FT Postgame Reax: M’s beat Jays in G1, Cal Raleigh love, G2 preview

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Ft live postgame show ALCS Game one in the Books presented by box one, the new streaming app where you could watch the entire ALCS Scottie Brown along with Eric Kratz. He's dancing and so are Mariners fans. There happened a weekend. Man, Hey, you got to be in it. You got to be here for the marathon to watch them win and walk off fashion in fifteen innings and then tired with a lot of exhausted arms, moving their way up to Toronto and winning a three to one ball game in very Mariners fashion. Pitching was fantastic, low scoring game, and Kratz I thought, as many others did, that the Blue Jays were going to look just like they did in the last round. And they did for one inning.

00:00:45
Speaker 2: Maybe for one pitch. For what the first pitch of the game, which Bryce Miller throws seventy three out of his seventy three starts, he throws a speedball like the Blue Jays came out and I was like, oh, man, like theroners are riding high. You went across the border and George Springer said, welcome to the six Boys. And then Nathan Lucas has a I want to say eleven pitch at bat. Essentially, Bryce Miller was sitting there with thirteen pitches, a runner on first and losing one and nothing with the greatest hitter on the planet from the last postseason, last season, last series, and that was it. That's all the Blue Jays got.

00:01:28
Speaker 1: What happened, Kratz is you know I always like to ask the question, is this a Mariner's staff that is just so supreme and someone was able to figure out how to keep this Blue Jays offense pretty quiet here in the postseason? Or did the Blue Jays bats look a little bit off compared to what you saw in the DS.

00:01:49
Speaker 2: I mean compared to what we saw. Yes, but let's go to let's go to what we saw in the last game against Cam Schlitler, where the Blue Jays were like, okay, there go in there. They're like, hey, we're gonna not strike out, and you kind of give the other pitcher an opportunity to stay in the game. While Cam Schlitzler didn't get a million punch outs like he did against the Red Sox, he stayed in the game and he did well. Tonight they were facing the Blue Jays were facing Bryce Miller, on short rest with the bullpen, and every one of their starters absolutely gassed. So if I'm the Blue Jays, now, this is not what you think as a hitter. You think, Okay, I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna smash Bryce Miller, because we have a history of being able to have success against a guy like this. He's not gonna strike us out. We're gonna drive the ball. But what happened was they let him in the game. They let him stay around and help his team on short rest get through six innings and seventy some pitches. This may be a downfall because it was tonight of a team that doesn't strike out much, team that says, okay, we're not going to strike out. It doesn't mean they're gonna have long at bats, especially when you think about the fact that Lucas had a eleven or twelve pitch at bat. The rest of the guys he had eighteen ounts on under seventy pitches whatever that number is. Eighteen outs under seventy seventy one pitches is crazy, And the fact that the Blue Jays came out and only got two hits, I chalk it up as a night off because I think this Blue Jays lineup is better than that. But it's a prime case that Bryce Miller came in on short rest and they did not grind out these at bats that you would normally see a team that hits a ton of dangers maybe grind out more at bats. Yeah, they're going to strike out six to eight times, but they're going to grind these at bats and make a belieguered. Pitching staff pushed through this game and they really didn't.

00:03:54
Speaker 1: So I'm with you for this game. You'd love to write up a pitch count, get a starter knocked, and really make the bullpen work. Coming off the marathon game five in this series as a whole, do you think it will matter because of what the Mariners have in their bullpen. They have solid starting pitching. So if you can get to them and crack them at any point, you crack them right. You don't worry too much about working deep counts that that's not part of your game. For some Jays it is for others. They love to attack early. But it's not like you're like, Oh, I can't wait to get to the Mariners bullpen. They've had a really strong bullpen throughout the season, and yeah, there's been some ups and downs. Spire's really good. He's had a few blips in the postseason, but the stuff is there for a lot of these guys. Munos obviously got the job done for five seconds. They'll use him as much as possible. Brash is great, So is it really worth riding up pitch counts in a spot like this? In a series like this, I should say to get to the bullpen when the bullpen looks like it's really rolling.

00:04:55
Speaker 2: The bullpen does look like it's really rolling, But who is the bullpen rolling against? The bullpen was rolling against the Tigers. The Tigers offense was They were not it. They were not it from the second half on. They were not into the playoffs. And the fact that the Mariners took it to the fifteenth inning of Game five is a telling sign that maybe the Mariners offense isn't it. But this bullpen did everything they needed to do. And you can question, are they a bullpen that needed to shut down the Tigers? Yes, and they did, Like you can't. You can't say, oh, I don't know. The Tigers were terrible, So we'll really see what the Mariners bullpen does. You can only get out the guys that are in front of you, and the guys that were in front of you, they did it. I don't know that the Tigers would have ever scored in that game, Like we went through a lot of game essentially they had that they had late in Game four, they late, they scored there and other than that, they really kept that Tigers team down. They spun a lot of balls, they weren't able to hit breaking balls. So to me, if they are able to beat the Blue Jays, that's where it is. That's where the Mariners. That's where the Mariners superpower is. Besides cal Rawley, who hit another dinger tonight. To me, this superpower is exactly why the last two years we've set here on our show, and I think a lot of people in baseball have said, don't let the Mariners get into the postseason. Why because they have a bunch of starting rotation that can then give the ball over to this like this combination of spire brash munios. I mean, you're talking about guys like Bizarda who's not even getting Brasabon, who's not even getting a lot of do because he got hurt by Hovey Baiaz. I think he had like a two six this season.

00:06:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, you got it right the first time Biar in Mexico right now with the Mets sipping cocktails, had time to do it, to do it, yes, But for the Mariners, we've seen this game in Seattle a million times, a million times over the past few years, right we have. We've seen great starting pitching from Bryce Miller, who had a rough year until he figured it out with the pitch chipping and then timely hitting and oh cal Rally. Should we mention cal Rally and Jogte Polanco?

00:07:27
Speaker 2: You can't. You can't bet. I'm not going to say it about four Hippolonco, but you can't bet against Cal Rawley. What are we like, what are we saying if we're saying, okay, you know, I just don't think Cal's going to have enough for this team. Like he comes through. He's been striking out a little bit here in the postseason, but he's also been lace in some line drives, doubles, big hits. When you're like it seems like this offense is is down, He's not going to be able to do it. Whack danger Like, if you're betting against Cal Rawley. It feels like this is the year of cal and if they move on to the World Series, he's gonna have more big moments just like this solo homer. And if you go back and look at the numbers that he's had against the Blue Jays, he is a Blue Jay killer. At home and in Toronto, they do not want to see him.

00:08:19
Speaker 1: And yes, quick side note for those in the chat are watching later on, my pupp was pissed that we're doing a show at eleven o'clock Eastern time instead of one to three Eastern time, totally screwing up the schedule. In the agenda, Bella is behaving beautifully right now in the crat's household. But it is what it is. I mean, is there a more clutch hitter in the postseason right now than jorgeye Blanca.

00:08:42
Speaker 2: There's not.

00:08:43
Speaker 1: He's been ridiculous and yeah, go ahead.

00:08:46
Speaker 2: No, no, they can't be. You're talking about three. Three of his last five at bats have either walked it off, put them ahead, or extended a lead after the seventh like he's doing it from both sides of the plate and he's like clutch, but it's just it's it's clutch. Right now for Jorge Polanco, and I don't think he's blinked the entire postseason. He's just like.

00:09:18
Speaker 1: I think he's blinked the entire season. Cratzy the worst season of his career last year. He's been a really solid player in our game for a while now, nice switch hitter to have. And we were one of the shows that questioned what the Mariners did in the offseason. We're like, planco, that's it, You're bringing him back. And he had a rough year, Okay, what else. Obviously they patched things up at the trade deadline and it's been a significantly different looking team this year. That plus cal Riley basically doubling the production that we usually see from him, if not more. But for Polanco Kratz, I mean, he completely turned it around this year and now he's had I don't know if it's his best, if not one of his best seasons of his career, and he's kind it right into the playoffs as a really nice role player for the Mariners all year long and blossoming into a clutch star for them at the moment. Back to cal just because this game looked like first inning springer dinger Toronto's gonna get going. They were causing trouble in that first inning, right ye had the twelve pitch Nathan Lucas walk after that, and hopefully he's okay. We'll find out if there is any updates on him. He left early in the game with the knee issue. Filed the pitch off his knee that looked pretty gnarly, looked pretty flush. But anyway, so we go to finally the sixth inning where there's action here. Like Kratz mentioned too, out to strike Homer fourth, one off, Kevin Gossman. We're all talking about splitters to four out of the five pitches in that at bat were splitters, and can anybody hit the splitters of the Toronto Blue Jays. The Yankees certainly couldn't. They couldn't touch the splitters of the Toronto Blue Jays. And during the broadcast they talked about how the Mariners did not ranks particularly well against splitters, and then what is cal right do. Of course, smashes a splitter for a home run, and it's a Kevin Gossman splitter too. It's one of the best in the base. So I want to talk about this, but I also want to make sure that we include who's going to pitch in Game two, And I wonder if the Mariners are a team that's going to be able to handle one or two of those and try and create another scenario like they did in Game one, where they do just enough they're able to get a homer or two off of Trey Savage and completely turn this series in their favor heading to Seattle, do you think that this team can handle pitches like that differently than what we saw last round with the Yankees and their approach against that pitch.

00:11:41
Speaker 2: That pitch like that, like what he the uniqueness of it, the fact that it looks unlike any other pitch kind of starts to lose a sheen and shine every single at that, every single outing in the big leagues, because somebody from the somebody from the Mariners is going to go and talk to somebody from the Yankees say, what do you see? I mean, if you if you delve into tray, you Savage. If you delve into tray you Savage is like why his pitches are unique? Then pitchers can start to, like our hitters can start to formulate how they're gonna approach it when they see that slider spin. Technically, that thing it backs up, it doesn't go away from a right hander, so guys are gonna have to like start swinging in that direction. The Yankees, unfortunately, were a kind of a guinea pig against Trey you Savage. They hadn't seen him, they hadn't seen much. So can they do it? Yes, they can do it. Does the Mariners pitching staff have to show up and you know, essentially throw up zeros or ones? Yes, his, I mean historically or so far in this in this postseason, that's what they've had to do. But that Kevin Gosman splitter, I know, I'm kind of jump around. We were talking about the Kevin Gosman splitter there. It is one of the best in the game. But if you watched Cow's other at bats, he made a very concerted effort to do something that was kind of unlike other guys in the lineup that we're doing, where they were like, okay, the ball down, I'm taking it. I'm taking the ball down. It almost looked like Cal said, I'm going to swing at the ball down, but I'm going to catch it so far out in front that my only choice is to be able to hit a dinger because you saw some swings late. I think it was later in his next step bat, or maybe it was one of his strikeouts. And you don't get those kind of swings unless your approach is, hey, you know what, I'm going to catch that ball as far out in front as I can. And I know I'm going to chase balls that are going to bounce, but I don't think he's going to bounce it so far out in front that I'm not going to be able to clip it. And when you catch balls out in front, that's when you're going to do damage. And I think that's what he's done all year. Cal hasn't hit four seen fastballs very well. He's hit those off speed pitches that are down, and it looked like that was his concerted effort against effort against Gosman.

00:14:13
Speaker 1: A couple other things about Cal that stood out to me. One Tom Verducci, who is a very smart brain in our sports, that he hasn't seen a catcher command a game like this since Yati Molina. That is super high praise. We don't have to get into a whole MVP debate right now between him and Judge. Let's focus on the postseason, but just the value that Cal is providing. Right, It's a position cratz where many teams don't expect a ton of offense. They just want a guy that is an absolute stud handling a pitching staff, blocking baseballs, calling pitches, catching runners, if possible, the whole deal, right. I mean, Cayl Riley is looking like one of the best catchers we've seen in a really long time. And hey, if he's getting YACHTI praise. That's incredible. But also it's a much better hitter than Yadi in terms of impacting me. He's the best spat it definitely the most dangerous spat on the team. So I thought that part was special. If you want to comment, then I got one other about Cal.

00:15:16
Speaker 2: Huge huge winning teams need a winning catcher. Show me a team in the playoffs, especially the later you get into the playoffs that doesn't have a winning catcher, and people will say, well, that's just cherry picking. That's an easy thing to say. Guys that catch no hitters, guys that control of pitching staff really well, know how to help them get through a start on short rest, like you did tonight. Like those are the things that you kind of you build that rapport and you get kind of a idea of what kind of a catcher this guy is. You can't you can't put a stat on it. The only stat you can put on it is the W at the end of the day. And cal Raley is clearly is clearly running this staff, and he clearly has their has their ear, but he's also helping them get through tougher times here in this postseason. And if they're gonna do anything, like I said at the beginning, this is the year of Cal. It's not just about him hitting dingers behind a dish. What can he do? How can he control? How can he help these guys? Now they're exhausted, but you know what, you got to get them through. You gotta be able to read what they have in that moment that night you're talking to the pitching coach, the manager, you know what. He gets as much credit as Bryce Miller gets here.

00:16:38
Speaker 1: And many catchers fade either in the second half or definitely in the postseason. Did Cal have as good of a second half as the first half. I think the first half numbers were better, but his second half was still very, very good. And look at what he's doing in the postseason. It's so impressive. And he's coming off catching fifteen innings. You got fifteen innings two nights ago. He's a beast. Durability matters.

00:17:02
Speaker 2: And he flew from Seattle to Toronto. Toronto was sitting like this. They were like, we had Jeff Hoffman on on Friday, and he was like, it's so nice to be watching these games. Cow just played a fifteen inning game, just caught all fifteen innings, got a little got a little booze, got on a flight, flew out to Toronto. Like this is why the end of October, when you play all the way through October, you're exhausted. Nobody is gonna need rest more than him. But he doesn't need rest right now. Sorry. Whatever you get from him offensively is a bonus, and he is just cashing in these bonuses every it seems like night in and night out.

00:17:47
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and Mariners fans obviously love him to death. They're gonna have him for a very long time. I mean, he signed an extension with Seattle. What was that was that this year? Last year? Now I'm forgetting.

00:17:59
Speaker 2: It's great that you brought that up. How much does an extension do for a player. People will say, well, you know, sometimes there's pressure on players and all this stuff, or some players they get complacent. He signed that extension this year. Do you think cal Raley is sitting here going, I need to prove this extension. Maybe is he sitting there going, Man, I wonder if I can play through this injury. He's sitting there going, you know what, I have this money locked up. What I'm going to focus on now is just playing this game, is just playing to win. And I think honestly too, and maybe I'm overstepping what an extension for a premium talent in the game does for an organization. How many other years did they go all in to get offense at the trade deadline, even offense in the offseason they signed them to an extension, and all of a sudden, they're like, hey, you know what, we're kind of in striking distance. They might have had a better team last year and he did nothing. This year. They were in striking distance. They had cal lopped up. You know what we're going to do. We're pushing our chips all in. So good for Jerry Depoto and good for an ownership that I've been and we've been very critical on for pushing, for pushing all in, going to get au Hennio to add to this lineup, going to get Josh Nailer to add to this lineup, which is what they needed.

00:19:22
Speaker 1: Yes, it is exactly. Yeah, we have been critical and Mariners fans are seeing what this pitching staff is capable of doing in the playoffs if they had enough offense. Now they have enough offense to make this a problem. A couple other quick cal notes and then we'll move on to Game two. What is it now? Nine home runs in fourteen games in his career in Toronto. That's really good. Four home runs against Cosman. I mentioned they were really on the money in the broadcast describing everything and one more component that really makes the full season or the season full circle for me. The very beginning of our season, the story that dominated the sport for a week was the torpedo back. The Yankees had these torpedo bats unfair. Now everyone's getting them. Oh it's gonna change the sport. Offense is going to go up a ton. It didn't work out. Most of those got thrown out, right, you actually pull nominators are using them. A lot of them will throw them out and say, yeah, I tried it for a little bit, wasn't for me. Cal Raley, Yes, is a torpedo bat. Cayl Rally is the poster point for that bat. It's what a lot of people thought everyone's numbers were going to turn into. They're like, this isn't fair. This thing's so different. Everybody's gonna have inflated numbers.

00:20:30
Speaker 2: Not just cal Rally, just cal Raley and ultimately, like we covered this so much, torpedo bat. There's even variations of the torpedo bat. Cal Rally's is a little bit different than Austin Wells with the Yankees. Austin Wells looks like a bowling pin, like it's such a pronounced smaller cup which is the end of the bat, and Cow's is a little bit more less demonstrative. It's just the it's just the feel of a bat. But man, the torpedo he doesn't need another he doesn't need another nickname. So let's just stick with big Dumper. Don't try to add like a torpedo to the Big Dumper or anything like that. But I don't care what you call it. That thing's a freaking bomb bat because.

00:21:17
Speaker 1: He's right, bombs that's right. Well, we'll see if it continues. So let's finish by talking about game two of this series that remains in Toronto. First off, we did get worried about Nathan Lucas. It's not a fracture, so he's going to try and play through it if he's feeling good tomorrow. That was a tough one off the knee. Do you know what it brought memories of for me? And why I'm so concerned Christian Yellwich fractured kneecap. So it sounds like that's not the case. That's great news. He's pretty damn good and important. All these scrappy quote no namers in our game, Lucas is one of them. Barger, Ernie Clement, David Schneider. Right, the role players Toronto has is what makes them special and complete, and Nathan Lucas is a big part of that.

00:22:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you play twenty six guys. This team plays twenty six guys. Ernie Clement will lead off. If the Mariners, you know when they faced lefties, Ernie Clement will hit second in front of Vladimir Guerrero or David Schneider will hit second. Like this lineup like really changes in morphs, and when one of those guys is out, that's really tough to put someone else in a situation for an entire nine innings and entire seven innings that they're not used to being in those spots.

00:22:39
Speaker 1: Do we think it's not announced yet? But do we think Luis Castillo starts game two here trade Savage is already announced? I feel like based off what they have to work with, Castillo only went fifteen pitches in the epic game five inning in a third. I mean, Gilbert's not pitching yet, and George Kirby obviously isn't pitching yet, So it's got to be Castillo, right. They haven't announced it. I guess they could announce a bullpen game, but I'm imagining Castillo is going to go against a Savage here.

00:23:13
Speaker 2: Has to I don't see how he doesn't. I think they had not only I guess you can never think of this game when you're in that game five or alds, but you have to think like that's his bullpen day. So in that bullpen day, some guys don't throw more than twenty pitches, so for them to keep him under that twenty even I thought, I thought that day I thought he could go thirty. I thought you'd be pushing him to thirty, because if you throw a twenty five pitch bullpen, then you know, twenty five pitches in the game is really pushing it. But maybe that thirty mark fifteen, I feel like, maybe he can give you seventy five pitches. Maybe he can give you seventy pitches. I never felt like Luis Castillo in the last two years. They've really pushed him super long anyway, So it's gonna come down to the bullpen. It's gonna come down unless the Mariners find a way to say, hey, you know what, we're gonna score five runs. Like the Mariners aren't built for like a ton of like somebody just eating a ton of innings out of their bullpen. So this next game, I'm not saying they kick it down the road, but if they can push through, they fly home, they're back in their time zone, and then they have a day off. No team needs a day off more than this pitching staff does, and I think Luis Castillo can give them, can give them this huge break that they need. But they're going up against Trey Savage and I don't think anybody has has the answers yet to get after him.

00:24:53
Speaker 1: One hundred pitches by the entire Mariners staff in this Game one. It is, according to Sarah Langs, the fewest by a team to win a postseason game since the Dodgers in Game two of the twenty eighteen NLDS against the Braves. And they sure could use that medicine for this Game one coming off what they did so an impressive three to one win for the Mariners. Brian Wu is on the playoff roster for the MS and could be a factor later in this series. That's important to keep in mind as well. Maybe it's Castillo game two, Kirby game three, Gilbert Game four, and uh Wu game five maybe And for the Blue Jays no Boba Schet, but Max Scherzer and Chris Bassett added to the roster. Oh, logan Gilbert tomorrow is the word on the street, off the press.

00:25:46
Speaker 2: How am I? What am I? What am I missing? There isn't isn't Gilbert on short rest?

00:25:51
Speaker 1: Also then Daniel Kramer reporting logan Gilbert will start game.

00:25:55
Speaker 2: Two, Okay, I mean he started he started? What game?

00:26:03
Speaker 1: Gilbert was Game three in Detroit and then pitched in Game five we're gonna get help from the crack staff since it's late Tuesday.

00:26:16
Speaker 2: So Tuesday he's pitching again Monday.

00:26:20
Speaker 1: But my thing was he already went thirty four pitches. Yeah, he went four pitches, but I guess that's an extend bullpen session.

00:26:29
Speaker 2: I don't know.

00:26:31
Speaker 1: Hey, you also check in with your guys. Who feels good? He feels good? Right? And you roll with Logan Gilbert.

00:26:39
Speaker 2: You gotta have It's more than just Hey, Logan, how you feeling. I'm good? I'm good. No, it's like, dude, seriously, like we need to know because we need of you, Like what do we have?

00:26:53
Speaker 1: So?

00:26:54
Speaker 2: Hey, good for them? Thirty four pitches in game five and you guys, the guys on the stem and ice machine right now for sure getting it ready.

00:27:04
Speaker 1: They like him on the road and Castillo at home. That is very evident. Wow, I mean it asked me right. I love Logan Gilbert. I mean who spoke to him? What a week and a half ago? Super swing and miss guy strikeouts up big this year and he had a big game in Detroit for the Mariners. So we'll see what he looks like in Game two, coming off a weird situation it's not even short rest. It's like a weird thirty four pitch bonanza and we'll see if he's okay or if he was like Matt Boyd saying he's okay, but he wasn't really okay, because then Boyd was really good the next time around. That was the cub situation in the other series. Oh, it sounds shorts.

00:27:45
Speaker 2: It's not short rest. It's just it's just what I would call travel ball. He's got travel ball arm right now. Like he started and then they're like, we need you to win the semi final game. Came back in and he's like, well, I've I've thrown I've thrown one hundred and twenty pitches in the last I'm looking at it. That was five days apart, and now we need you go and throw and start again for our high school team. Like it's like the old travel ball travel ball kids schedule where it's like, well, he only threw one hundred and two pitches, one hundred and twenty pitches last week. He can throw one hundred again. It's like, well, that was three days ago, so I guess everything's out there. It's a postseason.

00:28:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a vet at this playing fourth year in the bigs, and Trey Savage is a rookie who's a baby in the big league's coming off a nice, nice rest. It's been a minute since he was shining in Toronto right a little over a week, so we're excited for it. We're going to do a postgame show after that game, too, so we'll be back to talk about that one. It's a little bit earlier. It's five o'clock Eastern time first pitch for that one, So figure the games three ish hours and we'll be on here at eight to do about a thirty minute post game show. We'll do as many of these as we can, kind keep you posted on a day to day on how our schedules line up with the games, where the games are at in terms of the series, and then we'll do as many of these as possible. So hope you enjoyed it. That was our little reacts instantly to the Mariners taken down in the Blue Jays three to one. The show is presented by Fox One. That's where you can watch game two. So you can sign up for this app wherever you are in the US. You can try seven days for free. Hit the QR code on the screen. All of our playoff coverages presented by Fox One. They've got all of the ALCS games and the entire world series. So if you're looking for a spot to watch and you haven't been able to find it, Fox one can be that destination for you. Game two, they've got Joe Davis, John Smoltz, Ken Rosenthal, Tom Berducci riding that entire series. And we will talk to you after that one, but before that, Foul Territory is one o'clock Eastern time, every single weekday, all year long, so we'll see it for the one o'clock Show, Krats, Me and Kevin in Polar Back on FTC. Then