The M's have won seven consecutive games, but there are still some questions for the group. We addressed those with Anderson Hirst of 93.3 KJR on the latest 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast.
The Seattle Mariners beat the New York Mets 3-2 on Monday night to move to 32-29 on the season. It's the same record that the Mariners had through 61 games a season ago before advancing to the American League Championship Series.
The Mariners have won seven consecutive games, three of which have come in walk-off fashion, but there are still questions, namely:
1) Will the starting rotation be able to hold up and stay healthy?
2) Are the M's too dependent on the home run ball? A question we tackled here.
3) Will Cal Raleigh and Brendan Donovan be able to come back and fully contribute?
4) How much of an impact will the team's defense play in its ability to win the American League West again?
Speaking on the most recent edition of the 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast, Anderson Hirst, one of the voices of 93.3 KJR and the "Locked on Mariners" post-cast, addressed his biggest worry for the Mariners moving forward.
*The conversation took place before Monday's win.*
Seattle Mariners center fielder Julio Rodriguez (44) catches a fly ball against the Arizona Diamondbacks during the third inning at T-Mobile Park. Steven Bisig-Imagn Images"The thing that I have massive questions over is this defense.
I really need to see the Mariners play better defense. And again, the last six games have been slightly better on that front, but I still wanna see more. And it's across the board. It's not like really one guy has been carrying them. You're seeing below-average defense at almost every spot, and that includes center field in Julio Rodriguez.
I'm a huge defender of Julio. I will back that guy forever. And it's great to see that he's hitting on June 1st as we record this. That's a huge development for him moving forward, but, for whatever reason, his defense has not been nearly as good this year. Whatever defensive metric you wanna look at: I think fielding run value is a good kind of all-encompassing one. The Mariners are 30th in fielding run value in center field defense. So every other center fielder is helping more defensively with their team win than Julio Rodriguez is.
Now, do I believe he's the 30th-best defensive center fielder in baseball? No. But up until this point, that's what the metrics have shown, and it kinda matches the eye test for me.
You combine that with the question marks on shortstop with JP Crawford, Colt Emerson learning a relatively new position at third base, Cole Young's been excellent at second, that's about the only one that I can say, at this point, has really done his job.
Right field's been a huge question until Victor Robles recently showed up, and obviously Randy Arozarena can be an adventure in left field sometimes. And not having Cal Raleigh behind the plate leaves a little bit to be desired there as well.
We need to see better defense from the Seattle Mariners, especially if they wanna do what they want to do in the postseason..."
The Mariners will be back in action against the New York Mets on Tuesday night at 6:40 p.m. PT. Logan Gilbert will pitch for Seattle while Jonah Tong will do much of the work for New York, though he may follow an opener.
Of note
You can listen to the latest 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast here, or you can watch the episode on YouTube.
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