Episode 434: Reacting To The Mariners Losing 2/3 To Start The Rangers Series + Are There Any Answers For Bryan Woo's Road Struggles?

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey guys, just one final reminder as you're listening to this, Our Mariner's Trivia Night is tomorrow, Yeah, Tuesday night, six pm over at the Emerald Queen Casino. We cannot wait to see you guys there. It's gonna be a blast. We've got a bunch of really awesome Mariners trivia topics teed up for all you guys. 00:00:16 Speaker 2: We have prizes to give away to the winners. 00:00:18 Speaker 1: We're gonna be hanging out with all you guys, and then when the Mariners kick off against the Dodgers at seven o'clock start, we'll be hanging out and watching the game with you guys throughout the night. So we cannot wait to see you guys there. If you haven't marked it on your calendar yet, it's still not too late to do so, so make sure to go do that Tuesday This Tuesday, Tomorrow, six pm, July to twenty eighth at Emerald Queen Casino. Can't wait to see you guys there. 00:00:42 Speaker 3: Welcome to episode number four thirty four of the Marine Layer podcast. Will react to the Mariners losing to out of the first three games in Texas. 00:00:50 Speaker 1: Just a reminder to you guys, make sure you're downloading these podcast episodes, and please leave that five star review. If you're listening, make sure to hit subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube, you can check us out at our website marine layerpod dot com, where you can find our episodes, podcast merches all there, our patreons there. That's at marine layerpod dot com, and find us all across social media. We're posting content on all our platforms every day at marine Layer Pod. 00:01:14 Speaker 3: Let's get it rolling and we welcome you to this episode of the Marine Layer Podcast, part of the Just Baseball podcast network, recording here on Sunday evening, July twenty sixth. You and I didn't really have much confidence going into this road trip, and they proved us right. 00:01:43 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:01:44 Speaker 1: Look, I know they wont here on Sunday, but sorry, like one dom Canzone swing ain't changing my opinion of the trajectory of this team, not after what we saw on Friday, and certainly not after what we saw on Saturday. 00:01:56 Speaker 3: It was just Domkin zone. 00:01:58 Speaker 2: That's it. 00:01:58 Speaker 3: Like that was it? Like he had an Arbi single later in the game. He accounted for almost all of the Mariners scoring in the game here on Sunday. Yeah, otherwise, I mean it was pretty lifeless. I mean, pretty standard Mariners June slash July outings period. 00:02:13 Speaker 1: I mean Randy had a very prototypical Randy Rose Arena game on Sunday. He hobered, He helped stretch the leadout for the Mariners. It was also after the bat before where he decided to jog out a ground ball, and when Jake Berger got pulled off the bag and fell to his belly, it didn't matter because he had time to like basically swivel on the ground and get his foot back on the bag before Randy was even in shot of the camera. 00:02:39 Speaker 2: So yeah, in a classic Randy. 00:02:41 Speaker 1: Game, he homers, and then he also didn't hustle out of play and got himself out. 00:02:46 Speaker 3: And Jogging's not the end of the world for anything, but when your team is not scoring runs and you need to try and give yourself every single edge possible, usually it is more optimal than not to try to score more runs. Yeah, didn't really happen quite as much. When I say like exactly what we expected, low, I'm talking about the Mariners essentially getting their teeth kicked in the first inning of every single one of these games. Like that's what happened when they went down there in Texas and plate Listen to this, Like, if this doesn't summarize the Mariners of the last two months, I don't know what does. Friday, Game number one of the series, Mariners show up in the top of the first inning. They go down one, two three quickly. Then the Rangers come to the plate. White Langford solo home run on the ninth pitch of the game. Second batter. Mariner's already trailing, and for an offense that can't score, you look up at that scoreboard and you're like, oh shit, pressure's on. But that just game one. Now we go to Game two Saturday, top of the first inning, Mariners go down one, two three. Rangers send seven batters to the plate. Brian Muth throws twenty five pitches, and the Rangers exit the bottom of the first inning lead thanks to maybe the worst defensive alignment in the outfield I've ever seen, with Randy and left, Luke Rallian center and Dom canzone and right. It went literally exactly how you expected. 00:04:13 Speaker 1: With Rayley miss playing a ball in the gap and then Dom miss played it, and then he bobbled it on the warning track and it leads to runs, and it leads to a Ranger's absolute beatdown of the Mariners on Saturday. 00:04:23 Speaker 3: And then we get to Sunday, a game they actually won. But here we go again, the Mariners in the top of the first inning and the snap of finger go down one, two, three against Jacob de Gram, who has struggled a ton in the first inning this season. And then the Rangers come to the plate in the bottom of the first inning and they go double single and RBI sacrifice fly on the first six pitches of the game. Six pitches. The Mirrors are already trailing like they don't even give themselves a chance in the first inning of this series, and a road trip they know is so important and they they have to show some life and that their manager is trying to say, our identity of this team is that we're gonna show up and we're gonna be ready to play. 00:05:06 Speaker 2: And then within like the first. 00:05:08 Speaker 3: Fifteen minutes of all three of these games against the Rangers, bang, they're losing all of them. It's just the same thing over and over again. 00:05:19 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny, Dan, your teams are not showing up ready to play, not early in the game, that's for sure. As TJ just highlighted your opposition showing up ready to play, you're coming out flat in the first inning and the first couple innings a lot of times for the majority of the games, at least on Sunday you won. But yeah, the team that showed up ready to play at the start of these games has been the team you've gone up against. By the way, Jacob de Gram's era in the first inning this year eight fifty five, And while it took the Rangers six pitches to score a run on Sunday, it took Jacob de Gram six pitches to get out of the top of the first. 00:06:00 Speaker 3: Well, that's why, like the Mariners winning here on Sunday, like it doesn't even do that much for either of us, because it's just like when we recorded the podcast on Wednesday, right, the Mariners split the first two games against the Cincinnati Reds, and we were trying to put some optimism that into that Wednesday podcast where it's like, all right, I mean, you win the finale against the Reds, you'll split the two series at home, and then you have everything in front of you on this on this road trip upcoming, Hucks, you know, they beat the Giants two a three, so they would have won both the series at home. It would have been great. But then the Mariners lose the Wednesday game in terrible fashion. Everyone's really pissed off, and then they have a day off heading to Texas. But we didn't put out a podcast then, so it's like almost misrepresenting how the series end was for this team. And here we are on Sunday going into a Monday again where it's like, great the Mariners one on Sunday. Dom Canzone had a great swing in the latter half of this game, but like, who cares the Mariners lose today when this comes out? 00:07:05 Speaker 2: Who cares? Yeah? 00:07:07 Speaker 3: Does anything change? 00:07:09 Speaker 2: Absolutely not. 00:07:10 Speaker 1: You would have lost three or four in Texas in a series you had to get. And then you go to the Dodgers, and we know how that's gonna go. That's the best offensive baseball against borderline the worst. 00:07:19 Speaker 3: Yep, yep. So that's that's where we are today. I don't even know how much else we have really left to say about this team until they go out there and they acquire new players at this deadline in a little over a week, Like that's it. 00:07:33 Speaker 1: Well, there's a conversation in its own right, Are they even gonna do that? 00:07:36 Speaker 2: At this point? 00:07:37 Speaker 1: We gotta have a real conversation about if they lose on Monday and then they go get swept by the Dodgers, or hell, even if they go two and five on this road trip where in the next four games they get one. I mean, are they gonna buy because if they go two and five on this road trip and they go one in three in their next four games. I mean, you're talking about a team that's sitting at fifty three and fifty seven with about four days before the trade deadline? Is that a team worthy of buying for I'm not thinking now now listen, I'm not saying you shouldn't go acquire pieces to make you better for the long run. But if you're talking about some of these rentals out on the market, which already isn't a very good market, you've really given up anything for that for this. 00:08:17 Speaker 3: Team now looking for them, there might not be any players available. I mean since we last recorded a podcast, the Padres I think swept, so Mason Miller's likelihood of getting traded has gone down since we last recorded, So there might not be that kind of player available. But yeah, man, that's that's a great question. I think Friday's podcast is gonna be big for that. So we're playing to have Adam Judon for Wednesday's podcast tentatively, and then Friday after we see this Dodgers series. If there's any sort of life from this team, I think well have a pretty good idea of that. Is this gonna be more of a twenty twenty three deadline or is this gonna be more of like a twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five deadline? Those questions still need to be answered. If I'm sitting here right now, I'm still aggressively buying because what seriously, what do you have to lose at this point? But the front off is all but admitted they said things need to change. I can't think of a better thing to change. If you're not gonna df any of your players, then go and trade for players that they said they want change. That is that's changed right there, going out and getting better players to try and wake you up. 00:09:26 Speaker 1: Sure, but who are those players gonna be? Is it gonna be Ryan Jeffers, We've talked about him. He could probably do a little bit, but a Renald dh I guess, are you gonna trade for Taylor Ward? I mean, the Orioles are only four games below five hundred. They're not you know, they're not much different of a spot than you. You look at these al wildcard standings and I mean, what is up with these standings? MLB is doing something really weird. It's all messed up anyway. You look at these wildcard standings. There we go and the Orioles are one game back of you. They're one game back. Are they really gonna like, are they gonna sell Taylor Ward to a team that's essentially in the same spot as them? By the way, Taylor Ward hasn't been that impressive this year. He's still not hitting homers. He's still essentially just walking more. 00:10:14 Speaker 2: Is he gonna do that much? 00:10:15 Speaker 3: And the player you just described doesn't really fix this Mariners offense because this team doesn't score unless they hit home runs. Like they just proved that to us. For two months in a row. They were last among I think last in the league in home runs. Last month and a half, they didn't score any runs, Like, I. 00:10:28 Speaker 2: Mean, again, help and who's gonna do that? You want? 00:10:31 Speaker 1: Saya Suzuki. The Cubs are in the first wild card spot right now, the Cubs are thirteen games above five hundred. I don't know why they'd sell a player off their roster. 00:10:40 Speaker 3: Not to you unless you're way over paying, which the Cubs would of course say, yes, did George Kirby for say Azuki? But the Mariners aren't doing that right There's no way. 00:10:49 Speaker 1: This is what I mean, and this is what we keep circling back to with this trade market. It's a bad market. Who are they gonna go get? 00:10:57 Speaker 3: Seriously, who are the teams out of it right now? 00:11:00 Speaker 2: Who are like? 00:11:00 Speaker 3: Who are the defined sellers? I can name a few, the Rockies, though I don't know who from the Rockies you could possibly get that would fit on this team. The Mets, same story, the Giants. We've talked about their targets. I guess the team you just saw in the Cincinnati Reds technically could sell. I mean, there's six games below, but they also just beat you. 00:11:25 Speaker 1: And who are they going to sell to you? It's a young team and what you want Nathaniel Lowe. It's another left handed bat. It doesn't play much defense anymore. It can only play first base in DH and then in the American league. 00:11:36 Speaker 3: The two worst teams are both in your division. They're not going to trade you anything. Yeah, Like so unless you want a Kansas City Royal or I'm sure people would love the vibes of just having Gino back, but if you're just taking the baseball aspect. 00:11:50 Speaker 1: Into it, Gino just hasn't been that good. There's a reason the Mariners didn't bring him back this year. He's barely started for them as of late. 00:11:59 Speaker 3: Like, I don't know, man, who was out there, Who's gonna save this team? 00:12:04 Speaker 2: Nobody. 00:12:05 Speaker 1: This is why when the Mariners were more above five hundred, I was banging the drum so hard for Trek Scuball. There are not needle movers on this trade market, so we can sit around and wait till the trade deadline all we want. I'm sure we're gonna talk about it as the week goes on, but I just don't know what they're gonna do that's gonna be all that inspiring, unless they pull some rabbit out of their hat that we're not expecting. I mean, you mentioned the Rockies. It's the same idea with them. From a personal standpoint, we really like Mickey Moniac. We got to talk to him this year he was the man and he's probably available. But another left handed bat that mostly just hits righty's, I don't really know what that's gonna do. 00:12:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, you already have a lot of those. I mean you have don Canzone, right, that's his role. 00:12:48 Speaker 1: Like I saw a question, I mean, Willie Castro's gotten thrown out there for the Rockies. The Mariners in the past have been linked to him, but I mean Willie Castro for the year, he's an eighty nine ps plus. 00:13:01 Speaker 2: Again, like, this market sucks. 00:13:04 Speaker 3: It sucks, which is why the team keeps coming out and saying the guys that are gonna change this season are on our current roster and unless they wake up and play better, then we're just not gonna do much. 00:13:21 Speaker 1: This is why you guys. TJ just said it a couple of minutes ago. This is why Friday is gonna be such a pivotal podcast because we could sit here and depict the ins and outs of this series against the Rangers, if you want, and there's still a game to go with it. We could talk about how again Brian Wu struggled on the road, and we'll probably get to that a bit, and we could talk about how the offense hasn't been good enough, and we could talk about how they don't haven't done enough with runners in scoring position. We could talk about how the fundamentals are bad. But why do you guys want to listen to another episode of that. We've done that a million times this year. You all know that's the theme of this team like we do just doesn't do any thing. The real questions that are gonna be answered are gonna be when Friday's podcast comes out. By the time this Dodger series ends, we are all as a fan base gonna have a lot more answers about this team, and either they will have turned things around and surprised a lot of people this week, or we're gonna say what we said on last Friday's episode, which was if they don't have a good road trip. 00:14:23 Speaker 2: I mean, you could talk about a team that's orderline cooked. 00:14:27 Speaker 3: And if the people in the front office think that this team's not good enough to win, what measures are they gonna take after that? Is it selling, is it more people losing their jobs? What's it gonna be? It can be answered in just five days or four days, I guess technically before they come back home to face the Twins in less than a week. There's a lot of questions that are that are gonna be answered this week, and I don't think we have the answers yet. Don't think if they went, if they somehow win today when this podcast comes out, and then they take two are three from the Dodgers somehow mathematically, I don't know how that's possible. Dodgers have the best offense in baseball, you have the second worst offense in baseball. Like the run you usually have to outscore your opponent to win games. That just doesn't it doesn't really match up that well. 00:15:18 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:15:19 Speaker 1: So and as we sit here, let's see if I can do some quick googling right now, because they haven't announced the projected starters yet for the Dodgers in that series. But as I'm googling, Yamamoto's last start was on Saturday. So they'll get them in the finale maybe, yeah, because they should because they'll have played Sunday, well, Sunday Monday while out hair. 00:15:47 Speaker 3: Do they have a game on Monday? 00:15:48 Speaker 1: That's a good question. If they do, you're gonna get Yamamoto in the finale. The Dodgers, uh, do not play. 00:15:56 Speaker 3: On Monday, So no, you'll miss him. 00:15:58 Speaker 2: How about that you missed the. 00:15:59 Speaker 1: Yama Moto even regardless, even without Yellow Moto, without show Hay and I know Snell and Glassnower on the el. I mean, you're still gonna have to go against a lot of dudes, and you're still going to up up against an offense that's unreal. 00:16:12 Speaker 3: M maretill surely have played really well on the road. 00:16:17 Speaker 1: By the way, Kyle Tucker's having himself a series, like we all know that in advance, right, he's having himself a series. It has not been the smoothest of sailing for my guy in LA so far this year. However, his time against the Mariners will get him right, Like he's gonna go about eight for twelve in that series. 00:16:38 Speaker 3: He's gonna get Alrighty's It's not gonna be many tough matchups for him unless the Mariners bring in a lefty out of the pen, But even the Mariner's two lefties and their bullpen haven't been pitching well of late. 00:16:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, he's he's going off in this series. Yeah, and you know part of me is gonna smile. 00:16:58 Speaker 3: Oh well, we will surely have plenty to talk about for Friday's podcast episode. That's definitely for sure. I have two more things I want to ask you about in this podcast. One of them's Brian Will. I want to save that for last. We have some Jerry Depoto quotes to talk about. He did talk to the media down there in Texas, which might be telling in of itself. But before we get to that, wanted to tell you guys about Emerald Queen Casino's summer lineup of shows. 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To start your free trial today shopify dot com slash marine Layer. So Jerry Depoto did have a bit of a media scrum down in Texas after the Mariners fired Bobby Maggianis on the off day on Thursday, and he had quite a bit to say. So here's what he started with. Well, he was at least transparent and honest, which is refreshing to hear because you don't always get that from people who talk to the media these days. From the Mariners, he said, our offense has been abysmal for two months, and he falls that up with saying this quote, which I think is very important. Change grabs attention and we needed to change. 00:19:47 Speaker 1: I mean, things changed on Sunday because you won. It didn't seem to do much Friday and Saturday, but yes, it does grab attention. 00:20:00 Speaker 3: And kind of what we talked about for Friday's podcast episode, where like, there's no way Bobby magianis Is to blame and Jerry essentially admitted just as much when he talked to Daniel Kramer and Adam Jude, saying, I wasn't even sure if this was the right decision to get made, but we needed to change something. The status quo of the roster was not getting it done and someone had to essentially what he said, get everyone's attention, Like if if the losing itself wasn't getting attention, He said, we needed to get everyone's attention, and well, they surely did definitely got down dom Canzone's attention. Tom was not very happy about the decision they made. 00:20:44 Speaker 2: No, but. 00:20:47 Speaker 1: Do we believe this is the real change the front office wanted to make. No, because you just said it yourself. They admitted that they probably know that biring a third hitting coach doesn't do all that much. 00:21:00 Speaker 3: But it could also be like what I theorized on Friday, where it's like, hey, we're willing to change not just him, but we're willing to change other things if you guys don't improve. Hence twenty twenty four. 00:21:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, but wasn't there also a quote in there that said, no other drastic changes we're gonna get made now. 00:21:20 Speaker 2: That can all change if you just lose, But. 00:21:23 Speaker 3: I think no other drastic changes were going to be made on this road trip. 00:21:28 Speaker 2: Maybe that's what it was. I think. 00:21:30 Speaker 3: I remember. I think Divish was on with Paco want to say, and he said he didn't think even though the parallels of this road trip are looked just like they did in twenty twenty four, it's not gonna happen. Wouldn't happen this road trip? 00:21:44 Speaker 1: Okay, the the quote I'm looking for in Kramer's article because I swear, Oh yeah, here's here's what Kramer wrote. He said, sweeping changes of that caliber are not coming to Poto said, but there's a growing reality that the Mariners are backing themselves into a place where they're going to have to rattle off a stretch of wind et cetera, et cetera. 00:22:08 Speaker 3: So, but he also wouldn't admit if those changes were coming well, right, and that Jerry usually saves that for the day before when he talks to Ken Rosenthal. 00:22:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, everything's on the table. And then the next day fires his manager. Wow that was something. 00:22:24 Speaker 2: And then and then well, oh and what happened after that? 00:22:26 Speaker 1: Oh, he just hired a guy who has no experience managing baseball games without hiring anybody else or interviewing anybody else. Yeah, nope, nope, surely, surely that's gone great. Surely that's gone great, said manager has been awesome. 00:22:43 Speaker 3: But Jerry's not going to admit to the beat reporters that he's getting ready to fire his manager because he's hoping something changes. I mean, the best, the best case scenario for the Mariners is that he needed to make an example out of somebody, to light up the clubhouse and say, hey, guys, I know the might hurt some of you, but like, we had to change something since you guys are playing so bad, and we might have to change more things if you continue to play bad. So sorry, that's just how it is. 00:23:10 Speaker 1: Sure, But again, the fact that they seemingly admit that they know that firing a third hitting coach isn't gonna do much, that says to me that they essentially went to the owners and said what can we do here, and ownership said like, yeah, you don't get to make any drastic. 00:23:32 Speaker 2: Changes at this time. 00:23:33 Speaker 1: So then they land on, oh, so the best thing we like, the biggest movie we can make is firing our third hitting coach. 00:23:39 Speaker 2: I guess we'll just do that. 00:23:42 Speaker 3: Yeah, if I'm going to like theorize this how it would go because this is usually how it goes. When Jerry has to make major changes, he always always has to get ownership approval because it always comes with dollar amounts. Even firing Bobby maggianis you have to pay contract for the rest of the year. You have to convince the board of directors for the Mariners that you're going to pay all this salary to someone who doesn't work for you anymore, and you have to get them to say yes to that. So even with someone as small as an assistant coach, you do need approval on that. So that's what Jerry did. It's like, look, I think we need to make a change. He might have even asked Lyle about a player. He could have asked. It could have it could have included everything coaches and players. I want to make a change. I think we need a change to rattle the clubhouse. Here's my idea is what can we do? I don't know what ideas he presented to them, but you know that's usually how it goes. And of course you know the owners are going to say, yeah, you can. It's expensive for them to have to hire an interim. So they're like, why would we hire an interim. You just promote somebody and you fire the third hitting coach. Mm hmm. Yeah, that's that's what we think. 00:24:52 Speaker 1: Again, this front office is not dumb, and we've like, as evident from what Jerry said, he knows that firing a third hitting coach doesn't do much. We've talked about it at points too, that there's no way that a front office is new age driven and analytically sound as his. Mariner's front office sits up there and watch some of the decisions that get made on the field the last two years and they're like, yeah, this is awesome, like like we just love we love Michael Rucker in the eighth inning in Cleveland. There's just no way. So, look, I this is not source, this is with no information. I don't know where they stand on the entire coaching staff at this point, but I can't imagine they're like exactly over the moon about a lot of the decisions that have been made in a way a lot of games. 00:25:40 Speaker 2: Have been managed this year. Let's just let's just put it that way. 00:25:43 Speaker 3: And I would also think this is not the only if they have to. This is not the only decision that would be made this year, right, Yeah, I agree, because usually if there's one, there's always more of where that came from. And if Jerry in the front office is pissed off, that means the owners are pissed off. And if the owners are pissed off, then you know they usually take things into their own hands. That's that's exactly what happened two years ago, exactly. Teams drastically underperforming. People want change, and change happens. Right, It's up to the It all depends going forward on how the team plays, and if the team's not gonna get drastic reinforcements from the outside, they're either gonna have to play better together or things things will change because the status quo is not good enough and they're at their current trend, they're gonna finish like five games to ten games below five hundred. With all the talent in the world. 00:26:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, especially with that August schedule, which is just a nightmare. 00:26:39 Speaker 3: Oh my god. I don't think we've laid out this August schedule for people enough. 00:26:43 Speaker 2: I thought we talked about it on the last episode. 00:26:45 Speaker 3: No, I mean this August schedule it's gonna it's gonna prove a lot of things. Someone someone's gonna make it out. Someone's gonna make it out of this month. With just a question of who someone's going to make it out. Yeah, meaning like this is like the make or break. 00:27:06 Speaker 1: Oh what DJ is trying to be nice and not say is the Mariners may just get absolutely. 00:27:13 Speaker 2: Buried in August. They really might. 00:27:15 Speaker 1: I mean, if they're not already, if they're not already buried on the on the end of this road trip, which could also happen. I don't know how in the world they survived. I don't know how with the way this current team is structured, in the way they're playing, they possibly survive August. 00:27:29 Speaker 3: I don't think so either, Like they can't do another month of terrible offense and bad decisions. Uh. And because if you let's say like a bad month for the Mariners, I mean not even worst case scenario month. Let's just say they go ten to fifteen in August, that puts them seven games below five hundred of the start of September. 00:27:50 Speaker 1: Well, and that's and that's for where they are right now. If they end this road trip one in six starting yet Yeah, right, that's bad. 00:28:00 Speaker 3: Like, that's close to ten games below five hundred entering September, and teams that are ten games below in September don't make the playoffs almost ever, like Cleveland last year they weren't even ten games below. And this this was in August. But man, I'm like Dodgers in July, and then you go Twins Tigers. Tigers have been playing a lot better recently. Rays at Yankees, at Astros at Brewers home versus the Cubs home versus the Phillies. Blue Jays stink. You get them on the road, and then you go to the Red Sox. It's like one of the hottest teams in baseball and you stink at Fenway. Doesn't sound favorable for jumping back into the race. If they do play well against that schedule, then something has changed. Definitely something has changed, and the team's in the right direction. Not no, it's not. 00:28:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, well we'll have learned a lot by Friday. But they get into that Hoggett schedule. Huh, where we're really gonna learn a lot? 00:29:02 Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, let's talk about Brian Wu. But before that, while let's pause. 00:29:06 Speaker 1: Here for anat, let's compare two players they're making similar contracts, but you have to pick one guy to be in your lineup. Player one hit three hundred. 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He pitches on the road, he puts out an absolute clunker of a start, and we're left here shrugging. We don't know what's up. We don't know how this keeps happening to Brian Wu, whose stuff still looks good, his velocity still looks really good. He's not walking, guys, but he is getting crush on the road. I have a take my opinion. I think at this point it's just mental, Like there's the the postgame scrums of people asking him why he's struggling on the road, and he says, I don't know. It might have gotten to the point where, even if his stuff still feels really good on the road, the moment that first hit lands for him and he has to go out of the stretch, it's like a cascading effect in his brain that he just can't snap out of it. 00:32:30 Speaker 1: I mean, if we ever seen something this drastic, it's a four run difference on average from what he does at home versus the road. His homie aras two twenty. His ROADIRA is six point fifty two. I mean, he's essentially gonna make his next start in August. This is what he's done in the first four months of the year. And there's been other mariners not named Brian who that have struggled on the road in years past. It's happened to Kirby, It's happened uh Bryce, It's happened to Louisa Points. Wu's been the one guy that's been neutralized on the road for a long time now, for you know, the last three years, or in the last couple of years or so, I should say. But this is drastic as I've ever seen a home road split a four run difference. 00:33:11 Speaker 3: It's not even the fact he's bad on the road, it's that he's uncompetitive on the road. That it's the game's over with this offense, Brian who gives up a four spot in three innings, it's over. Yeah, It's not like a George Kirby laboring through five innings. It's like five and four and he exits. Was like a four to two or four to three deficit. Like no, I mean, Brian was exiting in the fifth inning with a five to nothing deficit in the game's over. 00:33:37 Speaker 2: I know. 00:33:39 Speaker 1: So if there was anything to dive into here and try to highlight other than the potential mental side of it that Wu could be going through, which we can't do anything more with than speculate on because you just don't know. 00:33:52 Speaker 2: We're not in his head. Have opponents now. 00:33:56 Speaker 1: In year four, Brian Wu just figured out his fastball because his fastball is getting slugged at more than ever before. There is more damage being done against Brian Wu's fastball than ever before in his career. 00:34:08 Speaker 2: Both its fastballs for that matter. 00:34:11 Speaker 3: There's a pretty good chance of that we thought this fastball was like just impossible to hit and that it was always gonna be this way and that the shape on that pitch is just so good that teams can't hit it. But this year it's totally different and it specially comes into play against lefties. This was his ultimate neutralizer facing lefties. This is like a last offseason discussion, I think last or two off seasons ago, where it was, hey, these rookie pitchers are all These pitchers for the Mariners have had some struggles against lefties. Bryce Miller has a splitter now, George Kirby has a splitter slash changeup. Logan Gilbert has a splitter slash change up. Brian Movebam didn't change anything, but it's fine because his fastball was more dominant than any of their pitches against lefties. Well, this year against lefties, it's been a bit of a different story for Brian Wou. His fastball has been getting hit pretty hard against lefties, but especially comes into play on the road. I think there's still that effect with t Mobile Park that really messes with hitters. We have all the data to back it up with the park factors, and it's just hard to hit there. But you just look at Brian Wu's splits on like what he does home versus road, Like, the biggest gap is definitely with his fastball. He's still got pretty solid production versus both lefties and righties at home with his fastball, but when he faces lefties on the road, which I mean this scenario he faced on Saturday nightmare situation, Rangers stack a bunch of lefties. He's in a road ballpark, and he allows this year against lefties a three seventy four to twelve six thirty slash line on his fastball. Terrible. That's that's like, that's like a Barry Bond slash line against left handed hitters when they face his fastball on the road, it's not even an option for him. And it's the pitch he throws the most. So you're telling me, the pitch you throw the most is given up like a over one thousand ops on the road. It's just almost unfauthable. It's hard to be competitive that way. 00:36:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really hard to be competitive that way. It's almost impossible to be competitive that way. So is he just gonna have to add another pitch next year? Is he gonna finally have to do what all the other starters have done in years past? 00:36:26 Speaker 2: And just implement something else. 00:36:29 Speaker 3: Yes, the command probably would need to be improved too. On the road command has to come into this at some point where he's just not throwing his pitches in his right spots. But every pitcher should want to evolve, and sometimes you need to be knocked around a little bit to take that extra step forward. There's nothing really else that's different from Brian Wu. Have you looked at his savant page from this year to last year. It looks almost the exact same. All of the red bubbles he has from last year are pretty much in the same spot and the same color as they were last year. Sands like a couple. The shape of it's exactly the same. So that should be a sign of all, like I still have all the great peripherals to go attack this, but a I need to like just get at my head. I can be competitive on the road because when all these starts stack up, it'll it'll eat at you. It'll it'll eat at you. And then on top of that, like, yeah, on some point pitchers of allve Lodan Gilbert used to throws fastball sixty percent of the time. Now he throws it twenty percent of the time. Just how just how baseball is. 00:37:35 Speaker 1: I mean, he's striking out less hitters this year. If you want to go into very specifics. It's not a ridiculous drop off, but there is a little bit of a drop off with the strikeouts that and if you scroll down a SAVAN page and look at some of the other categories, I would say the biggest thing that jumps out is what we just talked about. His two seam has been as ineffective as ever. His two seam has always been part of his bread and butter. Right now, I'm I mean it's just not having the same effect. I mean it's getting slugged at about sixty points higher this year than it did last year. He's also throwing it less this year than last year, and I would guess that's because it's just not having the same effect, which makes me also if the usage is going down and the effects not the same this year, maybe that signals you gotta think about adding another pitch. 00:38:26 Speaker 3: And he's also gone from about the middle of the pack ground ball pitcher where if you throw all these fastballs and guys are just rolling over it great to this year. I mean it's been it's definitely regressed and so is his hard hit rate, so is the amount of balls that get pulled pulled in the air against him just not been pretty. And the Mariners just can't have Brian Wu like this because he's gonna have to pitch on the road at some point over in really important games down the stretch, and they can't just like skip his starts when they're on the road because they need to win these games. And then it comes back to the fact where it's you need it to be competitive. You need to be a competitive start, not an uncompetitive start. And when you have fans like tweeting like Brian Wu proved me wrong. Brian Wu proved me wrong, and then is like, Nope, I wasn't proven wrong at all. And Saturday's game like just to see like the confidence level of where people are at with Brian Wu, Like you know, it's just got to be better. Like a lot of guys on this roster need to be better. Brian Will on the road is one of them. 00:39:25 Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure he knows that. He does know that, but you can. 00:39:28 Speaker 3: See the body language from him when he talks about these starts. He's like, it's heartbroken about his performance, but he's gonna, like he said, he doesn't have answers. He's gonna need to find some, right. So that's, you know, that's what pros. 00:39:39 Speaker 1: Do well, and this team's gonna need to find a whole lot of them. Because I said it on social media on Sunday evening. But can Zone's home run was a nice jolt for the Mariners on Sunday and it got him a win. But for all the storylines circling out there right now about could this be the swing that changes everything for the Mariners, I'm not playing that game. 00:39:57 Speaker 2: I'm just not. 00:39:58 Speaker 1: Not after Cole Jung's home run against the Giants, which didn't spark anything long term, not after Cal's Grand Slam, which didn't spark anything long term. It just led to more losses, including the start of the Texas Series. Now, if the Mariners really want to prove something's changed, then you better go prove it in the final game against the Rangers. 00:40:16 Speaker 2: And in La So and then in the Gauntlet and then in the Gauntlet. 00:40:21 Speaker 1: So they've got a lot to prove here, especially this week going into the trade deadline. If they want to prove to their front office, hey we're worthy of buying for it'll be an interesting handful of games. Let's put it like that Wednesday's podcast again, we'll see where we're at. We'll depict Monday's game a little bit. I'm sure we'll preview what's coming with the Dodgers series, etc. But come Friday, we're gonna have a lot of answers, and I'm curious to see what it is. 00:40:47 Speaker 3: I think this is gonna be a make or break month for the Mariners. I'm actually curiously, what do you think? Let me list off some names for you. You tell me if this is a make or break month for these for all of these people. Is August a make or break month for Dan Wilson? 00:41:05 Speaker 2: Yeah? 00:41:06 Speaker 1: I mean listen, man, I'll just say this for those that say to themselves, oh well, in general, franchise legends, don't get let go. George Diinbrenner fired Yogi Barra as a manager. Yogi berra might be the greatest catcher to ever live, who won ten rings. He got fired like nobody's untouchable. 00:41:28 Speaker 3: Is this a make or break month for Edgar Martinez and Kevin Sitzer feels that way? Is this a make or break month for Jerry Depoto and Justin Hollander. 00:41:40 Speaker 2: No, I think they're safe. 00:41:42 Speaker 1: I think number one, they did too much last year and with the lockout coming to have to try to find a new front off as I don't see that one happening now. If you're somebody who feels differently, Again, I don't tell people how to fan. 00:41:55 Speaker 2: You can feel however you want. 00:41:57 Speaker 1: And I'm not even saying that if you have certain other feelings that they're invalid. 00:42:01 Speaker 2: I'm not saying that at all. 00:42:02 Speaker 1: I just don't think the Mariners see this as make or break for the front office. 00:42:08 Speaker 3: Is this a make or break month for any position player or pay I guess, any player on the Mariners roster. 00:42:16 Speaker 1: I mean, I have my doubts that JP Crawford will be back here next year, despite him saying he wants to be back, just because he's proving that he's just losing value as time goes on. But aside from him, and aside from Randy, who's not gonna be back here anyway, I don't know, Like, I don't think any others really stand out. Do you have any others player wise? 00:42:39 Speaker 3: No, it's it's hard. Everyone's either locked up where they're already gonna be gone, right, or they're not important enough to to to be worthy of like a make or break Like it'd be nice to have Brendan Donovan back, but it's August not a make or break month for him. Is he even gonna be healthy in August? Is he gonna be fully ready? 00:43:01 Speaker 1: Well? 00:43:02 Speaker 3: Did you feeling good? 00:43:03 Speaker 1: Did you see this report that there's now a chance he could get activated against the Dodgers, which I guess, But also he's been awful on his rehab assignment. 00:43:12 Speaker 2: He isn't hit. 00:43:13 Speaker 3: What did he do today? Okay? So I did? I did a reel on Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon about Brendan Donovan. 00:43:19 Speaker 1: Uh. 00:43:20 Speaker 3: He at that point was one for twenty six on his rehab assignment with a thirty eight percent strikeout. 00:43:26 Speaker 2: Rate, playing Everett here on Sunday, I. 00:43:31 Speaker 3: Have a suit, I think. So I saw he was in the lineup. Let's see, let's see if we can find it. The AQAUA socks. They got blown this one for five? Okay, so he was. He is now two for thirty one on his rehab assignment. 00:43:47 Speaker 2: He didn't strike out give him that? Oh good? Great? 00:43:51 Speaker 1: But yeah, to see Brendan Donovan has a two to twenty five ops in minor league baseball is quite The site. 00:43:58 Speaker 3: Doesn't make, doesn't exactly stir a whole bunch of confidence that he's up to speed. Yet, and again, I can't blame him for not being up to speed. 00:44:06 Speaker 2: He didn't. 00:44:07 Speaker 3: He went two months between playing in games, and he's had not only the groin injury, it's been the sports herney as well. He's just beat up. It's not surprising. Yeah, I don't know if adding him to this Dodgers, this Dodgers series is actually a net positive for you yet. No, he's gonna have to show that but Make or Break to get back to the main point. No, I mean Brendan Donovan hasn't even earned plate enough to earn like make or break status. 00:44:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, but for a lot of coaches, Yeah, I don't see how it's not. I just I mean again, we could be talking about the end of this Dodger series as make or break they lose four in a row. There could be conversations happening already. But especially if it's not this week, then we get into August and it goes how the schedule suggests that's gonna go. I don't know how they come out of augu with no other repercussions. If they don't start winning games. 00:45:04 Speaker 3: It seems like you're either gonna get the ultimate positive or the ultimate negative at the end of August, and there's gonna be no in between. I'd be shocked, shocked if there was an in between. 00:45:14 Speaker 2: Yeah, agree, like the. 00:45:16 Speaker 3: End that that would be Like you end August, You're two games below five hundred every and everyone still has their jobs. That would that would surprise me at this rate? 00:45:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, same, But it all starts with this week again. 00:45:30 Speaker 1: A lot of things are gonna get answered this very week, and that will start a lot of conversation with the trade deadline, with decisions to be made, et cetera. 00:45:38 Speaker 2: So ye see how it all goes, won't we. 00:45:42 Speaker 3: And if you want to talk to us about all this in person, come to our EQC Trivia Night this Tuesday tomorrow. 00:45:49 Speaker 1: Potentially even more unfiltered there than we are already on the podcast, if such a thing exists. But yes, exactly, all right, That just about wraps up this edition of the Marine Layer podcast. 00:46:00 Speaker 2: You guys know the drill. 00:46:00 Speaker 1: If you want to listen to the full form podcast, you can do so wherever you get your audio pods, make sure to download these episodes. If you're listening, please go rate and review five stars as well, whether you're on Apple or Spotify or any of the audio platforms. And if you're watching on YouTube, just take a second and make sure to go hit that subscribe button. You can find us on our website marineliyerpod dot com where you can find our episodes, our podcast, merch our, Patreon, it's all over at marine layerpod dot com, and then find us on social media. We're posting content everywhere every single day at Marine Layer Pod. 00:46:33 Speaker 2: That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon. 00:47:01 Speaker 1: Diffus Tim put St