Episode 246: Mariners Lose The Series In Houston + What To Make Of The Bryce Miller And Jorge Polanco Injury Updates

[00:00:00] Welcome to episode number 246 of the Marine Layer Podcast. The Mariners lose three of four to the Astros over the weekend. We have a lot to react to from the series. There also been some more concerns that have popped up over the health of Bryce Miller and Jorge Polanco, including some new developments over the weekend that we'll talk about. Make sure to stay on top of all of our stuff, you guys. And if you want to do that, you can go right over to our website to see everything. That's MarineLayerPod.com, our official website where we've got our merch, which you can get on.

[00:00:30] You can go get yourself some of. You can check out our Patreon. We'd love to have you get involved. All the episodes are over on our website as well, so make sure to like, download, subscribe, all that good stuff if you're listening. And you can see our upcoming live show schedules. All that good stuff's over at our website, MarineLayerPod.com. And you can follow us across social media at MarineLayerPod. Let's get it rolling.

[00:00:50] And we welcome you to this episode of the MarineLayerPodcast, part of the Just Baseball Podcast Network, recording on Sunday afternoon, May 25th. And we have finally gotten our Christian Walker moment against the Mariners, Lyle. Into the Crawford boxes.

[00:01:21] For anybody that's seen season two of Squid Game, here's how I'd like to recap that entire series. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. All right, and that's your podcast. We'll talk to you guys on Wednesday. Can you reference why you chose that music for those unfamiliar? Oh, that's a tough scene in the Squid Game verse.

[00:01:49] They're playing, I don't even know what you call the game. A lot of people pass on in that scene. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a tough watch, as you said. So Sunday was a tough watch. That's why it makes sense. Yeah, it was a tough watch. And again, with a lot of eliminations, I guess you could say. There were a lot of eliminations.

[00:02:18] Just like the Mariners eliminating themselves from winning this series for what was, I would say, a pretty frustrating offensive effort the last two days. Let me just note to the listeners, by the way, before we continue with this. We're going to talk about this series. We've got a couple other great storylines to talk about on this podcast. We'll be talking about all of this and more and expand on a few other topics if you want some more content from us today on Monday. We're filling in for Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports from 6 to 10 a.m. So if you listen to this and you still want more of us

[00:02:46] and hear us talk about some more Mariner topics over the weekend, we have pretty much a full Mariner show hosting from 6 to 10 a.m. So if you want more of that, you should go over there and check it out. Podcast version, live version on YouTube, all that good stuff. So that'll be fun. You get more of us here on Monday. Instead of one hour, you get five hours of our content on Monday. I think that's a record for us, by the way. Or I think the most we do because we've done this before in the past. Well, if there's people that are up here at 6, 7 a.m., etc. on Monday morning,

[00:03:15] you can tune in live right now if you're listening to us and want to hear us live on the radio. Or if you're tuning in later, which I'm guessing most people are not up at 6 a.m. on Memorial Day, which is fine, you can just listen to the podcast later. Let's start with Sunday specifically. We could do some broad stroke stuff on this Mariner series against the Astros as well. You and I think see Sunday a little bit differently. I think you took Sunday a little bit harder. I said it in my reaction. I wasn't going to get mad at all these things that happened in the series on Sunday specifically.

[00:03:45] I wasn't going to let myself, because the Mariners had a good road trip, I wasn't going to let myself get mad. The fact the Mariners had opportunities to score runs in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings. They needed one hit in any of those innings. And then I would assume Andres Munoz would have pitched the 9th inning. The Mariners would have split with the Astros, and they would have ended up with a 7-3 road trip. And everyone would have been over the moon, and all they needed was one more hit. So I'm not going to let the fact that one hit would be the difference between people being really pissed off to listen to this episode

[00:04:13] and really thrilled to listen to this episode. I just don't really see that. I don't see it. I don't really get that part. The bullpen management was strange on Sunday, to say the least. But that's not new at this point of the season, Lyle. We get to the point where we continue to raise eyebrows and bring up concerns with how the Mariners' bullpen is being deployed in any given game on Sunday as well. And then, God, there was one other aspect to this. What was that? I guess it was just the general aspect of the fact

[00:04:41] the Mariners finished the road trip 3-4. And because they already beat the Padres in a three-game series, or they swept the Padres in a three-game series at the start of this road trip and finished the road trip 6-4, even though frustrating games like Sunday happen, I'm struggling to find a way to be over-the-top mad about things. I think that would otherwise, without that, make me a little bit more pissed off. Is that fair? Wow, shocker. I'm mad and you're level-headed?

[00:05:11] Well, that never happens. Why don't you chalk this moment up and put it right in the Marine Layer Pod Hall of Fame? Hmm. I'll tell you what the third moment was that I'm guessing you were just trying to remember. The fact that they lost this game on Sunday and lost the series as a whole while missing Hunter Brown in a four-game series. That is the one guy you missed. You did not have to face Jordan Alvarez, who's on the IL. And in Sunday's finale, you didn't have to see either of Brian Abreu or Josh Hader

[00:05:40] because they were unavailable after being worked earlier in the weekend and you still lose. Was that the third aspect of it? I'm going to guess the answer is yes. That was, Lyle. You read my mind right. Or you watched our reaction on social media if you want to see that. Hint, hinted. I know you're going to tell me division leads don't matter in May, but I still look at the Astros and say the difference of winning that Sunday game and having the chance to keep your three-and-a-half-game lead in the West

[00:06:07] or it being crushed down to a game-and-a-half does make some difference. What happens at tiebreakers at the end of the year? Yeah. They do matter. You know what matters? Winning games matters. That's what matters. Not the division lead. You need to win more games than the others. Yeah, they didn't do that this weekend. No, they didn't. But they had a winning road trip. Good teams have winning road trips. They're not going to win every series. That's the thing.

[00:06:35] They were one hit away from splitting the series. One. There was one game in this series that was out of hand. Sunday's game got under my skin. That's all I can tell you. And that's fine. And I think for a lot of people, getting under your skin is totally warranted. I think it got under Dan Wilson's skin, too. He got tossed. Lyle, we talked about it on Friday. Dan Wilson still got under his skin enough that he gets thrown out of the game. Well, yeah. Shocker. It was that loser Laz Diaz behind the plate.

[00:07:04] I would get thrown out, too. Yeah. God. He really is one of the worst. How funny is it? We got that mailbag question. It took 48 hours. 48 hours for him to get tossed. Yeah, that one didn't last. I said he wasn't going to ever get ejected. I honestly didn't know if he would. But, again, I don't want to focus too much on the bullpen management because we do it all the time. And I'm sure it's going to be very, very far from the last time this season we do it. But I'm sorry.

[00:07:33] On Sunday, when I'm going to try to ration this out with some logic, okay? I was not happy that Matt Brash didn't go back out for the ninth inning after coming in to get the final out of the eighth and get them out of the jam. Because he only threw nine pitches. Now, if the other side of that coin is they have to be very cautious with Matt Brash because he just came back from Tommy John. And the idea of getting him up and then down and then back up is too much. Okay.

[00:08:01] I also don't understand why Gabe Spire has been one of your three best relievers all year. And in this series, because the Astros happen to have a right-handed heavy lineup, he essentially gets sent to the moon. Like, you barely saw him all weekend. That part made no sense to me. And the only time he did pitch was in Thursday on a blowout. No sense. Again. He got sent to the moon in this series.

[00:08:27] And I understand that Gabe Spire is running out a 318 OPS against lefties this year. And he's been much better against lefties than righties. But you know what? Gabe Spire's faced righties this year. And I'm not saying it's his better side. But you have used him as one of your three best leverage arms all season. And when it comes down to using him versus getting up Casey Legamina again after throwing two innings the night before. I don't know, dude. I don't know.

[00:08:55] I don't know.

[00:09:24] He had not been overworked by any aspect during the four games of the series. And he didn't even get up and stretch. And that gets to my last point. He was deemed unavailable, right? On Sunday. Why is that? I don't know. When I heard he was unavailable as the broadcast went on, I said, why is he unavailable? He didn't throw on Saturday. He should be able to pitch. And then we still don't get an answer about it for why he was unavailable. So, look.

[00:09:53] If there was an explanation provided for why Andres Munoz was not available to pitch on Sunday, we could sit here and rationalize it. But, again, when the media and fans are not given explanations for things, we are going to sit here and, as a result, say, why was Andres Munoz unavailable? Why didn't he pitch? Why didn't he get up? So, unless there's an explanation given, this is what we're going to sit here and say. Like, there has been a very, very lack of, like, post-game explanations this year. Transparency. Yeah. Yes. Transparency.

[00:10:23] And unless people start to get some, this is what we're going to say. And that leads to more speculation. It leads to, unfortunately, more complaining. Like, the reasoning helps everybody out a lot. A lot. Yes. And I will speak for us. I don't think saying he was feeling a little tired, shoulder didn't feel great. All right, fine. It happens. Like, love to know that. Like, so we have the reason of why decisions are made throughout Sunday's game.

[00:10:52] We're sitting here trying to rationalize why is Luis Castillo out there with 110-plus pitches? Like, this, it's 2025. This doesn't happen anymore. You know who that happens with? Tarek Skubel. Zach Wheeler. Like, the bulldogs of bulldogs who have been doing it year after year after year after year after year. And Luis Castillo, based on the last seven months he's pitched as a Mariner, I don't know if

[00:11:20] that's the guy you want going out there and getting to 115 pitches. His stuff did look better today. I will admit, his fastball velo averaged today higher than it averaged in 2023, which is his only great full season as a Mariner, which is good. Like, that's a good sign. And if he holds that velo for points at this season, I think it will help him return to be a more effective guy. But you could clearly see the command was slipping a little bit there at the end.

[00:11:45] And it was just, it felt like they were leaning on him a little bit too long in this absence where we think it's like, all right, there are more guys in the bullpen that should be available at this point based on how the bullpen has been used this entire series. And now we're left here to wonder why are these guys not pitching in this series? Especially given they're off tomorrow or on Monday today, when this podcast comes out, there's no game today. Everyone gets a day off anyway. And who's to say on Tuesday, the Mariners don't just blow out the Nationals and you don't

[00:12:15] need Munoz on Tuesday. You might need them. You also might not need them. Yeah, that'd be a lot of rest. And you know what? To your point, unless Luis Castillo at the 115 pitch mark is pumping 103 as he's getting ready to complete a complete game shutout with 13 punches and no walks. Then yeah, I don't really understand why he's being prolonged in his outing that much. Where did I get that line from? Oh, that would be from Derek Scoobel who threw a complete game shutout with 13 punchouts,

[00:12:45] no walks and touched 103 in the ninth inning today, which side note, side note, he's incredible. Mariners pitch, he is really incredible. Mariners pitchers though, don't throw this many pitches anymore. And it's for a reason. And if they don't consistently do it, I don't understand the one outing why we're going to trust a guy to go out there and then do that. Because then it's like, it's uncharted territory at this point where it's like, I've not thrown this many pitches for, in Castillo's sense, in three years.

[00:13:14] So how are we expecting to feel good and feel at our best when you reach that moment, especially when you're fourth time through the lineup or late third, whatever time through the lineup it was. It wasn't great because they see it enough and they get to hit it. And unfortunately Castillo gives up the tying run and then the bullpen eventually blows it in the ninth. Yeah. And again, if there was an explanation for Andres Munoz being down and unavailable, this all circles back to this.

[00:13:41] Then even though the pitch count would have gotten up, there would have been more of a rationale for us to hop on here and say, okay, I know Luis really got stretched today, but with an off day and him being a veteran, they really, really needed some length from him because they had a shortened bullpen. But again, no reason or explanation has been provided for why Andres Munoz was unavailable. In fact, as we've been sitting here, I wanted to double check just to see if anything had

[00:14:08] been tweeted in the last five to 10 minutes since we've been sitting here recording. Check Shannon's Twitter, check Kramer's Twitter, I checked Tim Booth's Twitter, nothing. There's been nothing reported or tweeted out about why Munoz was unavailable. So when that happens, again, we sit here and say, yes, why was Luis stretched out to 115 pitches and you don't use the best reliever in baseball in a series that you really could have benefited from winning? Yeah, man. It doesn't make much sense. It doesn't make much sense when even if you think about it, you take the names away and

[00:14:38] you look at it in this terms. Two pitchers through yesterday. There's an off day tomorrow. Why is the starter throwing in the year 2025? Why is the starter throwing 115 pitches? And he's not your best starter. No, he's not even really close to your best starter at this point. No, I don't even know if I want Logan Gilbert throwing 115 pitches. I don't know. He doesn't do it either. Neither does Kirby. Neither does Bryce. Neither does Brian. These guys don't throw this many pitches anymore. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they don't.

[00:15:08] So not the old days. Again, between the Munoz thing, between the Spire thing, between Legamina getting thrown back out there after a two-inning outing on Saturday. Yeah, I don't know. I really don't know. The other problem I want to get to before we get to some of the injury stuff, which I know we're going to touch on for a decent while here, is I think an even bigger story than the bullpen decisions and bullpen management this weekend, is this offense over the last

[00:15:37] month has been really bad. Bad. We're getting to the point in the month of May where... Bad. When you're 24th in Team OPS for the month of May, that's a bad offensive month. Yeah. About league average, they've been. We like our weighted stats. They're 20th in runs. They're 100th in WRC+. Okay, so trending towards bad. I'll say trending towards bad. I'm off. I'm out on using Team WRC+. Okay. Because as we'd like to say, the Mariners don't actually have to hit that well in their

[00:16:05] park to have a half-decent Team WRC+. Which is why I'm using Team OPS here. And in the month of May, it ranks 24th in the league. By runs scored their 20th. But after what was a really successful month of April at the plate, not only is it starting to regress, but it's starting to really trend in the wrong direction. And over the last week, they played a tough, tough stretch of offensive games. I will say a big chunk of that's going to come down to a guy we're going to talk later in this episode and Jorge Polanco.

[00:16:34] Because Jorge Polanco this month, after being one of the two best hitters in the American League in the month of April, has been among the worst hitters in baseball in the month of May, his WRC+. You can look at his OPS. It's a 484 OPS in the month of May. His WRC+, in the month of May, is 45. Which is... Yeah, it's not... That part is not good. But I'll tell you what the real... Why this is happening. I mean, I'll tell you why this is happening. Because you can...

[00:17:02] Only so many lineups in baseball can lose three every day. Projected every day, for two of their cases. Middle-of-the-order bats. And to be able to sustain good offensive performance. Think about who the Mariners have lost over the course of this month, or even the prior month, into this month. And you would think, okay, I mean, they're still hitting well even without these guys. Well, it's just kind of hard to keep up that production with replacement players for those guys.

[00:17:31] I'm talking about Victor Robles, Luke Raley, and Ryan Bliss. Those three were supposed to play almost every single day in this lineup. And be meaningful contributors to this offense. You take all three of them out for extended periods of time. It's not the biggest surprise in the world that when you're trotting out a lineup that every single day features a combination of Ben Williamson, Miles Masturbone. Leo DiTaveras, I thought, has been better recently. But overall, for the month, he's been with the Mariners.

[00:18:00] He's been about 25% below league average. Mitch Garver has been worse in the month of May than he was in the month of April as well. While, you know, having to spell Cal, it's just, it's hard to expect the offense to continue performing like that when you realize the talent of the guys you're putting in there to replace the guys who are injured is not as high and the ceiling's not as high either. Or the floor. Yes or no. Are any of the three guys you just mentioned coming back anytime soon?

[00:18:27] Robles, Raley, or Bliss? Raley within a month, I think. Right? That sounds about right. Well, that's not that soon. It's not that soon. It's soon relative to the other ones. The other two are going to be second half at best. My other point, so my point here is if this thing doesn't turn itself around quick, this offense could fade fast. And that's where you're going to run into problems.

[00:18:53] We saw the offense really spell the pitching over the first month of the year and they got really hot. Now, I don't think anybody expected the offense to stay that hot all year. But when it leveled out eventually, we talked about it needing to level out to a point where it was still productive. Right now, again, in the month of May, they've been one of the six worst offenses in baseball. And with three injured starters on the shelf, this is again what I circle back to. If this does not fix itself fast, it could go the wrong direction quickly.

[00:19:21] I'm going to try not to overreact too much to one month of offense. And that's because if we're going to praise the offense for the performance they did last month while also saying, okay, let's see it play out for multiple months this season. I do think that we need to do the same thing for this month of May because baseball is cyclical. Players are cyclical. Sometimes they have good months. Sometimes they have bad months. Competition matters. Ballparks matter. Pitching matchups matter.

[00:19:47] All these things, I think, do seriously matter when it comes to the month-to-month performance of this baseball team. I'm going to reiterate trade deadline. Trade deadline, trade deadline, trade deadline is when we will have a solid evaluation of where this team is at, both pitching-wise and offensively. Not to say they've been good this month of May because they really have not been. And by the way, if you want two more culprits of why the offense has been worse this month, Dylan Moore, who we were highlighting, he was like, wow, he looks really good under this

[00:20:16] new offensive messaging from Kevin Seitzer and Edgar Martinez, and looks like he's taking another step forward. Demo looks like he's trending back towards where he was with the old regime in some of his past years. High strikeouts, high walks. His strikeout rate in the month of May is 35%. His walk rate's still up around 10, but the WRC Plus is 104 for Demo. And then J.P. Crawford, who had a scorching hot stretch there at the end of April, has

[00:20:44] been exactly league average here in the month of May. Not high, not low, just exactly average. So even if you factor those two in, Demo and J.P. Crawford, along with the three middle of the order bats, Julio, Randy, and Cal, who do you really trust in the second half of the order? Because you keep talking about see how the offense balances itself out over a course of four months and not getting overworked by four weeks of offense.

[00:21:10] But I don't feel a bunch of confidence about this trending back the right direction with all these injuries. And I don't think they can tread water for two months before the deadline with this either. Especially looking how it's looked the last week or like two weeks. No, they can't. And before I ask you what they're going to do, I would say the only person you could say that with right now who ended up doing well in both the month of April and May is Rowdy Tellez. Right.

[00:21:38] And even Rowdy, for the fact he's been a slightly above league average hitter, which has been a very, very nice surprise. He's still a negative war player because he doesn't walk, he doesn't play defense, and he doesn't run. So sure. But we are just talking about offense here. Sure. But I'm just saying your first base production this season has been overall a net negative. And that's a premier offensive position in baseball. Which is why we both said it's their number one need.

[00:22:07] Yeah, it's their number one need. But they need a first baseman, they may need a third baseman, and they're going to need bullpen help. Are they going to get all those things at the deadline? They could need an outfielder too. I don't think you're going to be able to do that because the other needs are so pressing. I know. I know. Believe me, I know. So, again, it's fine if you want to see how things balance itself back out in the month of June and if they swing back more on the pendulum up here when summer rolls around.

[00:22:36] But I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but it is hard for me to have confidence in this version of the offense with all the long-term injuries, basically getting back to anywhere close to where they were in April. How do you fix this issue? You're going to have to trade for guys, and this is what I mean. Who? That's the problem. There's nobody available, and you're going to have to tread water for too much. I don't know if there is a solution.

[00:23:04] The solution is going to be hoping the guys play better. Okay, actually, that's not the only solution. You are going to call up Harry Ford and Cole Young at some point. I think that's, especially if the offense treads water, as you say. There might be a couple of ups. There might be a couple of downs, but for the most part, they'll tread water. Let me say middle-of-the-pack offense. That's what I'll say, because that's right about, that's in between where they were in April and May. Middle-of-the-pack.

[00:23:32] If they're middle-of-the-pack offensively, they are going to call up at some point before the trade deadline, Cole Young and Harry Ford. Cole Young for sure. Harry Ford, you would think so, because they'd need some more offense. I don't know if they're going to call Harry up. Where's he going to play? That's what I'm saying. That is a topic we're going to spend a lot of time talking about on Brock and Salk, by the way. If that's a topic you want to hear more about, that'll be on the radio show Monday morning.

[00:23:56] In a quick nutshell, I would just say this is a thought to have circulate in your head. If you're listening to this, this is something to ponder. Is Harry Ford's best value to just continue mashing at AAA and then somebody trades for him at the deadline? It might be. If he gets exposed in a month up in the big leagues, kind of like Joe Doyle talked about when he was on with us, does that tank his trade value? I don't know. And if Harry Ford doesn't have a position to play, then I don't know how you get him up on the big league roster.

[00:24:25] I think that would have to involve Jorge Polanco potentially going on the IL at some point, which we can get to here in a little bit. But that feels like Harry's pathway up to the big leagues right now. And otherwise, he may just have to sit in AAA. And DHing Harry Ford every day does not increase his value either, by the way. Even if he's an average hitter at the big league level and just DHing, his value still goes down, by the way. Right. So you can't just say, oh yeah, you just DH him. Are you sure?

[00:24:56] Are you sure? Again, there's a reason I'm starting to get a little concerned here about where this offense is going. Cole Young is the one for sure we can say. He has a position. He's been mashing in AAA. When he comes up, he's going to play second base every single day. And that is one thing you can say. All right. In the bottom of the line, if I think this is going to get better, the rest of it, you're right. They are going to have to tread water until the trade deadline and see what happens. They very well at some point also could call up Tyler Locklear to play first base.

[00:25:26] I would anticipate in that scenario, they also move on from Donovan Solano. But it's, you know, it's not a certainty right now that Tyler Locklear comes up and makes your offense better because if you go check his stats in Tacoma, he's about a league average hitter in the PCL while playing first base, which doesn't equate to a very valuable player at any level. Average hitter at first base means you're probably a negative war player. Bringing him up to put him in this lineup and bat at the bottom of the lineup.

[00:25:54] Yeah, it's going to be perhaps better than Donovan Solano. That's not a very high bar. Guys, the bar is not to be better than Solano. The bar is to be better, period. Right. A lot of moving pieces. Yeah. It's a lot of moving pieces. And hopefully some puzzle piece of them one way or another fixes the solution or fixes the problem and gives you a solution. But right now I'm not confident in any of those potential fixes. Before we move on to the injuries, Lyle, on a scale of 1 to 10, how worried are you about

[00:26:24] this offense? Six. Six? Okay. So you're not freaking out yet. I'm not. No, I'm not freaking out. It's not like last summer, especially in July and August where it was total meltdown season. Like when they played the Tigers and then followed that up playing the Dodgers, which I mean, remember in that Dodgers series? It was basically a foregone conclusion. They weren't going to score a single run. And then they essentially didn't. No.

[00:26:52] It's not quite like that. But it's more about the writing on the wall here or the potential of it and what you could see going forward, which is a lot of regular starters that aren't close to coming back in Raley, Robles and Bliss. A bottom of the order that's really starting to scuffle. And no long term solutions for the next couple months until the trade deadline. And even at the trade deadline, I have my skepticism about if they can address all those spots. So yeah, I'm not freaking out.

[00:27:22] So it's not fair to say eight or nine, but I call it about a six. And I think the potential confidence in Cole Young helps a little bit of it. But yeah, I'd say six. It does. We're going to just have to see this though as the games get played along. I do think it helps. I still don't think the Astros are very good. I look at that roster. I'm not buying that. I don't buy that. Sure. They play well in that ballpark. Not buying it. Rangers. Did they lose the series to the White Sox? Yeah. This is your competition right now.

[00:27:51] Look, the A's, by the way, who people thought might be frisky are back in last place. And the Angels, despite getting hot recently, I don't buy that for a fucking second. That is your competition in the division. The bar is not very high to clear to win this division right now. It just needs to be a little bit better and consistent. This weekend sucked. The road trip, though, objectively, Lyle, did not suck. The road trip did not suck. They did what they had to do on this road trip. And they're going to come home and they're going to play a bad Nationals team.

[00:28:21] A bad Nationals team. And get back on track. I would anticipate. I hope so. Because they're going to need that series. They've got to find a way to win two or three in that series. Because it's a series at home that you should absolutely win. Can I say one last thing before we get to the injury stuff? Sure. Go ahead. Go ahead. Fuck Isak Paredes. Oh my god. And did we not call that? Yes, we called it. I tweeted your clip of you saying you're going to chuck your hat when he hits a Crawford box homer.

[00:28:48] So for those who missed it on Friday, Isak Paredes hit a, you know what? I would say home run. But I'm going to retract that. Because as we tweeted out, that home run doesn't count. Isak Paredes has 10 home runs on the year. Not 11, like it said, after he put that stupid ball into the Crawford boxes. Isak Paredes has 10 home runs on the year. And those two runs are getting taken off Emerson Hancock's ERA as we've sent in a file of complaint to Major League Baseball ordering them to do so. Emerson Hancock went six innings and gave up one earned run on Friday.

[00:29:19] I fucking hate the Crawford boxes. Like. So much. And you know what annoyed me even more? The Crawford boxes were part of the Mariners winning the Friday game. So I can't, I can't even do the full bit. I can. It's still stupid. Crawford box. That's not even baseball. Again, for those who didn't see the home run on Friday, that ball had an expected batting average of, wait for it. Wait for it.

[00:29:49] Oh. Oh. 60. That is a real number. That home run had an 0. 60 expected batting average. That gets out in two of 30 ballparks. Fenway. And Houston. Can you explain what that means? That means in 28 of 30 parks, that is a pop out. That is not a home run. And the expected batting average, meaning when you hit a ball with that combination of exit velocity and launch angle, it's expected to only be a hit 6% of the time.

[00:30:20] Yeah. That's what that number tells you. Just low, as you would know. Oh, 60. Yeah. Like, again, that's a pop out. Isak Paredes, I don't even think this is a hot take. There's about five teams that Paredes can play for where he'd actually be a good baseball player. And the rest of them, he wouldn't be. Astros, Rays, Red Sox. Yankees. Yeah. I guess the Orioles now, too. They move the fences in. Yeah, I guess.

[00:30:49] That's about it. But those are the... He has to play... Coors Field. Yeah, he'd be a good Rocky. Sure. Although he'd be sent to the moon in that scenario because the Rockies wouldn't be any good. But sure, he'd be a good player. So he could stat pad. So, again, he has to play in an extremely hitter-friendly park with a total short porch in left field to have success. Unless he was playing in Coors Field because the ball just elevates.

[00:31:14] But if he was playing in all these other parks, he would not actually be a good baseball player considering he doesn't get to use these short porches to his advantage for home runs. He can't run. He can't field. And all those home runs turn to fly outs. You want a perfect example? Look at the small time he spent in Chicago last year with the Cubs. The dude had a 633 OPS and was 20% below league average as a hitter. That's not a coincidence. And that was in the summer, too. The summer months when balls fly.

[00:31:42] There are five ballparks roughly in baseball where Isak Paredes is a good baseball player. And the rest of them he's not. We called it, Lyle. So, as soon as he was an Astro, as soon as it happened, you knew. I mean, we talked about the idea of him being a Mariner at one point. We were like, yeah, this would be an utter disaster if they traded for him. He would lead the league in fly outs to the warning track in left field. Yeah. Be like, why is the ball not carrying?

[00:32:11] It's like, well, yeah, you got to crush it a little bit to get it out there. So, our reofficial statement on the Marine Layer podcast continues after this weekend. That Isak Paredes is public enemy number one of the Seattle Mariners. And number two, the Crawford boxes and that ballpark should be banned for Major League Baseball. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Correct. And I will say the same thing on Brock and Salt here on Monday. There are five ballparks in baseball where Isak Paredes is a good baseball player and the rest of them he's not.

[00:32:42] Before we get into some of the Mariners' injury concerns, Lyle, let's hear a word from our friends at Rhythm. Let's be honest, guys. Betting on baseball can feel like throwing darts, but not anymore. We've partnered with Rhythm, an app that helps you build your own data-backed betting model in just minutes. No coding, no spreadsheets, just a clean, easy-to-use interface that shows you what you need to make educated bets. You'll get daily projections for player props, both pitching and hitting, plus money lines, totals, and run lines, all back-tested to ensure the models are built to help you win.

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[00:33:39] based off of some of the news that came out this weekend, is Bryce Miller. I will say, to start off on a positive note, both Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller threw some, they both threw sim games, right? I think that was the terms. Yeah, so they both threw sim games on Saturday, and collectively, the two of them said, yeah, we feel good. The sim games were about two innings through, I think, 30-ish pitches each, and they felt good enough to keep going. I remember the 35 pitches includes like 20 to warm up as well,

[00:34:08] so ballpark around 50 pitches for what those two threw on Saturday. So they said they felt good in that. That's great. But then there's this concern, there's this quote in at the end of the Bryce Miller section in Daniel Kramer's article from Saturday, talking about the injury updates. And Bryce is being, I guess, Bryce's version of transparent pre-anything happening at this point. Listen to what Bryce says, and we'll go from there. So the quote from Bryce Miller said,

[00:34:39] regarding his elbow inflammation that put him on the injured list in the first place, I know the cause, but I don't know if I should say it, Bryce Miller said. I'll say everything structurally is really good. There's something in there that causes the inflammation, and something I can't just take out without missing the rest of the season. So this ideally gets me to the end of the season, and then we can reassess and see if I need to clean it up or anything. But at the end of the day, it feels good. What do you take from that quotation?

[00:35:07] So that came from Daniel Kramer via MLB.com for anybody that doesn't know. But I take it one of two ways. Either Bryce Miller is going to try his absolute best to pitch through whatever he's trying to fight through right now and make it through the end of the year, or he's going to have to go get this cleaned up and go get some type of procedure, and they're not going to have him until 2026. And I don't know if I love either option, because either you don't have him or he tries to fight through this,

[00:35:35] in which case, how different is post-IL Bryce Miller going to look from how he fared in the month of April where he really struggled? I hope at this point he's just accepted that his arm's not going to feel 100% and he can mentally adjust the way he needs to. The way he made it sound pre-IL is that he was struggling to adjust when his arm would start barking at him a little bit or his elbow would not feel 100%,

[00:36:03] and it would lead to him melting down a little bit at the end of the outings. I remember the Mother's Day outing. I was out there watching. He looked good early and then was getting shelled there at the end with his velocity dipping. But now that I think that he has a better idea of what it is, I hope it sort of just rightens himself mentally at this point. I do think he's made the decision on this that he's coming back. Like, he's going to try. They're going to try and put him out there, and he's going to see how he feels pitching into the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th inning with whatever's bugging him in his elbow.

[00:36:33] We can speculate about what it is. It's nothing, I think, ligament-wise or muscle-wise. There's no strain in there. That part's all fine. I think it's something else in there that's causing this inflammation at this point. But he feels like he can pitch through it. And I'm going to say, if he can be just better than what he was doing before, just better, doesn't have to be what he was last season, just better than what he was doing, the Mariners are going to be okay with it, and I think Bryce Miller will be okay with it, and then they can worry about this in the offseason.

[00:37:02] If they're going to put him back out there, and he's going to be the pitcher who he was before he went on the IL, which is one of the bottom 30 to 20 starters in Major League Baseball, depending on the statistic you look at, because of some of the issues he's dealt with, if that was the case, I'd rather just get Bryce healthy and bring him back in 2026 at that point.

[00:37:29] And a big reason for that is because what you've seen from the two guys that have come in and replaced the injured spots in the Mariners rotation, in Emerson Hancock and Logan Evans. Well, that's what I was going to ask. When you say Bryce Miller is going to try to fight through this and come back, and you said he just needs to be better than he was before he went on the IL, I feel like the bar should be, is he going to be better than Emerson Hancock and Logan Evans? Because if the answer is he's going to come back and try to pitch through this, and he's not,

[00:37:56] well then why wouldn't you just let one of those two guys, if not both of them, try to fill that fifth spot in the rotation and pitch through it? Because both of them have been really effective when they've been up. Emerson Hancock just had another good start in Houston this weekend, where the stuff was playing up again. What if you got 80%, Bryce? Is 80% Bryce better than Emerson Hancock? You'd have to answer that. Yeah. Yes. Okay, then sure.

[00:38:25] And if it's going to be an injury where he really thinks he could clean it up in the offseason, if he gets the procedure, whatever it may be, in mid to late October, and he thinks he'll be back by opening day or just shortly after it in 2026, then great. Then yeah, pitch through it. Do everything you have to do to get yourself right for the remainder of the year and clean it up in the offseason. But I think we're going to have to see it to see if he can be 80% Bryce Miller,

[00:38:55] if he can be better than Emerson Hancock and Logan Evans, because before he went on the IL, he wasn't. He was getting outpitched by both of those guys. I get, I'm going to go back to what I started with. Now that he understands what it is, and he has some time to think about it and sort of mentally reset, because the mental part of this is pretty big. Bryce talked about it pretty transparently after every outing that he struggled, about how much the mental side was affecting him. If he can find a way to curb that, I do think it's going to help him a little bit.

[00:39:22] And if you get him close to that 80% mark that they just need him to be at, the velo may be holding into the seventh inning is not going to be there like it was last season. But maybe his command and his confidence in his pitches can remain instead of, you know, the less confidence that he seemed to be exhibiting down the stretch of his first stint of this season. Right? Yeah. I just hope he can find a way to get back to that. And I hope the arm and the elbow, whatever it is, just holds up the elbow, presumably to where he can be an effective,

[00:39:52] even if it's back end starter, where he, you know, spins together some good starts throughout the year and spins together some, doesn't have to be dominant outings, but well above average outings where he can really give them something. Because the other thing here too, is if the Mariners get to the post season, they could opt to just put Bryce Miller in the bullpen for that time being and use their other starters to get them through. So they're not asking Bryce to really extend his season, to put more work on his arm.

[00:40:21] And so they don't risk the potential of a blow up in the playoffs. If you send him out there, the key is you got to get to the post season and Bryce feels like he can help the Mariners get there. If he's back out healthy. I just really hope that's the case. I think we'll know pretty early whether or not he's going to be able to make it through the rest of this season with his elbow issues or not. Like within three starts, I think we'll know because he'll be in the fifth inning right in the zone, which has caused him the most trouble. And we'll see,

[00:40:50] is he going to be able to get through this or is he not? And that'll tell us right away. I think it'll tell the Mariners right away. And I think Bryce himself will figure it out pretty quickly. Can I do this or can I not? If he can't, I'm not going to hold it against him. I would rather have Bryce at a hundred percent in 2026 than him dealing with this now because he's not helping the Mariners with what he was doing before. Right. Yeah, I think that's right. Should we talk about Jorge Polanco too?

[00:41:16] Because there's other injury concerns on this roster and this one might even be a little more puzzling than Bryce because with Bryce Miller, or at least we have some sense of what he's fighting through. The Jorge Polanco conversation is an interesting one and there's layers to it. We mentioned earlier in the episode, how much Polanco has been struggling. That's been pretty transparent. 484 OPS in May, 45 WRC plus.

[00:41:42] Those numbers are not going to stand even for an everyday player that's playing in the field. But what Jorge Polanco has essentially had to do in the month of May, for the most part, outside of some very, I'd say extremes. Well, early in the month, they tried it, tried hitting him right-handed again, stopped doing that. And then outside of one at bat, the series against the Astros, where it was the fifth inning and the Astros put a lefty in the game against him, they wanted to keep him in the game.

[00:42:11] So I had him hit right-handed. He's been exclusively a DH only platoon left-handed hitter. A DH only platoon left-handed hitter in any month cannot do what he just did. Right. Now, it doesn't have to be what he did in April every month, but you can't put up a 484 OPS in a month. The problem with Jorge Polanco, we don't know what his status is. How is his knee doing?

[00:42:42] That's a great question. Because if we're just going to judge it off of the stats, his knee is not doing well. This again comes back to the transparency and lack of messaging that people get on things this year. It leaves people to speculate a lot, like we're doing right here. Again, they talked about his side early in the season, and I just cannot buy that a side injury is what's keeping him from playing the field

[00:43:07] and from hitting right-handed and has basically done so all year thus far. It has to be that knee, but nobody will talk about it. You'd think so. And even more telling, he's just, he's not been back in the field. There's no indication that he's going to be back in the field soon at this point. And there's no indication that, you know, he's, all right, he's ready to hit right-handed. Right? And I, I don't see a scenario how the knee continues to get better

[00:43:36] by just continuing to play him at DH a handful of times a week, like they've been doing based on the fact that when they've been playing him the way they've been playing him this season, not having to play in the field all that much and only hitting left-handed as an attempt to keep whatever is bugging him at bay. Well, it hasn't gotten better doing that. So why would it get better if you continue to do that? There's no reason to think that. It's a great question. So then what do you do?

[00:44:07] I mean, there's the idea of putting him on the IL for a couple of weeks to see if he could get better, even to the point where he feels comfortable DHing from both sides, because then that's more of a solution. But will two weeks on the IL fix all the problems that he's dealing with? Because he's already not playing the field. I don't think so. Patella tendons don't just heal in two weeks. Yeah. It's a serious injury. And, you know, when the Mariners signed him in the offseason,

[00:44:36] anticipating he was going to be healthy at some point this season, hopefully early in the season, perhaps they thought the injury was going to progress faster and they thought the timeline would be a little faster than what it currently is. But now that he's on his feet and playing every single day, it's kind of hard to sit here and think that it is going to get better unless you sit here and give him a break. But if you do put him on the IL, sure, you could fill his roster spot somehow. I mean,

[00:45:03] you can put whoever from Tacoma in his roster spot because there's no, there's no, uh, the, a platoon DH on your bench is the easiest spot in the world to fill. Well, but it could be Harry Ford. I mean, it could, it could be Harry Ford, but what could does that do to Harry? I'm not saying you have to agree with it. I'm just thinking about potential roster moves that could be made. Hmm. Again. And yeah, it could be. So then what happens when Polanco is healthy then? Then you have to send him back down.

[00:45:33] Right. Yeah. And I don't know if I like that for Harry Ford. Cause then what if Harry Ford only plays half the time during the week, he doesn't get some favorable at bats and then it's stock tanks. And then nobody's happy. Yeah. It's a predicament, man. It is, you know, you kind of gave Jorge Polanco a calm. Did you want to drop that one? I'm glad you brought this up. It's almost forgot it. Davis. They cut Mitch Hanager at the beginning of the season to avoid this. What is happening right now?

[00:46:03] Entering the season, Mitch Hanager was a DH only platoon bat. That if he was going to make the roster, that's what he was going to do. They said, well, we can't carry that this season. No roster versatility at all. It's making 12 and a half or 15 and a half million dollars. We can't, can't have him on the roster. And now all of a sudden you have a seven and a half million dollar platoon only DH on your roster. And it took five games into the season to get to that point.

[00:46:32] Who's also getting up there in age a little bit. Who's often injured. There's, there's some comps here again, when Jorge Polanco is not hitting. And I think a lot of it has to do with this injury. This looks a lot like a Mitch Hanager role. So when you're making about half as much as Mitch Hanager, it softens the blow a little bit because Polanco is making eight. Hanager's making 15 and a half this year, but it still doesn't change the idea of roster construction and what it

[00:47:01] limits you from doing throughout the course of a game, a series, a week, a season, which is you have a DH who can only hit from one side. He can't play the field. And right now from one side, he's putting up a four 84 OPS over a month. And if you sit here and you, you think, Hey, we're scrutinizing Polanco a little bit too much. Maybe we are, but when all you can do is hit because of your current injury predicament, this is all we have to go on. And therefore we are going to look at the,

[00:47:29] the hitting stuff a little bit closer than if it were to, if you were to be able to do other things, but right now Polanco cannot do other things. The only thing he can do is hit right-handed pitching as a DH. Well, that's the only thing he can do. Therefore, that's all we have to look at right now. Let me highlight, let me do one positive here. Cause there actually is a positive from this month. It's not like he's. Okay. I was just going to say, before we transitioned to the positive, I was just going to build off your point and say, this isn't a Jorge Polanco specific thing.

[00:47:59] Polo's doing the best that he can with the injuries he's dealing with. We know he's a tough guy. Like he played through a lot of stuff last year and I'm sure he's playing through stuff this year. This isn't a Polanco thing. Polanco is doing what he can do. This is a Mariners roster construction thing. And it now not favoring them to the point where they're forced to do things that either, that either put guys in unfavorable situations or just don't put out the most competitive of lineups. Again, it's not a Polanco thing,

[00:48:28] but there's a reason there was all this concern about the way the roster was constructed right now. We're seeing a little bit of it. And it would really help if the third baseman, the Mariners used to replace Polanco would be, you know, playing up to the, I would say a league, be like a league average hitter at this point and help pick up some of the slack when Polanco is not out there in the field and he's on a cold streak offensively. Ben Williamson's WRC plus right now is 65. So he's not doing that at this point. And if you shorten the sample to the month of May,

[00:48:58] the WRC plus is lower than that. And that's, that's really not what you want. Let me give Polanco this though. He is still hitting the ball hard this month. He's got an average exit velocity of 92. That's borderline elite. His 40s got a 47% hard hit rate. The problem is he's gotten a little unlucky with his batting average on balls in play, which again, in smaller samples, sometimes that'll happen in a given month and there's nothing you can really do about that. The strikeout rates gone up, but it's still well below league average for Polanco.

[00:49:26] It's not to say that he's all of a sudden started doing what Demo did this month into striking out 35% of the time. That's not the case for Jorge Polanco. The odds would say that he's going to probably bounce back at some point within the next couple of weeks and start hitting a little bit better, but it doesn't change the fact that having a platoon only DH really limits what you can do with the roster, who you can call up, how many different ways you can shuffle your lineup around. I mean, just think of what the Mariners had to deal with this series in Houston.

[00:49:55] They had to hit Polanco right-handed against a lefty reliever out of the Houston bullpen in the fifth inning, even though Polanco is clearly not comfortable hitting right-handed right now. And the Mariners don't think he's comfortable hitting right-handed right now, but they had to do it anyways because it was the fifth inning and they didn't want to pull him after two at-bats and less than five innings of play. That doesn't make any sense. And the same thing, you have to worry about the same thing when you have a scenario like you had

[00:50:21] on Sunday where Mitch Garver's your DH and he's only going to hit lefties. And if you're, you have to decide whether or not you're going to put Polanco in because once you put Polanco in, he can only hit righties. So a lot of, a lot of things to look at here with this. And it doesn't put the Mariners in a great situation that this is what is, this is what it is with your roster right now. So it's tough, tough, tough spot to be in. And again, you would think Polanco will turn around a little bit.

[00:50:49] You certainly would not expect him to OPS under 500 the rest of the way. But again, if that knee is really barking and it's bothering him, you just have to wonder how much it's going to affect him the rest of the way. And again, back to the messaging. What is the status of his knee? Nobody knows. It is the world's biggest mystery in Mariners land right now. It's like, it's impossible for anybody to have any judgment on this. It's my last thought. It's not, it's not a Polanco thing again.

[00:51:18] Like I'm not saying, Hey, Jorge Polanco, you have to come out and tell everybody what the problem with your knee is. I'm wondering from the organization as a whole, where the relaying of the messaging is. Cause it's not on the player to do so. It's it's on the team, but nobody knows. Well, we will get an injury update on Tuesday. Okay. Justin. Yeah. But Polanco doesn't usually get thrown into those updates. We'll see if it does. Yeah, we can see. Yeah. Here's the last, my last thought on this scenario.

[00:51:47] And I think this is a simpler way of looking at this from a decision-making standpoint. The Mariners, because of this scenario are doing what they have to, instead of doing what they want to with their roster. You always want to be on the attack, on the, on the aggressive decision-making side of doing what you feel like you're going to control rather than reacting to things, which is doing what you have to in that moment. Reaction versus preparation. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's about right.

[00:52:18] Well, hopefully they can turn it around against the Nats. They're going to need it. I think so. The Nats stink. Yeah, they do. So they're, they're pitching staff, especially if we're talking about the Mariners needing a bounce back offensively. Astros have had a good pitching staff this season. The Nationals, where do they rank? It is, it is not good. Are they going to get McKenzie Gore this week though? I mean, they might, but that's only one game. Let's see where the Nationals at right now.

[00:52:48] That is a good question. Look, but like the one thing with the Nationals rotation, while you look this up is, while the pitching as a whole hasn't been great, Gore has been good. So if you run into a buzzsaw, that's a game where you're going to really have to battle through it. They are 26th in ERA as a staff. And then as a starting rotation, they are, where are they? 25th. So it's, it's, so Gore might carve you up for six innings, Lyle, but then you have to cover the other 21 innings in that series.

[00:53:18] They are going to get Gore on Thursday. The other, the other two games, they should be favored considering they're going to, they're going to face the Trevor Williams on Wednesday. And then on Tuesday, they face, I believe it's, yeah, it's Mitchell Parker. So Mitchell Parker, and then Trevor Williams, those are matchups. They should win. Very favorable. So this is a good opportunity for the offense to bounce back at home and get back on the right track. Yeah. All right.

[00:53:48] I think that just about wraps up this edition of the Marine Layer Podcast. You guys know the drill. If you want to find all of our stuff, you can go right over to our website. That's MarineLayerPod.com. Go get your merch, sign up for our Patreon. We'd love to have you get involved. All our episodes are over on our website as well, both audio and video. Go check those out. Everything you need to know is on our website. Our live show schedule is on our website. Shout out to all you guys that were there on Saturday. It was a blast. And then you can find us everywhere on social media at MarineLayerPod.

[00:54:18] That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon. We'll talk to you soon.