Episode 466: We Rank The Most Ridiculous Moments Of The 2026 Mariners Season

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to episode number 466 of the Marine Lair podcast. We have a certain anniversary to celebrate. We also, as promised, have our list of the most ridiculous things from the 2026 Mariner season in which Lyle and I will each rank our top five. 00:00:16 Speaker 2: Reminder to you guys, just before we get going, go download these podcast episodes if you're listening and please leave that five-star review if you get the chance. If you're watching on YouTube, just make sure to go hit that subscribe button. You can also find all of our stuff over at our website, which is MarineLairPod. Our merch is there. Patreon's there. Episodes are all there. It's a big one-stop shop, marinelayerpod.com. And then follow us all across social media too, at marinelayerpod. Let's get it rolling. 00:00:41 Speaker 1: 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, October 4th. Lyle, I was thinking about something today, and I realized we have an anniversary to celebrate. 00:01:12 Speaker 2: We're sitting here recording pretty late here on this Sunday, and I got the tweet off about 25 minutes before the buzzer, before the anniversary ended. And honestly, it's an indictment on me. This is supposed to be my anniversary to celebrate an infamy. And I was so short-sighted that I somehow didn't even recall today was the day until late until you said it, honestly, it's a knock on me. 00:01:37 Speaker 1: I think so. I was in like a bit of a nostalgia mood as I was getting ready to record this podcast. I was, uh, sitting and, and watching highlights from the ALDS last year. Cause of course we're not going to get any of those highlights this year for the Mariners. Uh, So I was going back and watching them last year, and I sat there and realized, like, oh, yeah, I mean, it is this weekend. I bet we've been seeing the games on. They've been very good so far. But, yeah, the anniversary of a certain moment was exactly one year ago today on October 4th on a Saturday. What was that, Lyle? 00:02:11 Speaker 2: Here, I got the audio. I know you were looking for the audio, but here. You can do it again. 00:02:18 Speaker 1: Carpenter swings, launches it to right, and the Tigers will lead. 00:02:23 Speaker 2: That is gone, and Carpenter comes up clutch in the division series again. 00:02:29 Speaker 1: I think I can hear Lyle in the background of that highlight. 00:02:33 Speaker 2: You hear all those boos? That's for a certain decision made to not take George Kirby out of the lineup the third time through the order when Kerry Carpenter's at the plate. All right, I'm not going to go 15 rounds on this again. We're recording late. Changes have been made a year later, to put it lightly. I'm not going to take people down the rabbit hole again. But it was, just to go down the nostalgia road, one year ago today, at about this time, funny enough, because we were at that game. It was miserable. I was furious. I was seeing red for 24 hours. And we were sitting here, basically lost our voices. Long day. at the ballpark forever, outside forever. It was a decently chilly day also. And we get back here to record. And, I mean, we're half dead because we're exhausted, but I'm still just absolutely seeing nothing but red, and all I can think about is that. 00:03:38 Speaker 1: We talked at the end of the season about weights being lifted off your shoulder. Is that weight off your shoulder now? I mean. 00:03:45 Speaker 2: In some ways, yes. It still doesn't change the fact that at that time, we had been to two Mariners playoff games in our lives, seen wins in neither of them, and the reason for the second one wasn't because of an 18-inning, 1-0 thriller. It was because of a certain decision being made. Now, it was made up for about a week. It was made up for about a week later when Gino hit the Grand Slam. So that was nice. 00:04:18 Speaker 1: Well, they had also in the first two playoff games we had seen scored two runs in 30 innings. That didn't really help. 00:04:25 Speaker 2: No. And Carlos Vargas blowing that game in the 10th inning also didn't help. No. 00:04:30 Speaker 1: No, it didn't. Another favorite that doesn't even get mentioned enough. 00:04:34 Speaker 2: Did we talk about it? No, because the highlight we always are going to harp on from that game is that homer. But did we ever tell people back at the time during that game that I said, like, if Vargas comes into this game in a tie game in extra innings, I'm getting up, getting out of my seat, and getting up, like, walking around the concourse until the half inning's over? Because I said I will not physically watch him blow this game. And he blew it. But I was not sitting in my seats in the top of that 10th inning. No, I was just walking around the concourse listening to Rick Riz on the radio playing throughout the park because I'm like, I'm not, I'm not watching this live. And he blew it. 00:05:07 Speaker 1: This is a smart decision. There wasn't, there wasn't a whole lot of, when I was there, like communicating with Lyle after that Kerry Carpenter home run. It was mostly, I think him giving like directive on what he was going to do. And I was like, all right, yeah, that's fine. Cause I wasn't very happy. 00:05:26 Speaker 2: No, no, I, I think my exact words after that tweet is, Like I'm about to unleash hell when we get on this podcast tonight. Basically. Now here we are a year later. Crazy to think it's been a year. 00:05:44 Speaker 1: It has been a year. And now officially there has been a lot of change and unfortunately no playoff baseball for us to react to. I will say I was getting, when I saw what happened to the Padres in game one, where Ty France hits that ball off the roof, I saw someone tweet this and I totally agreed that I couldn't believe that hadn't happened to the Mariners first. We're like that situation happens to them in a playoff series and screws them over. Like I was like, that's facts that would happen to us. 00:06:18 Speaker 2: I think the rafters on the roof is too high at T-Mobile park. 00:06:22 Speaker 1: I'm not, not even at home though. Playing somewhere else. Now, where exactly that would be. I mean, maybe Houston, maybe Tampa. Yeah, possible to, Well, Houston, because Houston always just wins over the Mariners, like in a year where Houston goes 81 and 81 and wins the division, something like that. 00:06:42 Speaker 2: Sure. All right. Fair. Totally fair. 00:06:45 Speaker 1: But I couldn't believe that hadn't happened to the Mariners yet. But otherwise, the playoffs have been good. Just no Mariners anything to react to in the postseason because they're not in it. The one bit of Mariners news we do have to talk about before we get into our list of ridiculous things from the season, which I'm very excited to talk about is the Mariners did sign Michael Tolia, I assume to a minor league contract. So people will see the name Michael Tolia and he'll be on the 40 man roster. I would almost assume he is a former first round pick and he's from the state of Washington. 00:07:18 Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, they claimed him off waivers. So yeah, he'll be on the 40 man. 00:07:23 Speaker 1: Yeah. But he essentially is going to be on like, I think he's going to be making minor league money now because he's going to be in Tacoma. 00:07:33 Speaker 2: I mean, I assume he'll be in Tacoma next year, but right now he's on the 40 man. Cause again, they claimed him off waivers. Right. 00:07:39 Speaker 1: So I guess he could be, he could be DFA'd next year. Just like the story with Michael Tolia. He's just hasn't hit at all at the big league level. Right. 00:07:48 Speaker 2: He is likely going to be a guy that is in spring training. I mean, I think that's a bare minimum. And then he will probably spend a lot of time in Tacoma next year. Cause he's mostly a first baseman. And obviously the Mariners have a first baseman. The pros of Michael Tolia are that he can hit for some power and he can really square up a baseball. I mean, he's had a 25 home run season in the big leagues. That was two years ago. The downsides of Michael, of Michael Tolia is stop me. If you've heard this about a Mariner before, he really, really has a lot of swing and miss in his game and has had some absurd strikeout rates in the big leagues. And it's going to have to get to a point where it's even somewhat tenable to stay stick in the big leagues. If he ever wants to stick in the big leagues at some point, I'm sure he does want to. I just mean, if, if he is going to stick long-term strikeouts are going to have to come down and he's going to have to make more contact because that just hasn't happened the last couple of years, which is why for the most part, he's been in the minors. 00:08:49 Speaker 1: His strikeout rate by season in the big leagues at age 23, played 31 games and struck out 37% of the time at age 24, he played 45 games and struck out 33% of the time. His best year at age 25, where he hit 25 home runs, he struck out 32% of the time. At age 26, two years, or last year, he hit, yeah, age 26 in 88 games, he struck out 39% of the time. And then in 10 games this past season, in 2026, he struck out 43% of the time at the big league level. Really, really, really, really high. 00:09:28 Speaker 2: So, yeah. Yeah. 00:09:29 Speaker 1: He's going to have to, he's probably going to hit well in Tacoma because the last three seasons in AAA, he's also hit very well. I will say the Rockies AAA affiliate is very, very, very friendly to hit at Albuquerque. I think they play also at elevation, but he has hit and he has produced in AAA big leagues though. It's like, yeah, he's going to, he's going to get like a rowdy to Les look pretty much. Yeah. 00:09:54 Speaker 2: Especially if Naylor has to go on the IL at some point next year. So, yeah. 00:10:00 Speaker 1: Speaking of that, he was shown on TV here on Sunday night in a, a wrist guard. 00:10:08 Speaker 2: I think he was playing through a big wrist thing this year. I don't think that's much of, I think people knew he was playing through something this year, but whatever's gone on after the season seems like it's getting addressed now. Yeah. Okay. 00:10:21 Speaker 1: Before we get to our list of ridiculous Mariners things, want to tell you guys about Emerald Queen Casino's upcoming entertainment lineup. Gary Allen visits EQC on October 9th, WFC 199 a week after on October 17th, Bear Grease on October 23rd, and Patti LaBelle on November 7th. Get your tickets today at emeraldqueen.com. Emerald Queen Casino is the entertainment capital of the Northwest. And while you're there, You can check out the BetMGM Sportsbook. There's no better place to watch the game. 70 dream seat loungers for premium viewing. Dozens of 86-inch TVs. Legal wagering on college and pro sports anywhere on the property with the BetEQC app. Catch every sport and every play at Emerald Queen Casino. For more details, visit EmeraldQueen.com. Please game responsibly. I wanted to get to this list of things we wrote down that we thought were the most ridiculous of the 2026 Mariners season last Sunday. But then we had Dan Wilson getting fired. And then we had Jerry DePoto's press conference the next day. So we never actually got to this episode. So now we have it. Unfortunately, a week later. But the way I kind of want you to think about this. So Lyle and I started a list. of every ridiculous thing that happened in this 2026 Mariners season. And then we're going to pick out our top five moments from this list and present them to you. And I hope you guys leave your top five down in the YouTube comments, leave them on Twitter, on Instagram, wherever. I would be very, very curious to hear what you guys have to think. And I want everyone to think about this in a comedic sense, because now that we're turning the page into a more serious note of Mariners baseball of like, needing to compete. Well, I feel like people just need to be able to look back and like laugh at how silly this last year was. 00:12:17 Speaker 2: And let's be clear. Most of these don't have to do with physical performance. Max Scherzer dominating the Mariners was ridiculous. Don't get us wrong, but that is just being outperformed physically. All of these are either mental mistakes or beyond ridiculous storylines that often were away from the field that went down this season. So This is a long list. As we sit here, we came up with 23 of these on our own, which, good lord. I mean, to have a list like that, you wonder why things went wrong this year. But TJ and I are going to go back and forth. We'll each go read one by one. Then we'll rank our top five. And for, again, like TJ said, for any of you listening that either feel like we missed something or you just want to share your own, tell us. 00:13:03 Speaker 1: Leave them in the comments. Send us DMs, emails, etc., Let's get into our list, Lyle. I think most of this is in chronological order. Not all of it, but I think most of it. Number one, Cal Raleigh doesn't shake Randy Rosarena's hand at the WBC. And then Randy, later that evening, cusses Cal out to the media four different ways. Yeah. 00:13:29 Speaker 2: On camera, to the public, not internally. 00:13:33 Speaker 1: Okay. Not internally, not even giving it a chance to get internal. Nope, nope. I think that set the tone perfectly for how this season was going to go. We didn't know it at the time. Not that big a deal, but little did we know. 00:13:49 Speaker 2: Oh, at the time, I was so excited for the season that I was trying to do anything, especially a lot of hurdles mentally to say, this is going to affect nothing. It's not going to be a big deal. They'll move past it. Wow, to have the hindsight I have now, looking back on that, That really should have been the biggest possible clue you could have ever been given. 00:14:07 Speaker 1: Could I say we handled that much like Dan Wilson handled it? 00:14:11 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. We were so sure back then that it was going to be totally fine, and we were wrong. We were dead wrong. Dead wrong. 00:14:20 Speaker 1: Yep. 00:14:21 Speaker 2: Yep, yep. 00:14:22 Speaker 1: That's a lesson learned for us. A lesson learned, I think, from now on, if any Mariners player to the media says, cusses out another one of their teammates. It is always a story every single time from now on. 00:14:36 Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I think our take back then is Randy smiling about this. If you look at him walking away, he's probably joking. They'll be fine. Oh no, no, that was wrong. 00:14:45 Speaker 1: That was wrong. That was totally wrong. 00:14:47 Speaker 2: Yeah. Number two, staying on the topic of the WBC, Julio decided to publicly say in an interview that winning the world baseball classic was more important to him than winning the world series. 00:15:01 Speaker 1: In a season where they finished 10 games under. 500, I gotta say, not a great look. 00:15:07 Speaker 2: Another story that we thought at the time, oh, whatever, he's in the heat of the moment. He won't feel that way in a couple months. And maybe he doesn't now. Regardless, to say that out loud, for a tournament that is essentially two weeks long, no. Where, by the way, I know it's the closest thing baseball can do to mirroring the World Cup. But the difference is people are truly going all out in the World Cup. You don't have players on pitch counts in the World Cup. You have starters that aren't participating. You have starters that are getting taken out at 50 pitches because they're not built up. Like, come on, this isn't the World Series. It's a fun tournament. It means something. It's not the World Series. 00:15:50 Speaker 1: Does the World Cup have players that are not on the roster frivolously driving through a rainstorm? to get into the dugout and cheer on after they voluntarily left the team. 00:16:02 Speaker 2: For those who don't remember, you might have to piece those bridges together. 00:16:05 Speaker 1: That was Tarek Scooble, who made one start for the U.S. against Great Britain, which was essentially a minor league team, left the team to go back to Tiger spring training, threw in a meaningless spring training start, and then claimed that he drove hours through torrential rain to watch Team USA against I forget who to cheer them on and support them. Well, is that not the stupidest thing you've ever heard? 00:16:31 Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of stupid headlines that came out from the WBC. That could be its own episode. I mean, you had Bryce Harper saying the Olympics would have been cooler than the WBC in the middle of the tournament. You had Aaron Judge give the worst speech of all time. You had Mark DeRosa not remember the rules of the tournament. I mean, you had a lot of, I mean, again, the whole Scooble Scott Boris thing that was going down during the WBC, the whole team USA thing was a disaster, but yeah, the parlayed with that was Julio saying, yeah, I'd rather win the WBC than the World Series. It's like, well, buddy, you're only projected to, you know, win the American League this year for a city that's never been to a World Series when you were eight outs away last year. Like, I get this means something to you, but that feels a little extreme. 00:17:16 Speaker 1: I think they're both really cool as probably the answer we want to give going forward. 00:17:20 Speaker 2: I'd love to win both. That would be a phenomenal answer. 00:17:24 Speaker 1: All right, number three. the Mariners decide to implement their first piggyback of the season instead of just running with a five-man rotation or putting someone in the bullpen. With many around baseball saying, huh, that's funny. We don't ever see piggybacks in MLB. Not during the regular season. It's usually something you do in college when, you know, just need length. 00:17:50 Speaker 2: Now, there's going to be more layers to this. So it's not just... the story coming out, but the first piece of this is the story coming out. And when it came out, I think we basically immediately said, well, this is dumb. Luis isn't pitching. Well, put the guy who's not pitching well in the bullpen and stick with a five man rotation. But no, they didn't do that. They didn't do that. 00:18:11 Speaker 1: Did not do that. No, no. And this will be a common theme in here too. I wasn't communicated very well. 00:18:18 Speaker 2: Oh, that's weird. The Mariners didn't have good communication in 2026. That's news to me. Which leads us to story number four. The very first piggyback game gets royally blown up by Dan Wilson because they were more concerned about Luis getting his innings in during the ninth inning of a 1-0 game than going to Andres Munoz. And if you forget, there was also a moment in that game, I believe in that ninth inning, where I think Dan Wilson essentially forgot the rules of how to manage a baseball game because he tried to make two mound visits within the same batter, and they told him he couldn't go back out there. 00:19:01 Speaker 1: I'd say that's not great. 00:19:02 Speaker 2: Wow. 00:19:04 Speaker 1: Because they had the situation where they decided on that piggyback in that game. Then they ran Bryce an extra inning because he was throwing so well. They threw him six, and they're like, well, we want to stretch Luis Castillo out too. But then you get into the muddy waters of what was the priority? At least come out and say it. Our priority was to stretch Luis out. We wanted to get all the outs with our starters. Or it's like our priority was to win the game, and we didn't get Luis enough work. But, of course, we didn't hear either of those. 00:19:37 Speaker 2: And surely a certain former manager provided the reason as to why they. 00:19:42 Speaker 1: Did that, right? He did not. 00:19:44 Speaker 2: No, Oh, that's weird. I mean, we don't have all the tough one-to-nights down on here as ridiculous storylines. I mean, those are given for everybody. We've talked about those enough. 00:19:55 Speaker 1: Number five, Lyle, is Luis Castillo throwing a tantrum in the dugout in Sacramento after getting pulled after the second piggyback. 00:20:05 Speaker 2: Seems like communication was an issue there. Because for a man that's as even keeled as you can basically find in any rotation in Luis Castillo, he's chucking his hat. He's chucking his glove. He's chucking his jacket. Only for then the TV broadcast to pan to Dan Wilson and Luis Castillo having what looked to be a very intense conversation in the middle of a baseball game where Luis clearly didn't seem to think he was coming out. And it was a long conversation, man. 00:20:33 Speaker 1: And this is after they already did one. Like, you feel like everyone would know. Hey, like if we're going to split, like I'm only pitching half the game. All right. But even the 2026 Mariners managed to fumble that. 00:20:49 Speaker 2: And what does story number six conclude of in terms of the piggyback? Well, that would be in the same game. Bryce Miller publicly stating in his postgame interview after the win how he essentially despised that piggyback. It wasn't comfortable for him at all. And that sent absolute ripple effects. into the Mariners verse being like, Oh, he's publicly admitting. He also hates this after Luis just threw a tantrum earlier in the game. 00:21:16 Speaker 1: I think Bryce's line was, went like, I, uh, I don't really like this setup. 00:21:25 Speaker 2: Shocker. Like maybe he would have liked it better. Oh, I don't know if it had been communicated to him, but no, it wasn't. Now he may not have liked it better regardless. Cause again, not, just putting Luis in the bullpen would have solved all this. And by the way, pin that sentence I just said for anybody listening. Pin that sentence I just said about putting Luis in the bullpen because we will get to that later. 00:21:51 Speaker 1: Number seven. You might remember this one. Ichiro's bat broke during his statue unveiling at the ballpark. 00:21:59 Speaker 2: Which was broken by? 00:22:02 Speaker 1: John Stam. 00:22:03 Speaker 2: I mean, how unbelievably fitting. John Stanton broke Ichiro's bat during the statue unveiling. Like, are you serious? You want to talk about all the bad omens that had already gone down and that happens? 00:22:20 Speaker 1: The statues outside the front of the ballpark have had, certainly had their share of adversity, but this was the first time it was self-inflicted, which, again, is a pretty common theme with this list. 00:22:32 Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 00:22:34 Speaker 1: I remember when, I think when they put Junior's statue up for the first time, someone stole his bat. 00:22:38 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. 00:22:39 Speaker 1: But, like, the Mariners didn't steal his bat. Like, someone came along and took the bat off the statue. But this time, I mean, the bat just broke. 00:22:47 Speaker 2: Correct. Yeah, that was wild. Story number eight. The Josh Naylor story comes out on social media that he essentially stabbed a teammate in the hand back in the minor leagues with the Marlins by jumping out of an apartment closet by surprise with a knife. Good Lord. We didn't really get into this when it happened because we just said, look, people can find it on their own. People are talking about it. I don't know how much else we can add to it. But if you're going to put together a list of ridiculous things that happened throughout the course of the Mariners season with absurd storylines, Yeah, this is one of them. To find out that one of the highest paid players on your team was essentially stabbing teammates as a prank in the minor leagues. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly, yes. But it's still a crazy story. 00:23:32 Speaker 1: It's not a good look. It's not a good look. 00:23:35 Speaker 2: Now, Naylor never had to publicly address this. They never sat down in front of a media scrum and talked about this. And I'm sure they, for good reason, didn't want him doing that. But it was still a story that was very much out there. And the story that was out there didn't seem like it was essentially being made up. I didn't see a lot of people like jumping to defense. Yeah, I didn't see a lot of people shutting down that story. 00:24:05 Speaker 1: No, that was an odd one. 00:24:09 Speaker 2: Let's compare two players. They're making similar contracts, but you have to pick one guy to be in your lineup. Player 1 hit 300. He had an 840 OPS and a 141 WRC +. 41% better than the league average. Player 2 hit 185. He had a 563 OPS and a 63 WRC +. So who would you pick? The clear answer is Player A, right? Because Player A is 2025 Dominic Canzone and Player B is 2022 Abraham Toro. Well, you can apply that same logic to our friends over at Davis Law Group, who offer better service with even better results. Most PI firms charge very similar fees, So why not make it simple and just hire the best? Davis Law Group is your premium option for accident firms. They have an in-house investigation team, they treat every case like it's going to trial, and they have over 700 five-star reviews on Google. Davis Law Group wants you to know your rights in the case of an accident. That's why Chris Davis, the founder of Davis Law Group, wrote a series of Washington accident books. He turned common questions into easy-to-understand books to help people navigate the process. And they've given away over 100,000 books across the state of Washington. They want you to be informed. Davis Law Group only takes on cases where they truly believe they can help and you don't pay unless you get a result. If you've been injured and you want to better understand your options, you can request a free, no obligation case evaluation with their team. Just visit dlgseattle.com slash baseball to learn more. That's dlgseattle.com slash baseball. Number nine. 00:25:36 Speaker 1: Julio Rodriguez gets to the plate for an at-bat late in Kansas City and gets a pitch clock violation. And people in the broadcast booth are going like, huh, what's going on? Only because, people surmise, the story that was told is that he didn't get his gear on in time, but what people think is that Julio instead was having a heated conversation with Randy Rosarena in the dugout. 00:26:03 Speaker 2: Because earlier in that... Because earlier in that inning, defensively, Randy, shocker, misplayed a ball in the outfield and Julio was getting on him about it. So the story goes. But yes, as a result, it resulted in a pitch clock violation. 00:26:19 Speaker 1: And a lot of these storylines were all like stuff people would be talking about the next day, wondering like, In a game, and by the way, the Mariners, I think, got swept in this series against the Royals. No, they get swept. Or they got swept at home and lost two of three on the road, if I remember that correctly. Yeah. But, you know, the Mariners have just lost this series, and you're wondering why a player just can't get to the box on time. Right. And you're like, what? But if you knew anything about the 2026 Mariners, you'd be like, oh, yeah, of course that did happen. 00:26:52 Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Well, then it's back to pitching storylines again, because we get to storyline number 10. The Mariners then decide it's time to go to a six-man rotation and scrap the piggyback. And in less than a week into pitching a man short in the bullpen, which is what subsequently happens when you pitch a six-man rotation, you had Matt Brash and Cooper Criswell both hit the IL with three-month-plus long injuries. Criswell was out for over three months. Brash missed the rest of the year. Is it direct correlation? There's no way to perfectly know, but... They started pitching a man down in the bullpen. It put extra work on their relievers. Criswell and Brash were both throwing really well at that point. Brash had already been on the injured list. Then they both hit the shelf again. 00:27:35 Speaker 1: Well, it's not even just the injuries out of the bullpen that the shuffling with this rotation caused. It caused you overworking relievers like Edward Bazzardo, in which you saw the real regression at the end of the season when overexposure and fatigue was really setting in. Like, the amount of things that happened because the Mariners couldn't make a decision on their rotation, indirectly or directly, another just enormous storyline of this season. A management, a miscommunication, and all of that. 00:28:08 Speaker 2: Look, there's a lot of things that probably went into why the Mariners' rotation struggled in 2026. But you can't tell me at least a fraction of that reason wasn't because these guys couldn't get into a set routine all year because they could— not decide on how to use their rotation. 00:28:26 Speaker 1: Speaking of not being able to decide, number 11, the Mariners then come out and publicly announce a blueprint where they're going to plan for three total piggyback games before the all-star break with all six starters pairing up for one piggyback each, only to never use that plan, scratching it last minute before a Logan Gilbert piggyback, not once, but twice. 00:28:52 Speaker 2: So, again, you publicly announced to the world, hey, we sat down with all our pitchers, here's what we decided on, they were all in agreement on this, this is what they decided on, and we're going to run with this going forward. No, and then they scrap it. By the way, if you go back and listen to some of our episodes from back then, from that series in Cleveland in June, part of them doing that also led to them losing that series, because remember, Ben Ferrer... like, wasn't available. Like, the reason Michael Rucker pitched that ridiculous eighth inning where he totally blew the game and the Mariners lost to the Guardians, I mean, Rucker being in that situation was crazy to begin with, and Dan managed that game horrifically, but I remember it dated back to scrapping that piggyback, and it all was a roundabout effect in Lou that series like the the effects of choosing to scrap the piggyback on that day or yeah scrapping the piggyback on that day factored into available bullpen arms on that sunday because logan was supposed to start that saturday and did they lost the series. 00:29:56 Speaker 1: The more you put those pieces together, the more it made steam come out of your ears on how the strategy was being deployed for this team. It just blew my mind. Yeah. 00:30:11 Speaker 2: All right, now we're going to get to a few bangers in a row. I mean, we've got a few golden ones coming up. Here we are at number 12. Justin Hollander publicly calls out Twitter trolls for ripping the training staff, referring to some Mariners fans as The lunatic fringe. 00:30:29 Speaker 1: If I.... 00:30:32 Speaker 2: And again, I'll say this again. I actually think usually Hollander's pretty good with the media and gives very transparent answers and has a feel for the fan base. But man, that one, that was not one of his best moments. To essentially admit that you're seeing what Twitter trolls are saying online. 00:30:50 Speaker 1: I'm going to guess if we asked him to amend his statement and he gets a do-over, he probably wouldn't directly acknowledge where those comments came from. He'd just say, hey, I know our team's injured, but I think our training staff's doing a good job, and I just want to stick up for him. 00:31:07 Speaker 2: Great. 00:31:08 Speaker 1: Butt man. He's probably not letting the word the lunatic fringe come out of his mouth ever again when talking about anyone but maybe themselves. 00:31:21 Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. And it was like we said at the time when we talked about this, you cannot let Twitter trolls know that you're seeing the things they say because that leads to them doing it more. And as we saw online this year, that's exactly what happened with the people that were mad at the training staff. And then once it happened, they continued to talk about the training staff and they continued to talk about Justin Hollander. 00:31:45 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:31:46 Speaker 2: All right. 00:31:47 Speaker 1: Number 13. Randy Rosarena jogs after a ball on the final road trip before the All-Star break in Tampa, lets it drop in front of him, foul. The next pitch, Luis Castillo gives up a home run, and Randy Rosarena took zero accountability on letting that ball drop in foul territory after the game, saying he was, quote, looking after himself. He's got to look after himself, and Luis Castillo was not very happy. 00:32:17 Speaker 2: So if you missed our episode with Jordan Schusterman last Friday, I'll say it again here. I pointed to this exact moment where I said the season is over. When this happened and the home run was given up and Randy said what he said postgame, TJ and I were in Philadelphia for All-Star Week. And when that went down, I turned to TJ and I said, they're done. This team is cooked. They're not coming back from this. We've just seen enough ridiculous storylines already to this point, which is hilarious because we're like halfway through this list. But I said this team doesn't have it. That was the tipping point for me. 00:32:55 Speaker 1: Yeah. Not great. No. 00:33:01 Speaker 2: And Randy seemed to have a bit of a habit of that this year. But what can you do? All right, even though, yes, Randy was the Mariners' best player, I get it. He was an unbelievable bat this year. He did a ton for them at the plate, but there was a lot of stories like the one above with Randy. Anyway, number 14, then it comes to the trade deadline, and the Mariners are looking for anything. In fact, I remember you, TJ, tweeting Aaron Goldsmith's final line on one of the broadcasts about three days before the deadline, where he said, it's getting to the point in the season where it's just not good enough. And he also said, the Mariners now have to act. They have to go do something at the trade deadline. Well, I've got great news for everybody because story number 14 is the Mariners fell totally flat at the deadline with their headline acquisition being Taylor Ward, who put up an OPS plus in Seattle of 15. And for about the first month, it was negative. He put up a negative one OPS plus for the first month as a Mariner. He is the worst qualified Mariners hitter ever, or I should say qualified with a hundred plate appearances. 00:34:03 Speaker 1: Taylor Ward, but assumedly finished his Mariners career playing in 32 games, slashing 125, 238, 148, with negative 0.9 baseball reference war, zero home runs, and one single extra base hit. 00:34:24 Speaker 2: Taylor Ward hit 36 home runs a year ago. He was tied with Kurtz. 36, he hit zero as a Mariner. He had one extra base hit. I mean, that is as horrendous a deadline as you can draw up, dude. Sir Anthony Dominguez was fine. That's what I'll call him. He was fine in his couple months here. But that's all you did. 00:34:49 Speaker 1: At number 15, Lyle, Colt Emerson ends his season in August with a wrist injury that he never said anything about since February, which resulted in a 561 OPS in his rookie season. And yet somehow not a single player, coach or executive also noticed the fact that Colt Emerson was injured. 00:35:13 Speaker 2: I think technically it was a 581 OPS, but yes, close enough. It was a really, really tough first season in the big leagues for Colt Emerson. And we've harved on this one a lot. This one drove you nuts when it happened because we said, how can nobody around him know this is going down? He's got to say something, but also he's a rookie in the show at 21 years old, trying to live up to a contract, trying to help a team make the playoffs, trying to help a team live up to its expectations. He knows there's pressure on him. So he's probably trying to do everything he can to play through it, but nobody around him sits him down. Nobody. And by the way, added on to this story is Jerry DePoto deciding to publicly throw him under the bus when they talked about this. He's like, well, Colt should have said something. Dude, you run this baseball team. It's on you. You can figure it out. You can talk to your training staff. You can talk to your coaches. Somebody needs to figure it out on your end. 00:36:11 Speaker 1: Well, But as I said in that moment, I mean, Jerry wasn't wrong. 00:36:16 Speaker 2: Two things were true in that moment. Colt should have said something. But again, with airing things out publicly to the media, for Jerry to publicly throw Colt Emerson under the bus, like, come on. 00:36:26 Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what else to say. It was just, again, just an embodiment of that culture they're trying to overhaul. 00:36:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like... There's a reason there's going to be a lot of talk about culture with this new manager and changing the culture. Because, again, we still have about nine stories to go here. Oh, I'm next, aren't I? 00:36:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, you are next. 00:36:54 Speaker 2: The Mariners' headline offseason acquisition, which people were very excited about at the time, rightfully, and should have been, is Brendan Donovan. Brendan Donovan, unfortunately, played less than 40 games this year because of injuries. And some of it was out of his control. The injury that kept him out in the middle of the season was a true injury that it took real time to recover from and rehab from. But then, when August rolled around, we find out that Brendan Donovan's going to be hitting the IL for the third time in one season because he got drilled in the head with a baseball in the batting cage. And to follow it up, if that wasn't crazy enough, he wasn't wearing a helmet. And that injury went from, well, he'll probably miss about a week, So he missed the rest of the season. 00:37:42 Speaker 1: And then every time we saw the Mariners taking batting practice with a live thrower on the field the rest of the season, they were all wearing batting helmets. 00:37:53 Speaker 2: Hmm. 00:37:53 Speaker 1: Lesson learned. 00:37:55 Speaker 2: Let's hope it's lesson continued to be learned where they continue that process. Because look, it happened with Donovan in the cage downstairs in like in the Mariners indoor hitting facilities. down beneath the dugout. But it's crazy that he got hit in the head in the first place, and it's crazier that if he was ramping it up that hard, he wasn't wearing a helmet. By the way, you want to talk about something the Mariners will never let leak out, ever? They will never say who was the one to throw the ball at Donovan's head. 00:38:27 Speaker 1: No. You can't do that. 00:38:30 Speaker 2: No, I mean, likely it was one of the coaches, but, oh, that would be a nightmare for whoever did it. 00:38:37 Speaker 1: All right, number 17, Julio Rodriguez chucks a ball into the stands in Milwaukee with only two outs and lets two runs score in a 22-0 loss, not knowing how many outs there were. 00:38:52 Speaker 2: I mean, this was the most memeable moment of the year, that's for sure. I know it was a blowout, but my most viral tweet ever was from this. I just said, summarize the 2026 Mariners season, and I tweeted out the video of that play. Because they're down 22-0, they are using a position player on the mound, and your star center fielder doesn't know how many outs there are, and he chucks a baseball into the stands. 00:39:18 Speaker 1: He had no idea. No clue. The look on his face, he totally thought there were two outs when he caught the ball. And then he's right back in the lineup the next day. 00:39:31 Speaker 2: He was. And our next story is also about Julio. Yeah. And this is your story. Oh, wait, there's a mine. No, no, this is me. You're right. So a week after Julio chucked the ball into the stands in Milwaukee and Julio Rodriguez cost the Mariners a pitch clock violation back at home because he was playing catch with a fan between innings and didn't get his warmup baseballs off the field in time. And it resulted in a pitch clock violation. Like again, this just happened less than a week ago and it happens again. 00:40:06 Speaker 1: This is why I said this is comedic relief. Like we'll come back to this in 10 years and tell these stories again. And people are going to be like, There's no way that all happened in the same season. 00:40:16 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. No, it did. Oh, it did. It did. Now, TJ, when Julio had a mental lapse like that for the second time in less than a week, he was pulled out of the lineup the next day, right? He was not. Oh, he wasn't? 00:40:29 Speaker 1: No. 00:40:29 Speaker 2: Like Dan didn't pull him out of the lineup? Oh, that's weird. 00:40:31 Speaker 1: No, he did not. 00:40:33 Speaker 2: So continued lack of accountability. 00:40:36 Speaker 1: Correct. 00:40:36 Speaker 2: Yes. Yep. Amazing. 00:40:40 Speaker 1: Okay, the next one. We've got about five to go. Yeah, 19. Julio Rodriguez has yet another mental lapse and dove for a baseball in a one-run game in Boston that he should have been keeping in front of him, leading to a Red Sox triple that ultimately costs the Mariners a pretty big game. 00:41:03 Speaker 2: So the most memeable moment of the year may have been the Julio baseball chuck into the stands in Milwaukee. This one in Boston might have pissed a lot of people off the most because people thought that was a time point in the season where the Mariners could have started to turn things around more. But my God, did that just suck the air out of everything when he did that? 00:41:25 Speaker 1: And honestly, like the biggest gaffe because the other– I mean– The other ones don't take place in a real like competitive atmosphere, like either it being between innings or it being the game already being like 20 to nothing. But this was like, you know, a one run game in the ninth inning. And it's just a thing that, you know, every person is telling you not to do and you do it anyways. Or then it's like, yeah, that's this is a gaffe here. This goes this goes from like comedy to like, wow, this actually kind of makes me a little angry. 00:41:58 Speaker 2: Was Julio out of the lineup the next day? 00:42:01 Speaker 1: He was not. 00:42:02 Speaker 2: Oh, he wasn't? No. 00:42:03 Speaker 1: No? 00:42:04 Speaker 2: Like, Dan let him play again? Same thing? 00:42:05 Speaker 1: No. Yep. 00:42:07 Speaker 2: Huh. That's weird. Mm-hmm. And also, Julio's quote after that game was not very good either. No. 00:42:17 Speaker 1: Nope. It's got to follow the theme. No. 00:42:20 Speaker 2: It was essentially. 00:42:21 Speaker 1: Was something, like, logical and accountable said after the fact for any of these? Not really. 00:42:26 Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it was something. 00:42:29 Speaker 1: Not close enough after the fact. 00:42:30 Speaker 2: Yeah. He was just like, yeah, unfortunately, the mistake costed us. It almost sounded like a shrug your shoulders type of quote. It's like, well, no. That was a huge gaffe in a humongous moment that lost you a huge game. So, yeah. Okay, a couple more to go. Oh, God. Here we go. Here comes some of the motley crew moments from the month of September. That's for sure. Here we are all the way at number 20. Can you believe there's 20 different moments we've written down so far? Good Lord. Josh Naylor jogs it down the first baseline on a double play ball that was originally bobbled. The double play is completed as part of an A's four-game series win where they were 39 games under. 500 at the time. I mean, the Mariners were on fumes at this point. They essentially had to win this A's series at home. But they didn't. 00:43:28 Speaker 1: And this was the start of the easy September. Correct. Where even after all of the bad things that had happened, it would have taken a 17 and 10 stretch in the 27 games in September and it would have put you in the postseason. And all you had to do was beat the A's, Angels, and Rockies pretty much to do it. And the Astros. And they couldn't do it. And then stuff like this happens during that. And you're like, yeah. Even everyone knowing what you have to do still doesn't do it. 00:43:58 Speaker 2: You can hear it in Goldsmith's voice during that call, too. In his head, it sounds like he's saying to himself, like, are you serious? That Naylor is legitimately jogging. That's not a lack of focus. Now that's just a lack of effort. Right. 00:44:15 Speaker 1: To which then after the game for storyline number 21, every position player hustled out of the clubhouse in that game and dodged media questions, which, by the way, in a game where Jeffrey Springs threw seven shutout innings against them as the worst qualified starter in Major League Baseball. And then Dan Wilson said that he, quote, didn't see the play or Naylor didn't jog, didn't run out the ball. 00:44:40 Speaker 2: Let me respond to that quote from Dan. Bullshit. And I think that's exactly what we said at the time. Either you didn't see it in the moment and somebody around you absolutely said what was going on, or you did see it. How do you magically just not see any of these things happen? Again, I know. He's gone. They're going to have a new manager. Like, we don't have to harp on this a ton after this, but since we're rehashing the season, a lot of this does have to do with him, too. So, yeah. Like, bullshit you didn't see the play. You either saw it at some point between when the play happened and when you sat down at that podium. You saw it. 00:45:18 Speaker 1: But it's just in theme with everything else. 00:45:20 Speaker 2: Yes, it is. TJ, remember how I told everybody to remember that sentence I read up toward the top of that list about the Mariners refusing to move Luis to the bullpen and they just wouldn't do it? Well, as we get to storyline number 22, as we enter the final 10 to 12 days of the regular season, a notification comes up on Twitter. The White Sox, despite having a well worse rotation than the Mariners, the White Sox had one of the worst rotations in baseball this year. Move Luis Castillo to the bullpen after the Mariners refused to do it all season. 00:45:54 Speaker 1: Hmm. Wow. 00:45:57 Speaker 2: It was that easy. It was that easy to say, hey, man, you're not cutting it. You are not going to be pitching in the rotation anymore. 00:46:06 Speaker 1: Seems pretty cut and dry. Like there's a process in place. 00:46:11 Speaker 2: Dude, Luis is currently not on the White Sox postseason roster. He's not on the roster. 00:46:16 Speaker 1: Hmm. I think that says everything that needs to be said. Wow. 00:46:23 Speaker 2: What have you done for me lately? Business. Unfortunately, either play well or you're not going to play. That's simple. 00:46:31 Speaker 1: And then to close it out at number 23 in the last week of the season on national television, Julio has a routine fly ball to center field drop in front of him. 00:46:44 Speaker 2: Then he ran back and misplayed and then it dropped in front of him. 00:46:49 Speaker 1: Where, again, since it's a nationally televised game, there are people who don't normally watch the Mariners being like, wait, does this actually happen often enough? And we're like, oh, yeah, it does. 00:46:59 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. 00:47:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, guys, this is number 23 on a list of 22 other moments from this season where you would sit there and say, no, that can't possibly keep happening. We're like, oh, yeah, yes, it can. 00:47:10 Speaker 2: Yes, it can. As this list has proven, it. 00:47:13 Speaker 1: Can keep happening, Lyle. And that is the last one on this list. I'm sure there are some we have missed. If we have missed some, leave them down in the comments below. But this is quite an extensive list of some of the most ridiculous moments of this past season. 00:47:28 Speaker 2: I mean, that is 23 stories. And again, most of those that we tied in weren't strictly baseball performance related. It wasn't about getting overpowered by Max Scherzer or dominated by Jeffrey Springs because those are just physical performance shortcomings. I mean, these are true storylines that are just, again, as we titled it, ridiculous. 00:47:55 Speaker 1: And it didn't have anything to do with like the baseball strategy, really. Like in-game baseball strategy of the bullpen decisions or pinch hit decisions. 00:48:04 Speaker 2: None of that. Well, the piggyback was strategy, not necessarily a good one. 00:48:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's more of like a general, like, that's more of a front office decision instead of a dugout decision. Sure. Sure. 00:48:19 Speaker 2: All right, so what's in your top five? Are you going to rank them or are you just going to read them? 00:48:22 Speaker 1: No, I'm just going to read them in order of which we put them down. On my list is Cal Randy and the WBC. Pretty easily. If I'm choosing a number one, that's number one. Luis Castillo throwing a tantrum in the bullpen after the second piggyback I thought was very fitting. Josh Naylor allegedly stabbing his teammate in the minor leagues is on there. Cause you just like, there's no way stuff can keep coming out about this team. And it does a Colt Emerson hiding his wrist injury, which caused him to be a bottom 10 player in major league baseball because of it. And then to close it out is Justin Hollander calling the fans of the team. He works for the lunatic fringe. 00:49:06 Speaker 2: Is that the top spot on your list? 00:49:08 Speaker 1: Not the top spot, but it's in the top five. 00:49:11 Speaker 2: Oh, so you didn't go in exact order. You just know. 00:49:13 Speaker 1: I just wrote five. 00:49:15 Speaker 2: Okay. I have five and I ordered them. Number five, I have all the players hustling out of the clubhouse postgame after a terrible loss where Naylor jogged after the ball. Because, like, again, it just summed up the complete lack of accountability on the team, which everybody knew was happening, but it did not... It was perfectly summarized in that moment. It's like, oh, yeah. Like, there are no rules on this team. They do whatever they want. Yeah. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, oh, we just lost a horrific game and there was plays out there on the field where it looked like we straight up weren't trying. Well, we're not going to answer questions about that. Yeah, that one's number five. Luis throwing the tantrum about the piggyback was definitely number four. The Cole Demerson injury fiasco was number three. And again, that's all encompassing. Him not saying anything. Nobody around him finding out. Jerry deciding to publicly throw him under the bus. All of it. Julio chucking the baseball into the stands in Milwaukee is number two on the list because, again, I think that was the most memeable singular moment of the entire season. And number one is, yes, Randy publicly cursing out Cal to the media four different ways on camera. We've said it before and I'll say it again. You can disagree with Cal for not shaking Randy's hand, even though, again, it's been talked about that was a Team USA policy that he told his teammates about ahead of time. You can still disagree with Cal. But that thing only got blown up and blown out of proportion because Randy did what he did postgame. And I don't care what problems any teammate ever has with another teammate. Whatever. You cannot publicly curse out your teammate to the media on camera. It just can't happen. It doesn't matter what it is. If you're furious, be furious. Handle it internally. You cannot publicly curse out your teammate. I've said it before. I'll say it again. Never, ever have I seen something like that happen. 00:51:08 Speaker 1: And that's your list of ridiculous things from this 2026 Mariners season. Please let us know down in the comments what your top five would be. It could be from this list, or you can make your own list of things we have potentially missed. 00:51:23 Speaker 2: Seriously, if there's ones you feel like we missed, leave them in the comments. I'll be curious to see how well we hit the nail on the head with this, or if there's some really bad omissions we have, if you feel like there's bad omissions, tell us. Well, that was a fun episode of comedic relief. Maybe people still need it about a week after the season's ended. 00:51:41 Speaker 1: Yeah. And we'll get back into some more serious stuff in the coming episodes as the Mariners managerial search fleshes itself out a little bit. It just kind of like a dead time right now. So some, some comedy is always good. And then of course I do think we need to get some, some more guests back on to, diagnose the season and look at it as well. 00:52:01 Speaker 2: Agreed. All right. That's just about wraps up this edition of the Marine layer podcast. You guys know the drill. If you want to listen to the full form podcast, you can do so wherever you get your audio pods, make sure to download. If you're listening, go rate and review, please leave a five stars. It helps a ton. Go hit subscribe on YouTube. If you're watching, you can also find everything at our website, which is marine layer pod.com from our episodes to our merch, to our Patreon. It's all over there. And then find us across social media too. We're always posting content. We're online all the time. We're always posted on our platforms every day at MarineLayerPod. That's TJ. I'm Lyle. As always, we thank you guys for tuning in. We'll talk to you soon.