Episode 225: How Are The Mariners Going To Deal With Victor Robles' Injury?

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 225 of the Marine Layer Podcast. What a weekend in San Francisco for the Mariners, but not in a good way. Victor Robles is injured, the bullpen struggled, the offense was all over the place. We got a lot to talk about tonight here on this pod.

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[00:01:14] And we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network recording on Sunday evening, April 6th. I said it last week, Lyle. I will say it again because I feel like I have to. At this point, season's over. Let me just do the Baker Mayfield thing. You know that, you know that scene where maybe it's from Hard Knocks where he's just sitting in the room and he's looking at tape. He's kind of looking to his left.

[00:01:42] And the clip that just gets tweeted out all the time, it's just two or three seconds of Baker Mayfield sits there stoically and then just goes, fuck that. You know what I'm talking about? That Baker Mayfield clip? He's just like, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. That is how I described this weekend. The episode was already stacked enough. Like, Lyle and I throughout the game today on Sunday, we're sitting there like, all right, what are we going to talk about?

[00:02:07] And there's some wild stats about the bullpen. Jorge Polanco gets scratched in the lineup again. He has to sit on the bench. You're like, all right. Yeah. I mean, there's still a lot of concerning things. And then Victor Robles collapses into the outfield grass after making an unbelievable catch out there. Holy crap, Victor. But then he's down. He has to flip the ball in. He's holding it. What appeared to be his shoulder that Dan Wilson later confirmed that is what was bugging him.

[00:02:33] And then, of course, the Mariners blow the game and get swept. So it's just like it all comes down at once. It's like the last episode of Game of Thrones, Lyle, where Cersei Lannister is, oh, sorry, second, the last episode is running down the Castle Black Step, Castle Black, King's landing steps, and the stones are just falling down around her. It's like running away. That's kind of what it feels like. That was a deep cut. Well, sorry. Sorry to our listeners. But then her and Jamie die that way. Is that what you're getting at?

[00:03:03] Well, this is the Mariners we're talking about. I honestly wonder how much of a deep cut that is because everybody watched Game of Thrones. And everyone watched that last season and hated it. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. We should probably just start here. Obviously, you feel terrible for Victor Robles. We don't know the extent of the injury yet. When this episode comes out on Monday morning, we still probably won't know. We'll probably find out later in the afternoon on Monday.

[00:03:33] But if it's serious and it looked pretty serious during Sunday's game, that just sucks. Not just for the team, not just for the fans, but for Vic, for Robles. Like, you know he cares. And he is the energy bolt that team needed all of last year. He's brought it to him this year. Guys love him. He plays with fire. And he's been really good so far. And if you lose him for a real chunk of time, that is going to hurt. And you feel terrible for Robles who has to go through it.

[00:04:03] Was just starting to really, you know, have get... Not just starting to have a good year. Was having a good year through 10-11 games. And now he may miss some time. There's always the injury concerns with Robles. But I was like, I was looking past it. It's like, no. Different guy. It's a different guy who came to the Mariners last year. Different hitter. Different person. The vibes are at an all-time high. Not a problem. And then, of course, like, he jumps into a netting, which is supposed to protect him.

[00:04:32] And unfortunately, like, as fluky as it was, just so happens to get caught up in the worst possible angle to make the catch and gets hurt. That's what I was going to say. This wasn't a soft tissue injury. This is a pretty freak injury. So, to Robles' credit, I don't know if this really lines up with his injury history, quote-unquote. But... It doesn't. But it adds on to it. Yeah. Unfortunately. It really does.

[00:04:59] So, now we sit here and the Mariners lost their vibes later in the outfield. And now what do you do? I mean, there's so many ways to talk about how this impacts the Mariners' team, Lyle. Do we just start from an outfield perspective of now they need a right fielder? It looks like Luke Raley is going to now ditch his first base glove. I'm going to guess. If this ends up being an IL-worthy injury for Robles and say he misses a few weeks,

[00:05:27] now this is going to take Luke Raley off of first base and put him in right field. Unless there's someone else you're trying to put there. No, Raley's the one that makes sense. He is an outfielder naturally anyway, and he plays right field. So, to put him back out there makes sense. Now, what they're going to do against left-handed pitching, that's another question. Because either you're going to... Either you're going to... Yeah, it's probably going to be Dylan Moore out in right field.

[00:05:51] I was going to say, he's more of a left fielder, but you're probably going to have to stick him out in right against lefties. And then you'll bliss at second base. So, yeah, that would make sense. And you can get by enough with that. But the real puzzle piece here is with Raley going back to the outfield, presumably, which is where he should probably be in the first place. Who's going to be stepping in to play first base? Because, you know, stop me if you've heard this before. Or... The Mariners could kind of use a first baseman.

[00:06:22] Raley's really the only first baseman so far who's done anything. The first base crew... So, we were advocates for Rowdy Tellez making the roster. Made the most sense out of spring training. Rowdy's not looked great through 11 games. Or 10 games. It's not been great swinging his lefty bat. Donovan Solano today on Sunday finally got his first hit. Hit at first base for the Mariners this year. First hit overall.

[00:06:49] But then, you know, I'm looking at some of the decisions made this weekend and wondering how much the Mariners believe in Donovan Solano's bat at this moment. Maybe it'll be more in the future. It could be. He's getting paid. So, I assume he's going to be on the roster the entire year. But the Mariners in this series as well pinch hit Miles Mastroboni for Donovan Solano. In the ninth inning of a game. And you see that as like, well, those are your first base options right now.

[00:07:20] Well, not Mastroboni, but Solano, yes. He technically can play first. I don't want him playing first. What's weird about that is Solano can hit righties and lefties. He's not bad against righties. He's better against lefties. Seeing Miles Mastroboni come into that game to pinch hit makes little to borderline no sense in that scenario. Yes, they're down three runs.

[00:07:48] I have some Miles Mastroboni pinch hit stats written down, but I don't think you want to hear them. So, do you want me to just cut myself off at where it makes no sense or should I keep going? His career WRC Plus as a pinch hitter is eight. Pinch hitter is eight. What? In short, I don't think the Mariners, the way they deployed Miles Mastroboni up until today. I actually kind of liked how they used him today. They used him properly today.

[00:08:17] Up until today, through the first nine games, I didn't think they used him correctly. They were using essentially his worst tool as a player, which is his bat. That's what they were trying to do. It's like, no. Don't do that. Defense and base running. That's what you should be focusing on. His WRC Plus as a pinch hitter is legitimately eight. As a pinch hitter, yeah. Yeah. It's not great. So, as you can see, and you reminded me to add this in the reaction, and I did today.

[00:08:45] And this all sort of comes back to one general point about this Mariners roster, that the margin for error with this group was extremely small entering the season. And now we've seen when that margin gets used up, how tightly it's pressed. Where you look over at first base, and you're like, not really a first baseman I feel confident in over there. And then you look over at third base, and Polanco's knee is barking. We'll get to that in a second. And you look over at third base, and you're like, yeah, Polanco can't suit up.

[00:09:15] I don't know. So now Victor Robles gets hurt. You look out into the outfield, and it's like, all right, well, at least we have Luke Raley out there. Haven't even talked about the pitching staff yet. So, two things here. Let's not quite get to the pitching yet. Let's do two things. One, who completes this puzzle equation on who fills in at first base? My guess is it's going to be Tyler Locklear. That is the obvious fit. That's the obvious guy to call up, at least so it seems.

[00:09:43] He just had four hits on Sunday, so that was very positive down in Tacoma. But the other side to that coin is, are the Mariners going to run out a roster that has Tyler Locklear, Rowdy Tellez, and Mitch Garver on it? Because if the answer is yes, that is not much versatility off the bench at all. I mean, did you watch last year's roster? Yes, they would. But don't they want to be more athletic?

[00:10:10] And don't they want to make up for some of Victor Robles' speed if he's out? Call me crazy, but, and this would require a 40-man move because he's not currently on the 40-man roster. But is there thought to calling Samad Taylor up? No. I don't know. No. Do you want Robles' speed or not? If you're going to call up an outfielder, you bring up Dom. Canzone. Maybe, but that's the same bucket as Locklear, where he doesn't really offer you anything

[00:10:38] with his legs or in the field. You just have to hope he hits. I don't think calling up Samad Taylor solves your Victor Robles problem. Because the thing about being speedy, you also have to be able to get on base. Samad Taylor struggles with that enough in AAA. You're right, but I'm just thinking out loud about roster versatility here. But maybe they just care more about seeing who the guy is that can replace Luke Raley's spot at first base when he moves to the outfield.

[00:11:06] I'm going to say their reasoning is going to be, okay, well, we have a backup outfielder. His name is Luke Raley. We'll move Luke Raley from first to the outfield, and now we'll worry about replacing at first base. I think that's what they'll do. Again, it's not going to make your roster the most athletic. But it works. I mean, I would prefer Tyler Locklear over Samad Taylor. Yeah, and that's probably what's going to happen, and that's probably the right decision. But there is something to be considered there about what the roster is going to look like

[00:11:36] late in games when you need a pinch runner, you need a defensive replacement. Because now if Dylan Moore is going to be playing against lefties, especially on those days, again, it is thin. You're not having a rowdy pinch run off the bench. That's obvious. So then it basically... Yeah, you should. Well, but then it basically becomes Miles Mastroboni being your only guy that's going to come off the bench and do that. Because Ryan Bliss is going to be playing a lot now, especially if Demo has to go to the outfield. And now you see why we had so much concerns about the versatility of the roster in the

[00:12:06] first place. It's a tough sell. The versatility of the roster? How about just the talent offensively of the roster? We're seeing what one injury is doing to this roster already. It's putting it in a total jumble. And it's looking... I mean, it wasn't deep enough to start the year. Now when you lose one of the guys you're really relying on that hits in the leadoff spot of your order in Victor Robles, now it gets real dicey. Oh, and on that note, let me add the second part to this. Of this whole...

[00:12:34] This isn't really a Mariners equation, but it does fit perfectly. So I'll preface this by saying he is not off to a good start through 10 games. I'm not really worried about him, but he's not off to a good start. The Mariners, when they come back home here on Monday, open up a series this week at T-Mobile Park. Teach, who are they going to be playing? The Astros. And when you look out at first base, who's going to be playing there? Christian Walker. I guarantee...

[00:13:05] I'm stamping my guarantee right here on this podcast. He is going off in this series. Honestly, he might hit two home runs here on Monday. Because it would just be so, so, so on brand. Tell me I'm wrong. You're not... No, he's going to hit a home run in this series. I could guarantee that. Yeah. Yep. Even with T-Mobile Park being the hardest park to hit it in baseball, he's hitting a home run in this series. It's irony, isn't it?

[00:13:34] It's a pretty unfortunate irony. Yeah. It's... Again, I can just see it already. I'm not going to get crazy, crazy worked up about it, but... Well, actually, that's not true. I probably will. So... So we talked about Robles' fit, like, I guess, roster-wise. How are they going to replace what they wanted him to do offensively? Let's list off everything Victor Robles was for the Mariners. He was their leadoff hitter. He was their doubles hitter. And he was their base dealer.

[00:14:03] Where is that coming from now? And he's a pretty good defender. Right. Well, offense. Let's just focus on offense in the lineup, what they want him to do. Where is that getting replaced? Does JP move back to the leadoff spot now? I mean, obviously, he's done it in the past, but he has not looked sharp so far. You have to. Who else would lead off? Do you put Julio there, and Randy's two, and Cal's three, and you kind of move everybody up?

[00:14:31] I would be okay with how JP's walking right now to put him in the leadoff spot. And just try it. I'd be okay with that. Right? Could it get worse? Could it get worse? By the way, Vic has not, offensively in a total sense, had not been lighting the world on fire out of the leadoff spot. Had not been. Through 10 games, he was below average by WRC+. Yeah, but his at-bats looked pretty good, and he looked comfortable, and he was stealing.

[00:15:00] This is what I mean by he was off to a good start this year. Yeah, he was. Even if his numbers weren't otherworldly, you weren't concerned about the guy. Yeah, not concerned at all. But like JP Crawford, like Victor Robles, offensively has been below average this season. But JP's at least walked a little bit. I think it's something you can try. Again, you're not going to perfectly replace what Victor Robles does in terms of the base stealing, in terms of the at-bats, in terms of the contact that he makes up there at the plate that they love.

[00:15:30] But you've got to try something. Right? This is what I mean when I'm asking about this. Because I look at the Mariners organization and their roster, and everything they had been preaching this season on what they wanted to message offensively, I thought Victor Robles embodied. And with him out of the lineup, where is it going to be? They've got an uphill battle to fight, that's for sure. I guess there is some small potential where the tests come back on Robles,

[00:15:59] where it's not that serious. And maybe he just jammed it really badly. And in the moment on Sunday, it really hurt. But he ends up not missing a whole ton of time, whether it's a minimum 10 days on the IL, or if he's just day-to-day and gets back in in a few days. I guess that's possible, because we don't know exactly what the results are going to be. But that is not how it looked on Sunday. So the reason we're sitting here talking about all this is we are preparing as if Victor Robles is going to miss some time. Yeah. It's going to be tough. It's going to be tough to replace that at the top of the lineup.

[00:16:29] The base stealing, I think, is the biggest thing. He's by far their best base stealer. And if that's what they want to do, and they want to emphasize it more, you lose your best, you're going to be hurt a lot. You lean on Julio more for that all of a sudden. But you wanted him stealing less, right? Because you have Victor. Did you see this today? Did you say that Julio's sprint speed, small sample, is down like two miles an hour? I don't love that. Yeah, I don't love it either. He's got a lot of running left, so it could go up. Yeah.

[00:17:00] It's like 27 and change now after being 29 last year. Yeah. So we've got a couple other stories to talk about here. We've got the bullpen, and we've got... I know you had something else you wanted to bring up too. Jorge Polanco. Yeah. Yeah. That's the other injury piece of this. But let's save that for a minute, because I do want to give people some housekeeping here. I mentioned it at the start of the show about, oh, there's a reason you're going to want to be tuned into our Patreon.

[00:17:27] So if you're listening to this podcast, there's a decent chance it's on a Monday. And we don't usually release episodes on Monday, until now at least. So we're going to three episodes a week now with the season getting underway, which we're excited about. It gives us more to talk about. There is more to talk about. There's more we can bring to you guys. So it's going to look a little bit like this. Mondays will basically be weekend reactions. So right away, we're talking about the weekend, takeaways, storylines, just like this. Wednesdays will stay the same.

[00:17:57] Those are our interview episodes. We'll get guests on. We'll talk ball with some unique people. And Friday, we're going to start doing mailbag episodes every week. So on Fridays, we're going to be doing mailbags. We're going to be taking your guys' questions. And TJ, I'll throw it to you because to get priority for our mailbag questions, you can subscribe to our Patreon.

[00:18:18] So if you want priority on our mailbags and you want your questions answered like every week, Patreon's the way to go. Put an ask out there on Patreon. You can shoot us a DM on Patreon. Like that's where you have direct access to us. So I'd go over there. You go choose one of the tiers. We have three tiers now. That would be a good place to go and make sure your voice is heard if that's what you feel like. Yeah. So every Friday now on Patreon.

[00:18:48] Yeah. And just to be clear, it's not like we won't take questions from Instagram and Twitter, period. It's not like we'll just totally cut it off. But if you want priority, sign up for our Patreon because that's where we'll be taking the majority of our questions. And we do have another special Patreon offer. If you go look at the new highest tier, you can be on a video call with Lyle and I. Ooh. Yeah. Isn't that exciting? Isn't that exciting? We want more of our faces and voices. Yeah. Yeah. So go check it out if you're curious.

[00:19:18] Patreon.com slash Marine Layer Pod. If something tickles your fancy, we'd love to have you over there. If you want to have your questions answered, that's the place to go. Patreon.com slash Marine Layer Pod. And also, buy our merch. As Lyle mentioned at the start, Marine Layer Pod. Dot com slash merch. Marine Layer Pod. Dot com slash merch. Hoodies and t-shirts here to start. They're fantastic. I think people really like them. Lyle got his hoodie this past week. It's fantastic. Yeah. Go out there. Go support us.

[00:19:46] Bunch of people have been sending their photos saying they love them so far. And it's really awesome. We just sent a bunch out to some of the players this past weekend. So yeah, it's exciting. Go get involved. Your hat reminded me of one more thing, especially for people who watch on YouTube. Our next live show, April 19th, Saturday, Queen Am Beer Hall in Seattle. We're fired up about it. That's less than two weeks away now. 11 a.m. start time for the live show. And then stick around afterwards because the Mariners have a 12 o'clock game against the Blue Jays.

[00:20:14] And we're all just going to sit down, hang out, watch the games. It's going to be a big watch party. So it's going to be a really fun day. Live show at 11. Watch party at 12 to watch the game. Hopefully you guys come out for it because we're fired up. But let's continue on here with some of our, I guess, worries for what this Mariners weekend just showed us. Another thing what makes this Victor Robles situation, I'd say, concerning to me and gives me kind of a headache and what complicates this.

[00:20:43] This would be much less of a problem if Jorge Polanco wasn't dealing with knee issues right now. Jorge Polanco had knee surgery this past offseason. It was what hampered him, he said, throughout last year. A reason he was so down offensively. The Mariners took their time with him this spring. They nursed him back to health slowly. He didn't get on the dirt until well after everyone else. He starts the year, says he's healthy. But now he's had to miss games this week.

[00:21:11] Two games with paternity leave. And two more games this weekend, including here on Sunday. With his knee not feeling great. And Lyle, with him only playing two games this week and still having two days worth of knee pain this week, doesn't make me feel great. And makes this Mariners roster situation really just that much more complicated. And it just, it stresses everything out. He feels like he's going to need some DH days. With this knee and the way it's trending, he feels like he's going to have to play some games at DH.

[00:21:41] Which, yet again, makes the construction of this roster a massive problem. Because if you're going to play Luke Raley out in the outfield against righties. And then Dylan Moore out in the outfield against lefties. Well then, who's at third base? Who's at second base when Bliss needs a day off? Like, there is, this is what I'm getting at with calling up Locklear. I get it's the logical option and it's probably what will happen. But it does not give you really much ability to shuffle guys around.

[00:22:11] Because, you know what happens? This is how you end up with Tyler Locklear over at third base. Who was drafted as a third baseman. But probably shouldn't really be playing third base anymore. And hasn't played third base anymore. Why not? Why not we try it? Why don't? Why don't we? So, like, this is the, like, you need Dylan Moore at third base. You need Dylan Moore at second base. You need Dylan Moore in right field. I think we need to clone Dylan Moore. I mean, which is, it's not as good a version. But this is why I bring up Samad Taylor.

[00:22:43] I think it's a lose no matter what. Because, you know what I'd rather have? I'd rather have Jorge Polanco in the lineup. Yeah. That's what I'd rather have. Because he's their best hitter right now. The problem is, I don't know if you're getting him in the lineup in the next few days without him being at DH. Because this knee thing seems to be bugging him. I know. Yeah. And he's, you know, he's been pretty crucial to what the Maris have done offensively. Mm-hmm. I mean, before today, they scored an average of two runs a game without him in the lineup.

[00:23:15] That's not great. It's not great. No. And, yeah, and you need him out in the field. Because, again, it allows you to do a lot more. I'm already seeing it now. Now, sorry, not Victor Robles. With Victor Robles out, we're going to start seeing Luke Raley hit lefties a lot, aren't we? Yeah. Yes, we are. Because there's no other way to construct this. You need Dylan Moore in the infield in this scenario. And you're going to need him at third. And you're going to need him at second. And this is...

[00:23:44] And it's... I'm sorry. It's not a very good strategy to have Luke Raley hitting lefties all the time. Because this is how he's going to get exposed. But now, there's essentially a world where you don't have a choice. No. Yeah, Samad Taylor would be the right-handed hitting outfielder. Wouldn't he? Or the infielder. Or the infield. Yeah, it's not great. I mean, yeah, Ken Zones is a lefty. They definitely don't want him hitting against lefties. It is a...

[00:24:10] Look, I know we think it won't be that long before he's called up. But they cannot yank Ben Williamson up yet. That is a disservice. No. And they can't do it with Cole Young either. No. No. No desperation moves allowed. Especially not Cole Young. And you know what? Cole Young's off to a nice start in AAA. He's had a lot of balls really hard. But it is a total, total disservice to yank him up. That will not happen. Let's put that out there. Cole Young's not coming up tomorrow. Or here on Monday. And Ben Williamson's probably not either. Could we put Gerangelo in the bullpen?

[00:24:42] I'm down. He's throwing 101. Just shorten it a little bit. So, Aram tweeted out today. Aram Layton, our buddy who's one of the founders of Just Baseball and does a bunch of awesome prospect stuff. And I'm sure we're going to get back on the podcast here soon. Well, he does a bunch of great everything. Anyway, he was tweeting about Gerangelo's start. And he said, oh, Gerangelo looked awesome. Which he did. But he said the radar gun in Spokane, I guess, was a little bit hot.

[00:25:10] What he topped out at exactly was 99.7. Which is still 100 miles an hour. Twist my arm. But it wasn't 101. That's all. I think that would fit very well in the Mariners bullpen right now. I'm half serious. Okay, but they're not going to do that. I'm not. That's why I said I'm half serious. They're not going to do that. No. Anyways. This is our final conversation of this episode is this bullpen. And I know there's a lot you want to dig into. So let me just give you the floor. Sure.

[00:25:40] There are some really troubling trends with this Mariners bullpen. Did you know, Lyle, tell me if you knew this or not, their strikeout rate as a group entering Sunday's game was 18.8% as a group. Yeah, that's a real problem. Do you have the league average number up in front of you for people that don't know if that's good or bad? The league average strikeout rate's about 21-22%. That's bad. For a bullpen? Bullpen?

[00:26:10] That's bad. Bullpen guys have to throw three outs and throw 98 miles an hour. That number should be higher than 19%. It's more concerning when you combine that with their walk rate. It's not even close to a league. It's 9%. Or their whip, which is 1.57, 23rd in baseball. They're averaging over a base runner and a half per inning as a bullpen. That's terrible.

[00:26:38] No strikeouts and a lot of base runners. Bad combination. When you go down to the individual level for this bullpen, it is concerning. I mean, you can find something to nitpick with every single reliever so far. And I will say this and preface it with the fact that these relievers are so far pitched in very small sample sizes. Bullpen arms already are in small samples, let alone small samples through 10 games.

[00:27:07] So keep that in mind when I read you off these stats. But it still is troubling because the stats are real enough where they are affecting Mariners games. Consider these drop-offs and strikeouts that Mariners have had, percentage-wise, from these relievers. Colin Snyder in 2024 struck out 28% of the batters he faced. He's got a 15% strikeout rate so far. Trent Thornton, 26% last year. 16% this year.

[00:27:36] Edward Bizzardo, 30% last year. 20% this year. Taylor Saucedo, who got sent down today. 23% last year. 11% this year. Gregory Santos, who throws 100 miles an hour and has essentially an 80-grade slider, has zero strikeouts this season. Zero. Lyle? Zero strikeouts!

[00:28:05] Yeah, and today was his fifth appearance of the year. Yeah! Four and two-thirds innings for Gregory Santos. He has yet to generate one strikeout. That's insane. I can't believe I'm reading these numbers. And by the way, when you look at Andres Munoz, who's been really good this year, don't get me wrong, he's got a 41% strikeout rate. His walk rate is 23.5% so far. 23.5%.

[00:28:33] The only guy who I can see in this bullpen that has been efficient this year is our guy Gabe Spire. Hasn't walked a guy yet. 50% K rate. Everyone else is dealing with something so far. And it has not helped the Mariners win any games. In fact, it has made this bullpen inefficient through 10 games. They have been an inefficient unit, and that's the last thing you can have as a bullpen, is to be inefficient.

[00:28:57] Because then you leave the door open for teams to come back on you, especially a team like the Mariners, who just don't score enough runs. Disappointing, man. So far through 10 games. Not a great showing for this bullpen. And I know Gregory Santos is mostly a ground ball pitcher, despite having big stuff. But to not have a strikeout period with that type of stuff, that is head-scratching and, yeah, a little concerning. And everybody's going to sit here and talk about, well, guys, Brash and Taylor are coming back. Wait for Brash and Taylor.

[00:29:26] Wait for Matt Brash and Troy Taylor. Those guys are going to have to get worked back in. Those guys are not going to be going back-to-backs when they get back on the field, especially Matt Brash, who's missed a year. So when those guys are off on certain nights early on in their return from their injuries, that's more taxing that the other guys in that bullpen are going to have to take on. Because Brash and Taylor will be on the roster, but there's nights they're not going to be able to throw early on.

[00:29:52] So it's more that these guys are going to have to take on when they're already not striking anybody out. And they've already been taxed to this point because Emerson Hancock and Luis F. Castillo had starts where the bullpen had to throw a long time. And it's only two of eight relievers. You need the other six to do what they did. Part of what made that 2023 Mariners bullpen so awesome is because the sixth, seventh, and eighth relievers in that bullpen were unreal. That's how that works.

[00:30:21] It can't just be your top two guys because then you get into the dog days and you have to rely more on those six, seven, eight relievers. And if they're not coming through, then you shrug your shoulders and you cross your fingers and you hope that the runner on second doesn't score you. You really sit there and hope because so far this year, the runners have been scoring and it's not been great. Bullpens need to strike guys out. They really do. If you don't strike guys out as a bullpen, it is a, it's a wild ride.

[00:30:50] If the Mariners are still in this thing at the deadline and you would hope they would be, but obviously we'll see how the season plays out. I can't believe we're already talking about things like this 11 games into the season, but this is where we're at. People better hope the Cardinals are losing games because the Mariners desperately need to trade for Ryan Helsley this summer. We, how many episodes do we talk about that? They needed a reliever.

[00:31:13] So many, so many, having Devin Williams in this bullpen right now would be a godsend or Helsley or Helsley, but Williams got traded. Yeah. Helsley is probably going to get traded because he's a free agent at the end of the year, but still needed a reliever.

[00:31:34] And this is where the thinness in the thinness and the roster, I'd say manipulation of the starting rotation with George Kirby missing the first three weeks to a month comes back to bite the bullpen. You don't have a guy in your rotation healthy. You're getting less innings out of your number five spot, and that makes more innings available to the bullpen. And then the bullpen can get exposed a little bit. And that's how you get to where we're at right now. Let's just call a spade a spade. This whole roster is thin. It is.

[00:32:03] We've talked about the offense. This whole roster is thin. It's thin offensively where you can't afford any injuries. Now you've had them with Robles. It's thin in the rotation after the first five, where once you get past the first five and after sending Emerson Hancock down now, it is very thin. You don't have a lot of options. You just called a guy up to start Friday who'd thrown less than four big league innings ever. Because, look, and it won't be that thin forever.

[00:32:28] We know there's pitchers on the way from guys like Logan Evans once he's ready to guys further down the pipeline that give them a year. And they should be closer to big league action, whether it's Durangelo, whether it's some others, etc. But right now, once you get past those five, rotation's thin. And then the bullpen, for as good as that rotation is, it's the best in baseball when healthy. But it's thin once you get past those guys. Now with Emerson Hancock being down in Tacoma. And then the bullpen, we know it's thin.

[00:32:57] So this whole roster's thin. And now they get to face the two best teams in the division. How nice. Yeah. Featuring Hunter Brown, Framber Valdez, Jacob DeGrom. We'll see how that goes. You know, I was also just hoping that going down to San Francisco, you'd be able to mitigate some of the offset of leaving T-Mobile Park. Wasn't the case. Giants had a good offensive weekend. Giants are playing great ball.

[00:33:26] They are. Look, for the Mariners lineup in general, I'll just give it a shout out. I thought they had a good offensive weekend. Mariners lineup. Julio had some good swings. They jammed the bases full of base runners. I thought that was great. The biggest problem with the Mariners offense right now, something that probably fixes itself as the season goes along, is hitting with runners in scoring position. I think that's what it comes down to. I think the Mariners offensively are, you know, they're trying at this point.

[00:33:56] Is that a good word? They're trying? Yeah. I wouldn't call it some over-the-top great weekend, but they did score runs on Friday. And while I don't think it was some explosive offensive outing Sunday, they scored four. And like you said, guys put good at-bats together. Cal had three hits and Julio had the homer. Yeah. Like, there's pieces of the offense that look solid. I can't in good faith say the whole thing does, especially when you look at what the bottom third of the order looks like these days. Right.

[00:34:25] Well, that is a talent issue. I'm just saying that is a third of your lineup. But the top of the lineup, for the most part, was good. I mean, Randy had the worst weekend of the bunch, but he came through with a big hit in the ninth inning today. Yeah. On Sunday. Yeah, he did. And unfortunately, they couldn't hold it. All right. Let's give this a minute, maybe two, and then we'll wrap this podcast up because we're going to try to keep these Monday podcasts a little bit shorter. Just because there's – yeah.

[00:34:51] Just for – so we don't go on too long or we don't over-talk about anything, et cetera. Anyway, do we want to make anything of this Julio quote? So for those who don't know, Julio after the game today was just kind of asked about the performance and he was asked about, you know, like turning things around when the team gets back to Seattle. And his words were – he said, the way I see it, the Giants are a really good team and we're playing really good ball. They're one of the hottest teams in baseball. We're neck and neck.

[00:35:21] They had home field advantage. And he said, I think it would have been a different story if we were playing at home, but he said, I don't think there's that much to regroup on. He said, I'm not worried about regrouping and having some total reset. He said, we're just going to kind of move past it. Now, I think his mindset's good because you don't want players panicking 11 games in, especially not your star. That wouldn't be good at all. I think the line that jumps out to me is Julio saying we're playing really good baseball.

[00:35:49] And in good faith, I cannot sit here and agree with you. It's just like a non-story. What's the difference of him saying we're playing good ball versus we're not playing good ball, and then they go have a 7-3 stretch instead of 3-7? The result after the fact is still the same no matter what he says. So why is it an issue?

[00:36:09] Of course, the result's the same, but it just comes off as if maybe he's seeing something a little different than most people are seeing. I think he thinks they had a good weekend offensively and gave themselves chances to win the game. I think that's what he kind of feels. And I think he also feels that they only played 10 games. Yeah. Which is right.

[00:36:38] And again, his mindset's right that he should not be panicking, and it would be worse if he was. I just wish maybe that one line was taken out of it. We're playing really good baseball. Well, respectfully, Julio, I'm going to disagree. It's not something I can get wrapped up about. I can't. It is what it is. I'm glad Julio's positive. They need positive Julio. I'm glad he's positive, but yeah. It's not like he's out of touch with the situation.

[00:37:05] If they were 20 games under 500 in June and he was like, oh, we're playing really good ball, then I'd have an issue with it. That's probably, yeah. It's April 6th. All right. So that's probably right. And yes, they are 11 games in. Again, I have really no issues with just about everything he said. Again, if you just took those few words out, I'd be like, yeah, that's all fine. It was just, yeah, that's all. Glad he could stir the pot though. As if we didn't have enough content.

[00:37:36] Yeah, it's true. All right. That just about wraps up this edition of the Marine Liar podcast. You guys know the drill. You want to listen to our podcast or find everything that we're doing to stay on top of all of our stuff. Go over to our website, marinelayerpod.com. It's got our episodes, audio, video. If you want to review, it's all over there. And please go do that. Please leave a five-star review and subscribe on YouTube and all that good stuff. And your reminder, sign up for our Patreon.

[00:38:02] If you want first priority on mailbag questions moving forward, that's where we're going to go. Patreon.com slash MarineLayerPod. Go check it out. Go sign up. Would love to have you guys get more involved with us. Go buy our merch. It's all over on the website. And follow us all across social media at MarineLayerPod. One more time, final, or sorry, not final live show, next live show, Saturday, April 19th, 11 a.m., Queen Anne Beer Hall. Live show starts at 11.

[00:38:28] We're doing a watch party with all you guys at 12 right after that for Mariners Blue Jays. We can't wait. We hope you come out to it. Queen Anne Beer Hall, Saturday, April 19th, 11 a.m. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon. We'll see you soon.