Larry and Sean talk about the ups and downs of the Baltimore Orioles series. Is it time to finally move on from Jorge Polanco? After a monster game 3, is Julio Rodriguez back? We talk about all that and more.. Plus at the end of the episode we announce a fun guest lined up for next week!
Collins It Like It Is
36. Good Process, Bad Results
Larry and Sean talk about the ups and downs of the Baltimore Orioles series. Is it time to finally move on from Jorge Polanco? After a monster game 3, is Julio Rodriguez back? We talk about all that and more.. Plus at the end of the episode we announce a fun guest lined up for next week!
- Duration:
- 29m
- Broadcast on:
- 04 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
(upbeat music) - Welcome back in to the Collin's It Like It Is podcast. My name is Sean Collins, and I got my dad here, Larry Collins, helping me out with this one. Thanks for coming on, dad. - Yes, glad to be here, and these are always fun. Enjoy doing it. - Oh yeah, well, I tell you what, this series got to a pretty dark place in game one and two. We have time about the Baltimore Orioles series with the Seattle Mariners. Man, game one, that was about as, you know, if we think about the season as a roller coaster, 162, you're always gonna have ups and downs. There's just no way around it. Look at the Dodgers, you know, the juggernaut teams. There are stretches that are rough. I think about the Yankees right now. I mean, the Yankees are going through it. And Baltimore jumped the Yankees because of the skid that the Yankees have been on. So this isn't just a Mariners problem, but if we think about the roller coaster, this is about as low as it's gotten. This is, you know, if we think about game one into game two coming out of that twin series, the offense cannot get anything going. I mean, they couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. The runners in scoring position issue just continued. You know, strikeouts were off the charts. I think in game one, we had 11 strikeouts, went over five with runners in scoring position. Game two, we had 13 strikeouts, 0 for two with runners in scoring position. So if you think about our last episode, when we're talking about what's the problem, it just compounded. There were, there was no fix. The only run that we scored in the first two games was a Cal Raleigh solo home run. Yeah, that's not gonna, that's not gonna work if you're playing the Baltimore Orioles. And that was in the sixth inning. Yeah, exactly, that we didn't score a run for 15 innings against the team and that got to a pretty dark place. I mean, we're pretty active dad and I on Twitter and rightfully so. There was a lot of people booing in the stadium. You could hear it on the broadcast. People were pretty upset on Twitter. I got to be honest, I was one of them. It just was tough to watch. I'm not someone that's gonna boo players or bad mouth players online. That's not our vibe, that's not what we're about. But it was frustrating. There's no way around it. We were in a dark place. And then game three happened and that's baseball. Game three, dad, I don't know how you felt, but game three really felt like this was the vision for the club. Yeah, the fans needed game three because game one and two, the frustration got two. It's top boiling point. You talk about roller coaster. I mean, the frustration roller coaster, it was at its highest point. The fans just were tired of seeing the same old thing. Batter's taking a pitch on the black. That's a strike and then swinging at a pitch that's off the black for a K. So it's just, it's frustrating to watch night after night. It's a rinse and repeat. It seemed like for the last 15 days and the frustration level just got to its highest point. Yeah, today, definitely seeing JP do what he did and Garver, so a lot of positives. Julio, you know, home run and not just a home run, but a pulling, it was more, you know, kind of up in center field, but it was left center. So he pulled the ball, was just an opposite field. Spray the ball the other way, but even his double, you know, it was good ABs today. Good to see you from Rodriguez. Today's game, so just when we refer to today's game, we're talking about game three. We were recording this on Thursday night. My days are all turned around because of the holiday today. Feels like a Sunday, right? Like it feels, yeah, you know, day baseball, I'm home watching it, like it feels like a Sunday night. But today's game really felt to me like, oh, this was the vision for the team. And, you know, I think about, you know, Julio Rodriguez, he has to be good. There's no other way we're good if Julio's not. And, you know, to see him hit that home run, I mean, that was a no doubter. I mean, that would have, I mean, how far did that go? 425 feet? I mean, the 428? Yeah, it was something up there. And then his double, you know, 113 miles an hour off the bat, he ends up getting on, well, obviously he's on second base with that lead off double. He's able to steal third manufacturer run. And there's no coincidence that we ended up scoring seven runs in that ball game. I mean, Julio Rodriguez unlocks the whole team. And JP Crawford, he's been so bad in clutch situations this year. The stats you had were just unreal. Yeah, yeah. He's never gotten hit in the ninth inning. The last I looked, this is not up to date. But this, you know, when we did our last podcast, JP Crawford's OPS in the seventh inning on was 422. And that's just uncharacteristic. And for him to come through with that basis clearing double in the, I think it was the seventh inning. I mean, that's just classic JP. That's, I mean, that's, that's what we expect from JP. It's who he's been his whole career. And that was just really good to see. And then Garver follows that up, you know, next at bat with a two run homer up a lefty. It's like this, this was the vision for the whole club. I mean, that's it. Like, you know, JP getting on base being clutch. Julio Rodriguez making stuff happen on the basis, hitting home runs, Garver, crushing lefties. That's, that was, I mean, we should have, that's the recipe. That's it. And it was really refreshing to see, to see it all come together today. Now they got to do it more than once then. Let's, I'm not, I'm not sitting here saying, oh, Julio's back. You know, have Garver hit cleanup every day. JP, you know, he's fixed and we're way. Just takes a spark of today might be the spark that lights a fire and I hope it is. That's what we needed. Yep, I hope it is. We've had games where Julio Rodriguez has, has gone off and we're like, okay, here it comes. Here comes the August, you know. And he just kind of crawls right back into his hole that he's been in. And I really hope that this is what takes Julio off the ramp because we need him. We can, we can talk about trades all day. Doesn't matter if Julio's not great. He can't just be good. He's got to be great. And I think about, you know, the guys that the Orioles have and Richmond and Henderson and, you know, other guys too, not just them. But it's like Julio is supposed to be right in that mix. You know, it's, yeah, it's, it's Richmond. It's Bobby Whit Jr. It's judge for MVP right now. Judge is probably going to win it. But Julio is supposed to be right in the middle of that thing. And exactly. He's so far away from it. But he's lost right now. Yeah. Yeah, he's going to get it back. He's going to get it back. He still has that ability. Yeah, and I was going to say that he got it back. And we scored our, you know, our five runs there in the seventh. No, it wasn't off of a great reliever. It wasn't off of Hader or anyone. But it was just putting at bats together, making good contact, good swings, seeing good results. It doesn't matter, it wasn't that it was a, it was not a top reliever. But it was a major league reliever that we had good at bats against. And so that's the positive. So that's what can carry us to the next level. Absolutely. Just being consistent. Yep. Who was that reliever, the Aiken? Yeah, he's a quality reliever. It looks like right now he's. Did he hit it off? Yeah, he hit the home run off of Aiken. Yes. Then Baker came in and he gave up runs also. So he gave up, was that flip that Baker came in? But he is right handed and Julio hit his home run off of. Yeah, I guess Julio would have hit the home run off of Baker and then Garver would have hit the home run off of Aiken. Yeah, so there you go. We got it squared away, but there it is. Yeah, Baker is not very good. He's got a 5.91 ERA, but Aiken, right? He's a quality reliever. I mean, Garver hitting him. I mean, that's no slouch there. So yeah, game three, we got to see more of that as we head into the next series with Toronto. Yep, got to win that series. The Mariners have done a pretty good job this year of stopping the bleeding. We've never been swept. We've never had a losing streak more than four games, right? No, that's right. I don't think we've had a winning streak more than-- No, we have had two five game winning streaks. At least. I think we've had two five game winning streaks and two four game losing streaks. Because when we built our 10 game lead, we had two five game win streaks. I think it might be-- I think it's possible that we have not won more than four and lost more than four in a row. Because I'm looking at the White Sox. We won four in a row with the Royals for that. Three White Sox. And then we came out of that with three against Texas, one against Cleveland. And then after that, we started losing. So I don't think we've ever had more than four wins in a row this year. And we think about having these big dips and high highs, low lows, it's been that. But as far as being able to keep the train from really getting off the tracks, with a little bit of a skill that our team has had, we've never been swept. And today, not getting swept by Corbin Burns with Miller on the mound, that's not nothing. That's all I wanted to say. It's not nothing. I get it when we got behind with Corbin on the mound. That didn't look promising. Yeah, that may have been the dark. Like if we're talking about literally like the darkest time of the season, it may have been when we're down to nothing with Corbin Burns. There was a part of me that literally was like, do I just turn it off? And I'm not kidding. Like, do I just take a break? You know, and I watched it, I stuck it out. Obviously, it was an exciting game and one of the more exciting games in recent, probably the last month. But yeah, it got to a pretty dark place this series. They did really glad to see it kind of turn around a little bit. See, you've got to keep the train going, though. But then, you know, you've got to win the series against Toronto. You've got to at least split with San Diego. And then you've got to win the Angel Series. Get into the all-star break with at least the lead you got. I don't want to see us chasing the Astros in the second half. There's something I think mentally with that, too. Right, if we come out of the break, we immediately jump into a series with the Astros. I think there's something mentally about, like, no, we're looking down at you. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy with that, but I think that's something. Yeah, they think they're the king of the hill. They just put the gas on that much more. Exactly. Yeah. So I was just flipping through, yeah, you're right. We had two four games, so I was just doing recollection. I thought we had two five-game win streaks in a row. But nope, it was two four-game win streaks. Back to it. Yeah, it should have won't, you know. Yeah. Yeah, it's not the way the cookie has crumbled this year. So let's shift gears a little bit, Dad. All right. Let's talk a little bit about something that... Oh, we've talked about it in this podcast a number of times. Stephen has this exercise when he's on with us that he'll do red light, yellow light, green light with players. And, you know, it's a fun exercise, and it's really about the panic meter for players. And green light is, hey, I'm not panicked at all. You got to just ride it through. Let's go with it. Julio Rodriguez' case in point would be green light. Like, what are we going to do with them? Like, you just kind of got to... You just got to let it ride. You have no other choice. Roll with them. Yep. You know, a yellow light throughout the year would have been like a Mitch Garver. Like, we got to see more, but like, I'm nervous. And a red light is like full stop. Got to get him out of the lineup. Right. Case in point, that would be when Hanneger was playing every day, no breaks, out and right field. Every day, it was like red light, you know, like time. Time for a change. I'd let's say to Hanneger doesn't have a role on the team, but like, every day out and right field, red light, you know. So there's a player that we're... At least I am. Well, let's talk about it. That's a red light. And I've seen enough and we've got to move on. I'm not going to say who that is quite yet, but I want to paint a picture. Thank you for listening. If you're listening to this, you could tell who it is. We all know who it is, but it's all right. We'll wait for the reveal. So it goes back to process versus results for me. And I think about the season and everything we did before the season even started about putting this team together. And I said from the beginning, I think that this was a really good process. I like our club. I think that we have a real shot to win the World Series. And I liked the moves. There wasn't a move that we made once the dust has settled where I was like, I don't know. I mean, I would say that Eureus at third base platooning with Rojas was the one guy where I was like, and I don't know, I don't know about this one. But everyone else I felt pretty good about. And it just makes me think about other scenarios where process versus result is significant. And let me take us back to January of this year. My wife and I, we went out to dinner. And it was our 10th wedding anniversary. And we go to this restaurant in Santa Cruz. And I'm telling you, we did all the research. We made our reservation, I think in October of 2023, looked at the menu, talked to friends. Hey, what should we get when we get when we go there? Like we had it dialed in. And we show up to the restaurant the day of our 10th wedding anniversary. And they don't have our reservation. We're, we're, we're SOL. It's, it's a, you know, and I show them, hey, no, I've got a reservation. I show them on my phone. They put together some Mickey Mouse table in the center of the restaurant. I got people like parties on both sides to me. It's a disaster. And, you know, I order the food and I stick with the plan, though. Like, hey, you know, I'm here. I'm going to order what my friend said to order. And, and let's let it rip. If food comes, it's terrible. It was a really bad experience. Like, like I'm just full stop. It's, it was a, it was a really bad experience. My wife and I left the restaurant going like, all right, what do we want to get for dinner, you know? And there's just the reality of like, hey, we did everything right. We had it all planned out. We had the, the, the menu down, you know, memorized. We knew good advisors. Yeah, we, we had, you know, we sought wise counsel and it just, it was a clunker and that's where I'm at with Jorge Polanco. Oh, really? Yeah, it's like, hey, we did, we did everything right. I don't blame Justin Hollander for going out and getting his guy, being incredibly persistent and making those phone calls day after day after day after day and getting your guy. And it doesn't mean that that Justin Hollander failed. It doesn't mean that we need to pivot. It doesn't mean that anybody did anything wrong. It just, it didn't work. And time's up, red light on, on Jorge Polanco. We need to, we need to figure out something else for second base. I think we need to give Ryan Bliss a leash. See if he can do it, I don't think he can, but I think give him until the deadline to see if he can. And if you can't get aggressive and get a second baseman, what do you think, dad? Yeah, I think the plan of going with Polanco and seeing what he can do after his injury and after he was back, I think that process in itself is a good idea. See what Polanco has. See what he can do, see if he can get back to his averages. Because he does, even his last few years have been acceptable for OPS and all his other stats, his slash line. But it's not happening. It's not working. His strikeout rate is just over the top. We need to probably put him on the bench. Just go ahead and put him back on the bench. I would probably go with more. I know Bliss, he's a spark plug. Yeah. I'm not sure Bliss is ready yet against even the right-handers. I was a little surprised they put Bliss in today against Burns. Yeah, right. If you're going to put him in, but you got to give him a shot. You got to give him some at-bats. Yep. But I would probably go with more for maybe the Toronto series and bring Polanco off the bench. And then let's see if Polanco can do something before the deadline. Yeah. And not that he's going to be traded, but maybe we do need to look at what we can do to supplement, to sure up, at least put it more at an average player for hitting anyway at the second base. Yeah. I don't want to put an unfair amount of weight put on Polanco as far as blame. It's everyone. That's the problem. I want to be as clear as I can with that. It's top to bottom. It's JP. It's, heck, Rojas since April. It's a blue. First, you know, it's a club problem. Yeah. But as far as, like, OK, what is a part of it? It's just to watch. Hey, we don't even need to look at numbers. Just watch the at-bats. Is he even close? Right. Oh, no, he's out on his front foot. He's guessing he doesn't have a clue what's coming. It's a problem. And at least when you're watching other guys in the lineup that are struggling, at least they kind of pass the eye test. Like, no, no, I see it. And I would say case in point with that is a lot of the season has been Garver. Now he's had some played appearances where it's like, what are you watching, buddy? Garver against right-handers is not good. Yeah. He's not as prized. He was that second batting second today. Well, I think I think Scott was just throwing darts. I'm like, oh, Garver's hit a second. Yeah, that's how I felt with the lineup. A good at bat yesterday. OK, yeah. That's how I felt with the lineup today. Hey, yeah, throw a dart. Oh, they landed on Doug or hit in second. Sure. Why not? It's as good of an option as anybody, I guess. My question, you know, for as far as the lineup moving forward, do you put Julio right back to three? Or do you keep him down at seven? I keep him down. Yeah, I probably keep him down. When do you pull him back up? I think he's got to have a good series. OK. And then because I think-- I like Rojas batting second right now with Julio not there. Yeah. Especially against a right-hander. Go Crawford, Rojas, Rayleigh, Cal, or flip those. Yeah. A lot of options. So I'll probably keep him at five, six, seven. Maybe move him up because we're about today, five, six. Yeah, so I'll probably keep him there. Keep him there for a little bit because that's enough at bats. He got, what, three, four at bats. And I think he got four at bats. He was two for four today. Yep, two for four. So I think I'd alleviate the pressure just a little bit longer, maybe through this Toronto series. Yeah. I think I'm with you. No, I won't be surprised if he's put right back up to two. Well, to see. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say that I'm, like, passionate, like banging the table. Got to keep him down. Or I'm honestly surprised that they did it in the first place because my thought process with Julio is, I mean, obviously, this isn't a permanent thing. They're not sitting here thinking, OK, Julio is our seven hitter. Like, that's not the reason that he's down to seven. But for us to be good, Julio's got to be good. And I don't know. Well, let's talk about this. Why do you think? I mean, dad, you obviously have managed a little bit, never at the major league level. No, they've almost got called up, but from my middle school coaching days. Yeah. Well, let me ask you this. You all start coaching days, too, though. Yeah, you do have a little bit of managing experience and can put yourself into a manager's shoes. What about moving a player down matters psychologically? Why does that even? Why is that even a variable that is-- Signal lineup? Yeah, like why moving Julio down to seven is like, oh, yeah. Well, now he's got the pressure off. I don't get that. Can you shed any light on that? Yeah, well, obviously you have your batters 1 through 5. Those are your main players, and you expect them to produce. You expect them to get something started. And really, if you get anything out of 6, 7, 8, 9, that's a bonus. So I would say it just takes the pressure off. He can just take a little breather and have a good at bat. And if he doesn't come through, that's OK. Yeah. Now, obviously, if you're 3, 4 hitter, they're on base. Obviously, you're going to get to 6, 7. They're going to have runners on base. But the expectation to produce at the 3, 4, 5 position is just lower. Yeah. Because it's acceptable to have just those lower stats in those lower positions. Yeah. Well, it'll be interesting to see how Scott manages it. And like we're saying, we've got to take this Toronto series. So I think this is a pretty short episode. We'll see what I don't know when we started. I don't know either. Anything else you want to say about the series against the Orioles, anything you saw before we sign out of here? Orioles proved they're a top team. They have good pitching. They have, obviously, their lineup is potent. I'm shocked that we kept them to two runs that first game, four runs, three runs. I mean, they really didn't score many runs on us. That just shows you where we're at as a ball club. We're an elite pitching team with some bad hitting. And we've got to make sure that we've got to add to our bats, even if our bats before the deadline don't turn all the way around. We've got to first expect that it's going to turn around, but we've got to add is pitching is leading us. Pitching is going to see us through. But too many of the low scoring games that we're losing. First half of the season, a lot of low scoring games we won. We want to get back to that, but adding just a bat, that could be a veteran bat. And we'll do wonders for our lineup and for our win total. Yeah. So this will actually lead right into the last thing I wanted to say. But the locked on Mariners guys went on a-- where they had a pretty good episode about Mariners fans on online saying, oh, we need to sell. It's like, what in the world are you guys talking about? We're in first place in the division. We've got maybe-- I mean, it's either us or the Orioles as far as the best pitching staff in baseball when it comes to starters. Our bullpen, when we get Santos back, we'll have a pretty good bullpen. We should probably add to it, but that's one more. Yeah. One side note on that, rabbit trail, just for a second. Logan Evans is put back into the rotation in Arkansas. So the experiment to see if he could come down or move to the bullpen, I should say, they didn't see what they wanted to see. Shannon Dreyer made an article and essentially said that the stuff didn't play up. And when Logan Evans kind of forced it to play up, he lost his command. So he's really a starter. And he's going to continue developing as a starter. A lot of people are speculating that, oh, no, we're moving him to the bullpen-- or we're moving him from the bullpen to the rotation in Arkansas to market him as a starter. And I don't think that-- No, he cares about that. No, no, he's going back to where he was successful. He came out of college as a starter. He obviously blossomed as a starter. I think starters and relievers have a completely different pattern rhythm to games. And starters, they have those five days to prepare and get ready, and they have their routine. So he was thriving in that role. I mean, he was a 12th round draft pick. So he had to develop something that he was successful at to get to where he is now. So he needs to go back to what made him successful. Yep. So like I was saying, the lockdown guys, they kind of made an episode about-- or part of their episode was about, hey, we got to add. There's no way fans are butts. We got to add. I would echo that as loud as I can. We got to add. Definitely. And we're actually going to have tie dang, it's all on with us next week. So that's going to be a lot of fun. That'll be fun. Yeah. And I'll give you a little bit of a teaser about what that episode is really going to be like. So, Dad, you would say that-- or let me ask you this. You would agree that having Logan Evans pitched for the Mariners at any capacity in 2024 would be a radical idea, right? Yes, I-- if we're going to count on Logan Evans, things did not go as planned. Absolutely. Well, exactly. And the fact that the Mariners front office, Jerry, Justin, everyone that's involved, we're saying, let's get them up here. That's a radical proposition. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about a guy that got drafted last year in the 12th round. And we're just going to throw them to the wolves essentially. Let me just say I like it. I love the aggressiveness. I love the mindset of like, let it rip. But what our episode with Ty Dane Gonzalez is really going to be is, what are some other radical ideas that could be worth talking about? That on surface level, it's like, this is nuts. But if you take a deeper look and analyze it and, you know, brainstorm, throw stuff against the wall, see what sticks, there could be another idea like a Logan Evans. We're like, this is crazy. But is it crazy? Is it crazy? And it just might work. That's what we're going to talk about with with Ty. And I can't wait for it. It's going to be a blast. It'll be fun. Yeah. So, yeah, that's, that's what we got for, for this episode. Maris, got to get it done, got to, got to keep this lead, got to go into the all star break with a two game lead. That's what I'm going to be looking for. Our next episode is going to be dropping Sunday night. Most of you guys listen to that Monday morning, but we're going to break down, you know, I shouldn't say breakdown. We kind of stopped doing the official breakdowns of series, but we're going to give our thoughts about the blue J series. And then after the pod race series, that's when we're going to record the podcast with Ty. So, some exciting stuff. We're going to have a look out for that. And go Ambs. Thanks for listening. Follow us on X, call us like it is as our tag over there. And like I said, go in, peace. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO] (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]