterful: 7 innings, 5 hits, 0 walks, 1 run, 9 strikeouts, in a game where – once again – he was in charge of eating a lot of innings to spare a tired bullpen. We mopped this one up with Eduard Bazardo and Darren McCaughan before promptly sending them down to Tacoma. Ahh, the life of a fringe reliever.

On the hitting side, you have to start with Cal. 3 hits (2 homers and a double), 3 runs, 6 RBI. Josh Rojas also had 3 hits, with 2 runs and an RBI. Suarez, France, and Hernandez all had 2 hits each, with Teo and Canzone both hitting homers. It was the most lop-sided victory for the Mariners this season, and they managed it all without Julio, who was getting a scheduled rest day.

In Game 2, we welcomed back Bryan Woo from the IL. He was limited to 65 pitches, but still managed to go 4 innings, giving up just the 1 run. We ended up emptying the bullpen in this one, needing 6 guys to go the final 5 innings, with Munoz getting the cheap 1-out save, thanks to Gabe Speier not being able to quite get the job done.

This 6-3 victory was brought to you by – among others – Josh Rojas with his 2-run homer. Ford and Teo each had 2 hits. J.P., Ty, and Cal each had RBIs. All, again, without Julio, who this time sat due to a stomach bug.

It all seemed perfect heading into Game 3, but to be quite honest, the M’s had no business winning that one. George Kirby didn’t quite have it, and couldn’t quite get through six full innings, going 5.2, giving up 8 hits and 3 runs with 9 strikeouts (a 2-run bomb was his final pitch of the day).

We were down 3-0 heading into the 7th, when we were finally able to make good on a rally by scoring 1 run. The game stayed at 3-1 heading into the 9th, when finally the M’s broke open the floodgates. Julio was back and got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Then, Suarez hit a 2-RBI single to take the lead. That’s some improbable, ’95 Refuse To Lose shit right there!

Except not really. Munoz failed again, then Topa wasn’t even really given a chance to hold things in the 10th, on one of the more bizarre endings to a game you’ll ever see.

The ghost runner broke for third, and for some reason, Cal threw down to 2nd base. I wish I had seen it from another angle, to get a clear picture of what the runner was actually doing. Did he double-back only to continue running to 3rd? If not, I don’t understand why Cal didn’t just throw down to 3rd. Regardless, J.P. caught the ball as the runner was heading into 3rd, and tried to throw to Suarez, only to hit the runner on the helmet, sending the ball scattering into foul territory. That was all the runner needed to make it home for an easy score.

Maybe it’s better I missed that in real time. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to contain my fury in that work meeting.

Hey, remember the Royals? Well, now they’re coming to Seattle! If they play us as tough as they did in Kansas City, I don’t know if we’ll win this series.

This Is Not A Drill: The Mariners Swept The Astros In Houston

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Well, then I guess there’s only one thing left to do …

I can’t even begin to tell you how unlikely all of this is. We’re now 14 games over .500; remember the All Star Break? We were one game over .500, and needed to go 45-28 to get to 90 wins. Remember the next week after the All Star Break? Remember how we lost a series at home against the lowly Tigers, and were in the midst of breaking even against the Twins? Remember how – at that point – we’d dipped down to one game below .500? It’s insane to think of how this season has turned around in such a short period of time.

Now, all we need to do is go 21-17 to get to 90 wins. Not that 90 wins are any sort of guarantee. Might take 93-95 wins this year, with the way things are going in the American League. Regardless, as of this weekend, we are in the third wild card spot by half a game. Time will tell if this is our emotional high-water mark on the season, or if we’ll power through to the finish. But it’s been a lot more fun to watch this team over the last month.

It was especially fun to watch the Mariners this weekend, because fuck the Astros! As you know from my post on Friday, I didn’t have high hopes. It just seemed like our bullpen was taxed, our starters were iffy, and we were in their home (where we’ve rarely done well). I don’t think this weekend could’ve gone more perfectly.

On Friday, we just barely scraped by with a 2-0 victory. Bryce Miller had his good stuff going in this one, completing 6.1 innings, giving up only 2 hits and 1 walk, while striking out 2. Justin Topa – who was pretty fresh – bridged that gap to the ninth inning, where Andres Munoz (also pretty fresh) nailed down the save.

Offensively, this was the Julio Rodriguez Show. It’s been his show for the last week, and really since the All Star Break. He went 4/5 in this one with a solo homer in the third. Mike Ford had the other solo homer in the sixth off of J.P. France, who was otherwise very good.

On Saturday, Julio went 4/6 with 2 runs scored en route to a 10-3 Mariners victory over Framber Valdez (who went 5 innings, giving up 6 runs). It was largely a team effort in this one, as Teoscar Hernandez had a big game (3/5 with 2 RBI and a run), as did Dylan Moore (2 home runs, 3 RBI), Ty France (2 hits, 2 runs), Sam Haggerty (2 hits, including a homer), and Jose Caballero (1 hit, 1 walk, 1 run, and 1 fight instigated by the Astros battery, who just hate him).

Logan Gilbert gave us 6 innings of competent pitching in this one, giving up 2 runs on 8 hits and a walk, with 3 strikeouts. Thankfully, we kept adding on runs throughout, so we got away with our back-of-the-bullpen arms to finish this one. That ended up being pretty fortuitous, considering what happened on Sunday.

It looks like Emerson Hancock’s season might be done. He left the game after 2 innings with a right shoulder strain. He had a lat strain in 2022 that delayed the start of that season, so I would say this is pretty concerning. For him, anyway. The Mariners were all set to bring back Bryan Woo from the IL in this upcoming series in Chicago. Now, the intention was to go to a 6-man rotation for a spell, and that appears to be in jeopardy. But, maybe the time off was all Woo needed to at least get us to the finish line. Either that, or maybe we sprinkle in a spot start or two out of one of our AAA starters. It’s already almost September, so it’s not like the guys have a ton of starts remaining.

Anyway, on Sunday, the M’s had built up a 6-0 lead heading into the bottom of the third, when our bullpen was forced to take over. Unfortunately, that bullpen gave us quite a scare right off the bat. Tayler Saucedo had zilch, getting no outs, giving up 5 runs on 4 hits and a HBP. Of course, two of those runs came around to score by his successor, but that’s still his fault.

The rest of the bullpen was pretty much nails! Thorton ate up 1.2 innings (including getting us out of that Saucedo scrape with a lead intact), Brash went 1.1 innings, Campbell went 1 inning (giving up the Astros’ sixth run, after we’d already gotten our seventh), and Topa, Munoz, and Speier locked it down from there, keeping the score where it was, 7-6. As it happened, I was at Wild Waves, following along on my phone. I saw that Munoz did the 8th inning – taking out the top of the order – and was sure he’d be in there for the 2-inning save. Instead, Speier of all people got the job done, starting with Destroyer Of All Things Mariner Yordan Alvarez and striking him out. I’m glad Y.A. was relatively cool in this series; it’s nice not to see him homer against us literally every single day.

Julio doubled in the first in this one, before coming around to score. Otherwise, he was quiet, but if he’s not the Player of the Week, there’s some shenanigans going on. Canzone was 4/5 with a RBI and a run, Moore was also 4/5 with a RBI. Rojas had 2 hits and 2 runs; Suarez had a 2-run homer; and even Brian O’Keefe had a 2-run double (though he’s still yet to finish a game he’s started, with Cal pinch hitting late both times).

The Mariners got all the way to be within a half game of the Astros (tied in the loss column). On top of that, we have officially taken the season series against them! So, bring on the tiebreaker! Again, we’ll see if this is our high-water mark or not. We have three more against the White Sox starting tonight, before we get to go back home for what – ON PAPER – looks like the cheesiest of all homestands (3 vs. the Royals, 3 vs. the A’s), but we saw what happened the last time we faced the Royals. Off-days are starting to get scarce, but we rustled up a well-deserved one this Thursday.

On the plus side, we finally get J.P. Crawford back from his concussion. On the downside, we’ll see how long it takes him to get back in the groove.

The Mariners Have A Bullpen Problem

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The Mariners have lost three of their last four games, and it was damn near four in a row. All in the 9th inning or later. All thanks to a meltdown by either Andres Munoz or Matt Brash, ostensibly our two best relievers.

This bullpen problem didn’t happen immediately following the trade of Paul Sewald, but obviously that’s the move you point to. It’s been an especially bitter pill to swallow because Dominic Canzone and Josh Rojas have both had some VERY impactful hits late in games to pull our asses out of the fire; the irony being the fact that they were able to temporarily save us, but we didn’t have someone like Sewald to come in and lock it down.

In Paul Sewald news: after his own meltdown, he’s come back to save three games in four days this week. Oh cruel fate, why have you cursed us so?

The thing is, I would argue our bullpen problem predates the Sewald trade, though obviously it hasn’t helped matters. We came into 2023 believing the bullpen was the best and deepest part of this team, which has been anything but the case. Diego Castillo is struggling to stay afloat in AAA. Matt Festa, Chris Flexen, and Trevor Gott aren’t even in the organization anymore. Penn Murfee is on the 60 day IL. Now, we have the Sewald trade, and we’ve back-filled with some very uninspiring arms.

Isaiah Campbell seems to be used exclusively in mop-up duty during blowouts or lost causes. Trent Thornton has wildly unimpressive stuff (it’s no wonder he was previously DFA’d; he would be the last guy I’d use in a high-leverage situation). Ryder Ryan is the latest guy we’ve picked up off the scrap heap; he made his Major League debut at 28 years old last week, so we’ll see.

The guys who’ve stuck are, again, Munoz and Brash at the top. Justin Topa seems to get overlooked, but should probably have a bigger presence in high-leverage situations. Tayler Saucedo is an interesting breakout for this team, but I don’t know if he’s necessarily a high-leverage guy, so much as a solid 6th or 7th inning bridge arm against the bottom of the opposing team’s order. And Gabe Speier is your run of the mill lefty; he has good days and bad days.

As the Mariners have largely underperformed this season, it’s not exclusively due to the lack of hitting. It’s been kind of a nightmare scenario and you can point to two critical figures: our record in 1-run games (16-22) and our record in extra inning games (6-11). When you look at the 2021 and 2022 Mariners, those were pretty well reversed; the Mariners were remarkably clutch in tight games like these, and I would argue the bullpen played at a significantly higher level as a result.

See, it’s not JUST the hitting, it’s a collective effort. More often than not, yeah, we haven’t been able to get the big hit. But, sometimes it’s a poor start. And sometimes, these close games we used to nail down are being blown by relievers we’re forced to rely on.

What we’re starting to see is the hitting coming around. It’s a little later in the season than we’d like, but they’re finally doing their jobs. So, these blown saves, and these lost extra innings games are standing out a little more. It doesn’t help that we’ve bunched a number of these blown saves all in a row, now involving multiple pitchers. Maybe that’s just baseball. Peaks and valleys and whatnot. I’ll buy that to a point, but I think it also points to a bigger concern as we hit the stretch run. The Mariners need to win as many of these games as they can if we want to make it back to the playoffs. And even if we do manage to beat the odds and sneak into a wild card spot, can we really rely on these guys in a playoff situation?

It feels like we’re in need of one really awesome high-leverage arm. I had hoped Munoz or Brash would’ve stepped up to be one of those ace closers with a sub-2 ERA, but as we’ve seen all year, they’ve had their ups and downs. They’ll go through great runs of excellence, but then hit these spots where they’re extremely hittable, and then all hell breaks loose.

It’s a bummer, because the rotation has been largely amazing. And on the whole, the bullpen is pretty solid. But, the margin for error is so razor thin with this team that we can’t afford to be this bad in close games. This feels like a problem that’ll have to settle itself next year.

2023 Mariners Bright Spots So Far

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It can be easy to dump all over this season, for good reason. The Mariners were expected to compete for the A.L. West, or at the very least somehow make it back to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2000-2001. We’re very nearly two months into the year and the Mariners are 23-24. It’s embarrassing, it’s infuriating, and it’s starting to feel like we’re getting to the point of desperation. It’s starting to feel like this team needs to go on a massive tear just to get to where they should’ve been all along. Essentially, we’re required to bank on what happened last year – when the M’s won 14 in a row and 22 out of 25 – except the problem is, this team has thus far failed in what they’ve been so good at recently: winning in 1-run games. Sure, there have been blowouts so far that have contributed to a +27 run differential, but that just means we’re 3 games off of the pace of where we should be.

We’re 6 games out of first place. AND we have three other teams to leapfrog to get there. That’s not where you want to be, if the expectations coming into the season were to – again – compete for a division title.

On the flipside, it’s not like we’re the A’s. It’s not like we’re the White Sox. The Mariners are a team with a lot of talented players, and while there are a plethora of disappointments, there’s also a lot of bright spots that we didn’t necessarily see coming either.

My tendency is – when a team plays down to this level – to throw away the season and focus on next year. The problem with that is – unlike in years past – there’s still enough talent on this team, and it is still early enough (even though I hate that line of thinking as much as anyone), that we’re in our window right this second. I don’t WANT to focus on next year. Because, sure, while it’s interesting to imagine what this team might look like in 2024 and beyond, there are also a number of the same underperforming players who will be back as well. It’s not a matter of these bright spots continuing to make their mark; it’s a matter of everyone else playing up to the backs of their baseball cards. It’s about everyone being good at the same time and putting together a magical season. We’ve had the experience of 2022. We’ve made the playoffs, we won a series, and we played the eventual World Series champs the toughest of anyone they played in their entire post-season run last year. Now it’s time to take the next step.

But, instead of belaboring our woes, let’s look at the silver linings of 2023 through 47 games.

You have to start with Jarred Kelenic, obviously. Some people are on record – at least back in April – of saying they’d trade a slow team start for Kelenic turning into The Real Deal. I was definitely uncomfortable with that line of thinking, but I do think it’s a franchise-changer for Kelenic to not only be a solid platoon guy, but to be an All Star everyday player, against both righties and lefties. To have played himself not only into a starter role, but someone batting in the top third or top half of the lineup. It still might be too soon to take this to the bank – I mean, look at Julio’s 2022 vs. 2023 – but I also don’t think Kelenic is a flash in the pan. I think this is who he is, he’s unlocked something extra-special – something we all saw in him as a prospect since the Cano deal – and he projects going forward to be a vital piece of this team’s success. His average has dipped ever-so-slightly below .300, but the whole offensive package is exactly what you want. He’s the best player on this team this season, period. That’s extraordinary! It certainly wasn’t something I was anticipating coming in.

I’m not going to completely abandon the regulars from here on out, but let’s shift over to the pitching for awhile.

George Kirby has built on an already-phenomenal start to his career. He’s been the best pitcher on this team all season. 8 quality starts out of 9, and that one was his first start of the season, whch I’m more than happy to write off. He’s getting deep into games, he’s economical with his pitches, and he’s giving this team a chance to win every five days. The fact that we’re only 5-3 in his quality starts says more about this offense and how it’s let the team down.

Bryce Miller has obviously come from out of nowhere, to a degree. He was on everyone’s radar coming out of Spring Training, but in another universe, he wouldn’t have gotten the call-up until late May or June. He’s 4 for 4 in quality starts, and two of them came against the Astros and Braves. He’s also getting deep into games, he’s also economical with his pitches, and more importantly, he’s helping us all forget how much we were counting on Robbie Ray to be a central part of this rotation. We essentially replaced a former Cy Young Award winner with another Cy Young-calibre arm.

There are a number of nice bullpen pieces who have stepped up, even if the bullpen as a whole has been a little inconsistent (and not quite up to snuff compared to recent seasons). Justin Topa, Gabe Speier, Trevor Gott, and Juan Then all have quality stuff and solid numbers so far. They’ve helped us through some poor outings by Brash, Castillo, Festa, and Sewald, and injuries to Munoz and Murfee. It’s kind of mind-blowing how we’re able to keep reloading a stacked bullpen, while overcoming the expected high-variance year-to-year performances you get with a segment of the team that’s always so volatile.

While I don’t want to dismiss the inconsistencies of Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo, they’ve also had some dynamic outings so far, and it’s not hard to see these guys continue to chug along and give you the quality outings you’ve come to expect so far in their careers. The starting rotation is, far and away, the strength of this team, and pretty much the only reason why we’ve even managed to hang around .500. The hitting will start to come around at some point, so having our 1-4 spots in the rotation being so good will give us a great chance to go on that significant winning streak we need to climb back into contention.

I’m happy to shout out J.P. Crawford in this particular blog post, because I think a lot of us were really down on him after his 2022 (especially the way it ended with a whimper). He’s always been kinda streaky, but all too often he goes in the tank for long stretches, leaving his overall numbers a little lackluster. But, especially as we started this year with so many hitters in the tank, it was nice to have some consistent production from our slap-hitting short stop. Indeed, he’s actually hitting a good number of extra-base hits for him – mostly doubles – but more importantly he’s still getting on base at a great clip. His on-base percentage leads the team among qualified players, and he has since elevated himself to leadoff hitter once again (thanks in large part to Julio’s struggles, but still). And just anecdotally, the only hitter I’m more comfortable with right now in a big spot than J.P. is Kelenic. J.P. is one of the great leaders on this team, and so far he’s been leading his ass off!

Finally, let’s round out this post with Jose Caballero. It’s WAY too early to lower the Mission Accomplished banner with him, but the M’s have been in a desperate search to shore up the second base position since the Cano deal, opting to go with veteran savvy on short-term deals the last two years. Adam Frazier was a dud, and so far Kolten Wong has made us long for the days of Adam Frazier (it’s not surprising to see him have a little bit of a bounce-back season with the Orioles so far). Once Caballero started seeing playing time (we got him as sort of an A-ball level Just A Guy in a deadline deal with the Diamondbacks in 2019 for Mike Leake), I think we all thought he’d only be keeping Dylan Moore’s bench spot warm for him until he healed up. But, with Wong sucking, Caballero has gotten more and more opportunities, and he’s certainly made the most of them! So far, Caballero has played in 8 fewer games and had 38 fewer at bats than Wong, but he has the same number of doubles, infinity more homers, is crushing him in all slash figures (OPS of .802 vs. .468), and already has a 2 WAR advantage (0.8 vs. -1.3)! All in his first-ever Major League season! I mean, what the fuck?! I don’t know if this is going to continue for Caballero, but it certainly looks like he’s getting more comfortable in all facets of the game. We’ll see if he sticks as a long-term solution to our second base woes. But, right now? Caballero is a godsend, and the Mariners can certainly use more of that.

The Mariners Swept The Rockies To Start To Right The Ship

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All right, we’re back to .500 at 8-8. For those keeping track of the streakiness of the Seattle Mariners to date, we’ve endured a 4-game losing streak, won three of four, had a 3-game losing streak, and have now won four more in a row. I’m not going to get into where the Mariners should be, or all of that nonsense, because the fact of the matter is: the Mariners deserve to be 8-8. They’ve played like an 8-8 team so far. But, all of that can quickly change. Starting today, in fact!

This weekend series against Colorado was an all-around great set of games by the Mariners. Things got off to a really encouraging start on Friday when the Mariners actually managed to overcome some adversity!

Marco Gonzales had his start scratched to go on Paternity Leave, which meant we had to endure a spot start from AAA call-up Tommy Milone. He did all right, though. 4.2 innings, 1 run on 3 hits and 2 walks, with 3 strikeouts. Not too shabby! Not good enough to get the victory, but more than enough to keep us in the game after we scored all 5 of our runs in the first four innings.

Kelenic kept driving the homer train with his fourth in four games, giving us a 2-1 lead. Then, Julio and Ty had back-to-back RBI doubles to finish things off offensively. The bullpen had a little hiccup with Trevor Gott’s 0.2 innings of relief, but then settled down with Brash finally getting out of a jam, followed by the new-look duo of Topa and Speier bridging the game to Sewald in the ninth (for his 3rd save of the young season). 5-3 victory.

The M’s blew things wide open on Saturday with a 9-2 mauling. George Kirby made it into the seventh inning (6.1, 2 runs on 6 hits & 0 walks, with 3 strikeouts), and Murfee and Castillo had some much-needed soft-landings to work through their problems.

This one was all about the offense, though. Julio was 1 for 5 with a triple and 4 RBI. Suarez was 1 for 4 with a homer and 2 RBI. Teoscar had 2 hits and an RBI, Cal had a hit and an RBI, Kelenic had a hit and a run scored. And, more importantly, J.P. Crawford got on base four times, with 2 hits and 2 walks, to pull his numbers up closer to career norms.

The chef’s kiss game came with Sunday’s 1-0 thriller. Luis Castillo was perfect through six innings; he finished with 7 shutout innings, giving up only 2 hits, while striking out 9. Topa locked down the 8th, and Sewald got his fourth save in the 9th.

And who was our hero offensively? None other than Jarred Kelenic, of course! We got to their bullpen in the sixth inning, and he pushed Ty France home with an RBI single. In case you were wondering, he’s slashing .362/.423/.723. It’s not going to be this way forever, but the longer he can keep this up, the better it will be for his confidence when he inevitably finds himself in a cold spell.

You can honestly say the Mariners wouldn’t be where we are right now without Jarred Kelenic. If you had told me prior to the season that the Mariners would have a losing record through 16 games unless Kelenic stepped his game up, I would’ve been dreading the outcome. But here we are! He’s defying expectations left and right, and I couldn’t be more thrilled!

He only has two games without a hit so far, and he’s riding a 10-game hit streak. More importantly, he’s not missing. Everyone gets mistake pitches to hit, and after consistently whiffing on them to start his career, he’s taking advantage and really mashing the hell out of ’em.

And what’s really going to help this team out going forward is our ability to pencil him into the lineup every single day, regardless of the handedness of the starting pitcher. It’s early, and it’s a small sample, but he’s hitting against lefties. And when he’s not getting hits off of them, he’s also not looking totally overmatched. Promoting Kelenic from a platoon partnership to an everyday role is only going to help the Mariners going forward, because that means we’re saddled with one less fucking dud.

The homestand continues this week with three against the Brewers, followed by an off-day on Thursday, then three more against the Cardinals over the weekend. Time to feast on the N.L. Central!