Hour 1 - Late Night Texts, Aaron Goldsmith

Get in the freaking auto! From the Quantum Fiber Studio, this is Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports. Brock Eward is my hero. James Hewter just punched me in the kidney. I was gonna use you to a man. That way, Sherm, this is a show that has my name on it. It's kinda tough though. Now, here are your hosts, Brock Eward and Mike Salk. Hello! Hello! All right, hello. Good morning. Hi, everybody. It is the Brock and Salk Show on Seattle Sports on 710. SeattleSports.com, Seattle Sports application on the podcast platforms 97.3 HD number two and Seattle. And YouTube, that's the other one, YouTube. I used 97.3 HD two the other day and I was in my wife's car, which is not like it doesn't never happen, but I needed to do a little HD two action. And it takes a minute. You gotta kind of figure it out. It's a terrible system. I apologize. I didn't create HD radio. I don't know why it's so complicated and so different on every car. It's definitely easier if you got a touchscreen type of thing on your center console, but it's hard. I don't know why it's so hard, but once you figure it out, it is great. It's like a secret that once you uncover it, it's like a speakeasy. It's awesome, but you gotta figure out and know how to get there and that's a big secret. So anyway, 97.3 HD two, crystal clear high definition radio. Great way to listen to the station. I was gonna get right into some of the Toddlye Wiki stuff from yesterday, but I do have a bunch of interesting overnight texts. They're not like specific overnight Mariner texts. They're kind of all over the map. So I'm not gonna play our little open, but there is some interesting stuff here. Let's see. I like this. I'll actually start with a football question. Tell me what you guys think of this, Mora. Brock and Salk. Morning, everyone. I know it's early, but what if the Giants take love in the draft? So they have a running back. Could the Seahawks inquire about Cam Scataboo for a late round pick from next year's draft? Are you trying to sell me? It doesn't take much. It doesn't take much for me either. Here's the only problem. I do love the idea. By the way, all in on Cam Scataboo. That'd be so much fun. I don't see. I don't. Don't they need more of the breakaway speed guy rather? Like the, you know, the breakaway big play speed guy rather than the dude who's, you know, gonna get CTE in a couple of weeks because he just keeps smashing his head into everything. Like it's not that I don't love the idea. I just don't know whether he's actually what they're looking for, but I love the idea. And if it happened, I'd be very excited. Not as excited as Lyle. Obviously the ASU thing runs deep, but I would be pretty pumped to have Cam Scataboo here. I'm bummed out that he's not here already. I just think not to rain on this person's parade, but I think the Giants have bigger needs and I don't, a draft that's not that deep. But I don't know. They have not been the same. Love is like trans. Yeah. And they haven't been the same since Seiquan Barkley. I don't know. I don't think it's going to happen either, but if it did, it would be very fun. I'm with you. That would be a very fun deal. Salk the Kraken can't even win correctly. A shootout win over Vegas this late in the season. I mean, nice to get off the Schneid, but we need better draft odds boys. I'd like to see the NHL try the PWHL model for draft position. Perfect for this situation. Jay and Arizona totally agree on all fronts. It was exciting. It was a cool win. Kudos to Berkeley cat. And it was a pretty sick move that he made in the shootout. But yeah, I mean, there is, there is sort of a thing where it's like, yeah, he kind of now want to lose and see if you got an opportunity to get Gavin McKenna next year. So, uh, oh, that's funny. So HD radios like Mariners TV, not exactly user friendly, but works very well. Yeah. I think that's about right. Um, and then what were the other one go? Uh, here, how about this one? Now that I'm driving, do you think Dan is in the Pete category? 509 after that disaster of a Super Bowl and then not running it, players kind of stopped playing for Pete. Dan did something similar in the ALCS and they didn't go to the world series. Maybe there's not trust in him. It's an interesting idea. I have seen no evidence that that's the case. None. I've seen no evidence that that's the case with Pete. We started hearing rumblings about it almost right away and we knew that the, that the players were mad. It didn't take long. Like we knew instantly that the players were mad. I think a lot of folks in the media were upset about the way game seven of the ALCS and some other games were handled in the playoffs, managerially decision wise. I think we know there were a lot of fans that were upset about it. I've not seen one indication, none. Not one, not one indication that anyone in the Mariners organization was upset about that. Nothing from players, nothing from management, nothing zero. If anything, we've heard a little bit more of a doubling down. So I, I have not seen one bit of evidence that that is the case. None. But it's an interesting theory. Like I'm not shooting it down just that I don't, I don't know how to say that it's true. Yeah. I, I was upset about the way that game was managed and I'm not the only one, not even the only one here in this room, but I, I, I've seen no evidence that that clubhouse is upset about it at all. We didn't see any evidence of that in spring training. We haven't heard anything about it. So interesting idea, but I, I don't know. We're going to try to go through at seven o'clock. I've got to cut. Well, I got one. I'm trying to come up with a theory. I'm doing the best I can. I know it's my job. I'm doing the best I can. So I got one thing for you guys at seven and then at seven 30, I don't know, two things, two pieces of sound kind of blew my mind when you put them together. Maybe it's not the hitters fault. I don't know. I will hold off on this seven 30. We'll get to all that. Let me spend a few minutes here with the sound from Todd Laiwiki. Cause he spoke yesterday and tried to give us a sense as to what it is that's going on with the crack in and the moves that they made. So let me jump right into this. Cause I think there's quite a bit to react to it starts here with Todd. But the centerpiece of all this is the team and we saw the potential in year two. And it was incredible. 14 playoff games and this place was on its ear and people came to games thinking we were going to have a halftime. They didn't really understand, but they did when they left the building and felt the roar yet three seasons later, this team is still work in progress. It's an unfulfilled promise and no one in the organization is satisfied. We do have pieces in place. We believe in our kids. Yeah, they have some pieces in place, but they don't have a lot of pieces in place, but they don't have the most important pieces. Unfortunately, they've got the complimentary pieces, but they don't have the foundational ones and that's still what's necessary and why even the wind, the shootout wind last night's a little frustrating cause you're like, yeah, if you want a foundational piece, kind of with what we heard from, from Greg Wyshinski yesterday, let's you get it at the bottom of the draft. That's where you find the top of the draft. I should say like that's, that's where you find that. So yeah, a little frustrating. Todd went on to say that they're doing an audit, an independent audit of their hockey operations. We're going to communicate more with our Susan ticket members. They're going to know where we are on the journey. I am very, very, very confident that we're going to get this team to a good place, but it's going to take a plan and we're going to set mile markers and our fans are going to know where we are and we're going to share some of those plans in May with our fans. And we've talked about actually instituting an annual report to our fans and we're going to do that in that first one to come in this May. I appreciate all of that stuff that Todd does and he's very good at it, right? Communicating with fans, being above board and the independent, all that's great. It's not what I need as a, as a Kraken fan. Like I personally don't need that. Maybe other people do. I would like them to just go ahead and find the right people to make them win. I don't need the communication. I just don't need it. I want a star. In fact, I want a couple of stars. I don't know if you heard Jeff Merrick yesterday. He was on with bump and serve with a women of Bob number one. Goals number two goals number three goals and number four. They still the one thing this organization still doesn't have because they're loaded up front with, with forward prospects. What they don't have still is they don't have that stud young defenseman and I know Matthew Schaffer's don't come around very often and I know more outsiders don't come around very often in Quinn Hughes, et cetera. But the one thing that this organization does lack because for the future, they got their forward set up. They still need to do some work on the back end. I mean, he's right. I can't disagree. Essentially what he's saying is they need everything. They need goal scoring on the top line and they need a defenseman that is elite. They don't have a mccarred. They don't have a cider. They don't have a Hughes. They don't have a Schaffer. They don't have any of those things and they need it. So yeah, I mean, like, yes, it'd be great to see an audit and I'd be happy to know what it is you guys are up to. But just go do it. Just go act. I don't need to speak. I need the act. I need the actions. That's what I'm looking for as a, as a Kraken fan and supporter. All right. And they did it by the way. Yeah. You know, what they've done this week is a sign of action moving on from Ron Francis, hard to move on from a Hall of Famer who's been here since the beginning. They did it. I was curious to see if that would be the only move and now it puts a lot of pressure on a guy in Jason Botterall that is pretty unproven. I mean, never really accomplished a tremendous amount of Buffalo and now you're hoping he's going to do better here, which was sort of the same thing we were hoping for with Ron Francis. So there is a little bit of hope there, but a level of action that hopefully again, there's that word again will lead to a little bit more success. Okay. Let's see. G's going to be in today. Stacy's going to be in today. We get a little game to play. We're going to try to sort out this whole Mariner thing. I told you I got a shocking take based on two other things that I heard. So just stick around. It's going to be a fun morning. Brock and Salk sale sports on 7 10. Highlights. Don't win games. The full box score does. I'm Brock cured and most business leaders aren't short on data. They're short on clarity. Numbers are scattered across ERP CRM's and spreadsheets making decisions reactive instead of confident. And that's not how great businesses are built. Marquee IQ brings all your data together into one clear view. Even if it lives in disconnected systems or offline so you can see what's really happening and act faster. Stop running your business on highlights. Get the full picture. Visit data that wins.com to see what Marquee IQ can do. 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They know this community and they know what it takes to protect it. That's why they listen shop around and tailor coverage for your home car or business call 877 or Levitt Levitt Group Northwest insurance you can count on season after season 877 or Levitt. Need to know 15 minutes past every hour with broken solve presented by Marquis data. Here's what you need to know first. Well Emerson Hancock has been the Mariners best pitcher so far this year and they're going to need that to continue tonight if they want to snap a little five game losing streak. Em's hosting Houston for a four game series Hancock gets it started against it's I to Sia Amai right at that right. Tatsuya Tatsuya thank you while Tatsuya Amai he was actually I'm talking about Hancock excellent last time out. Allow just a solo home run to the leadoff hitter if you remember but the Mariners didn't score any runs themselves and so they ended up losing but he's been really good and it's obviously go time for them but it's not like the season is toast. This was Jesse Rogers yesterday. There's good news and bad news. OK you can't get these games back that the Mariners are losing a lot of them low scoring but you can't tell me that Josh Taylor is going to have a 277 OPS right or who you're already get 390 or Cal 481 these are ridiculously low so it's bound to turn around. I don't think the division is has a team that can run away with it so everyone's going to be bunched up for a while. The angels are going to do their thing and then fade as they always do so plenty of time and understanding that this thing will turn around. Yeah I think you also got a point out that the Rangers are unlikely to be able to stay healthy especially on the pitching side of things throughout the year and Brian Kenny on yesterday had some similar thoughts on just the A.L. West in general chance most everybody will be good. I think the angels will recede a bit not a big believer in what they have just their general horsepower. The A's are a very dynamic young group but they do not have superior pitching and especially over the long haul. So I think Houston has some quality. Jordan Alvarez is back and hitting Texas is dangerous but again the team that I expected to rise above 89 wins and actually win a division and maybe grab a top 2 seed is Seattle. I got that's the team that I expect to do it and I think once you start going around the rotation again and again you start to see who rises to the top. That's a good point and the way baseball works is you keep doing it. It's not what you do this week next week or last week. It's that you keep doing it over and over and for the other teams they've got to keep going through those rotations over and over and you get to go through yours which should be a huge advantage because the will be against Lance McCullers tomorrow. Logan Gilbert goes Sunday George Kirby on Monday. Here's the second thing you need to know a day after announcing the big change in their front office the Kraken finally snapped their losing streak wasn't always pretty but they did get some good fortune down 3 1 late years assesses. That's not it. Hold on. That's the wrong thing Mike try this instead Seattle back down by 2 Adam Larson all the way in and look out. It's a gift. That's the definition of being in the right place at the right and so. Yeah they flipped it in and it bound took a bad bounce off the wall while the goalie went around to the back of the net where he thought the puck was going to be it just shot right out in front to Berkeley Catten who put it into a wide open net and then grin sheepishly and kind of skated around like yeah all right I guess I get credit for that goal anyway they tied it up a few minutes later they went to the shootout you heard the near's goal but then in the extra shots it was the little cat again. It was pretty sick goal if you have a chance to go watch it today go do it it was actually pretty awesome so they win in the shootout they stave off elimination though probably just over one night and again you can make the argument you probably have been better off actually losing that game but whatever Todd Laiwiki is a team president and he met with the media yesterday to explain the decision to move on from Ron Francis and maybe even more importantly to explain what comes next when we want to weigh on the break we were sitting at a playoff spot and now we're faced with not making the playoffs through the third year in a row and it's not acceptable and we're committed to fixing it and we're committed to improving every single aspect of the organization and Jason's going to address you at the season and he's going to talk about plans and things we're working on but I want to give you a little bit of insight as to what some of those things are we are going to conduct a full independent audit of hockey operations Jason elite it but we're going to bring fresh eyes and just look and make sure that there's no stone unturned. Yeah, I mean I like the idea of the audit but I mean I don't know how many how much money you need to spend for somebody to come in and tell you that you need first line people on the first line and you need some elite players on the blue line like that's just kind of you could spend that money you're spending on consultants on play on players. Yeah, let's just go to that instead. Here's the third day you need to know. All right, let's see master's update not a tremendous amount this morning. Wyndham Clark has picked up three shots so he finds himself kind of right in the center of things now at what three under but yeah it's Sam Burns it's Rory McElroy those two are both tied for the lead at five under afterwards the round yesterday here was Sam Burns. I think I drove it really nice that obviously helps and then try to get the ball in the green as much as possible. You know as you know it's difficult to chip around these greens and so really just trying to get myself as many opportunities as possible today. Well it worked out really well for him we'll see if he's able to stay there I mean obviously the defending champion being right there tied for the lead after day one is the story. And you see to Marcus Lawrence was there by the way. How about that to Marcus Lawrence hanging out at the master's this is what he said to the local paper this is way better than the Super Bowl. Whoa easy there way better. I'm not working at the master as well. I guess that's true. Hopefully more as you said he's not getting too comfortable with not working because we'd like him to keep working for the Seahawks this year. All right that's everything you need to know quarter past every hour here on the Brock and Sultry I do have some John Schneider sound I'll play some more of that later. He did his regular Thursday John Schneider show with why I'm in a bob yesterday so I've got some sound from that to play you as we're inside two weeks here from the draft but just trying to figure out we're going to spend a lot more of the day today again trying to figure out not just what's going on with the Mariners because I think there's a lot of good information on that but why that's the challenge and we'll try to ask Aaron Goldsmith next on Brock and Salk. Highlights don't win games the full box score does I'm Brock cured and most business leaders aren't short on data they're short on clarity numbers are scattered across ERP CRM's and spreadsheets making decisions reactive instead of confident and that's not how great businesses are built. Marquis IQ brings all your data together into one clear view even if it lives in disconnected systems or offline so you can see what's really happening and act faster stop running your business on highlights get the full picture visit data that wins dot com to see what Marquis IQ can do when you're running the hurry up and don't have time for your favorite Seattle sports shows listen to the podcast on demand about that unbelievable thought every hour every interview every look behind the scenes is your new Seahawks head coach Mike McDonald we want to play a certain way and you're just going to chisel away at it every day find us on Seattle sports dot com the Seattle sports app or wherever you get podcasts all signs continue to point to it being the right hire never miss a minute of Seattle sports the home of the Seahawks. Washington windows dot com today. 877 or Levin. Thank you. This is happy music. I'm not sure it fits with the mood of Mariner fans Brock around the area today as the team falls to four and nine. It is not the start any of us expected given the promise of this roster and the talk of World Series and embracing those expectations but here we are for nine and with some familiar problems certainly on the offensive side of it. Aaron Goldsmith has called all of these games or at least most of the games are on the offensive side. I'm just going to start by saying good morning Aaron. How are you your home. You know I appreciate the happy music. It's great to be with you guys. Yes well I mean it's always happy when we're all together. That's why I think we have the the real big fish for you. What is the biggest problem. What is the biggest problem you've seen through these first 12 games 13 games. Well obviously it's on the offensive side and I think if you look deeper beyond just that I would probably point to basically the worst team against the fastball no matter what lens you look through if you want to look at the average if you want to look at the slug if you want to look at the swing and miss. I mean if they weren't slugging but they were hitting for average you would say OK there's something to work on there and if they weren't hitting for average on the fastball but they were hitting it over the fence a lot. You'd say OK well there's something there. They're doing neither of those things right now. It is just a handful of games but nonetheless they have a very talented lineup as you were just referencing they should be better than this but it's clearly it's a real problem for them right now that you can afford to have a stretch like this during the course of the season but it needs to be a stretch they got to get out of it. So years ago there was kind of the change in some of the philosophy right. There was a new hitting offensive coordinator I think was his title hilarious guy that they had brought in and there was some thought maybe some understanding that we're talking we got a bad connection here. There was sorry you can only hear Brock they were having some video issues that it was a lot that it was a lot of information here. Oh you can't hear him. Oh I can't hear. Oh I actually sorry. So Lyle Lyle and I lost Lyle Moore and I were on a text chain last night and I actually requested that and they didn't think it made it happen. I did promise him that Brock wouldn't make it weird today. He's making it weird in his own way I guess by not actually being able to hear him maybe we need to do like one of those translation things where Brock tells me the question and then I relay it to Aaron and Brock so I'll tell you where Brock was going with this was a few years ago they brought in the offensive coordinator and they tried to change what they were doing and then you know shifted it a little bit more last year. Is there a stylistic change at all. Is there a strategic change at all to what they're doing. We did see that their bat speed is down Mike Petriello had that yesterday or two days ago. Not really sure what to make of it. Is there any strategic difference or is this just an execution thing. Well first of all it will seriously sadden me if I can't hear Brock. I know well I maybe maybe it's for the best I don't know. I believe it's because he's on video and you're not on video. It's a video issue. We might have to figure something out. All right. More questions. Okay so I saw the Petriello thing and I know Mike a little bit. I messaged with Mike a lot over the course this season and he always helps me look stuff up. That's kind of like deep in the weeds so Mike's been a terrific resource for me personally and he does a lot for our game. I don't I don't know if we know enough about that in particular to say oh there it is. They're they're not swinging the bat as fast. Maybe it is something and maybe there are things to it that are are part of the reason why the Mariners are not hitting well but at the same time like here are the questions I have about that and for those who aren't aware of it. There's a on stat stat cast has shown that of of all 30 teams the Mariners have had the biggest drop in collective bat speed quickly simply how fast you swing the bat and that because of that maybe that's why the Mariners are not hitting well. Well first of all if anybody was out of the ballpark in the first home stand and there were a couple of days where it was like the Arctic right. It was insanely cold now to be fair it wasn't like it was 80 degrees everywhere else in baseball. You know there were games in Cleveland and games in Boston or wherever else so like it was cold other places too. So it was super cold. The Mariners face some really good pitching out of the gate not all the pitching that they've seen has been great but a lot of it has been especially on that first home stand also there is not a direct correlation between slow bat bat hitter the correlation that has been made is slower bat less power faster bat more power but you can look at bat speed guys that are not great hitters right guys who are elite with bat speed and you can look at Louisa rise who has one of the slowest bats historically and he obviously hits for greater average and greater contact than anybody so I think the one correlation you can make is that if you have a slower bat you may be more of a contact. Making a lot of contact. Yeah also Randy Rosa Reina has had one of the greatest drops in bat speed on the team. He's been one of their most productive hitters. So I think I love numbers and I love the fact that we can kind of get the weeds on stuff but at the same time I've looked at enough numbers for enough years now where I know that especially the new stuff Mike and Brock if you can hear me like there's there can be some noise there right and I don't think we we can't just look at that and say this is the problem. I don't I don't I've never heard of a hitter guys say you know what I'm going to swing slower intentionally to try to make more contact. Yeah now maybe they do that I've just never heard it. I never heard it either but it is there but I thought yeah I tend to agree with all of that. I've been more focused on some of the weight of the expectations because that to me is the one big difference from kind of they tried to embrace the words World Series. We heard it a lot when we were down at spring training we're not going to be afraid of World Series. We're going to say it over and over again and I don't I don't have any way to prove that that's the problem. I can't prove it. I don't know what the problem is but the guys with the most expectations on them seem to be the guys that are struggling the most and logic just sort of tells me that the weight of expectations so far has been a challenge for them. And that could be and I'm with you on this Mike like I don't I can't get in Cal Raleigh said I can't get in who you said Josh Nailer said like I don't I don't know all these guys that we're talking about have track records. One of the reasons why so many people in publications picked the Mariners to win the division and potentially win the World Series is because you have of a projected 26 man roster. So many of them have not just track records but really good to great track records both on the pitching side and now on the hitting side as well you look at like the top six in a lineup from Julio to Cal to Randy. I mean you go down the list right it's like Nailer. Yeah all these guys have been there and done that and they're getting paid because they're great players. So do you not feel that pressure as much if you have a track record to lean on. I would think so but at the same time I think everybody is human to a degree and when you have these expectations and you get off to a bad start I think it's only natural to feel some of that and what and I know I talked to BUNER a little bit about this on the air the last few days we just saw so many ground ball outs to the first base and so many left handed hitters and it just looked like guys are just trying to yank everything like let me be the guy that's going to hit an eight run home run right now and get us out of this thing and as we all know with baseball often times especially for a hitters perspective the harder you try the worse it gets right and so the good news is if this is comforting to anybody the Mariners have been here before in fact it feels like the Mariners have been here every year for as long as we can remember in fact last year on this day they had basically the same record they were 4-8 and they were averaging three runs a game just like they are now and they were hitting under 200 just like they are now and then they ratted off whatever was 8th straight series wins and they finished like 20 games over 500 the rest of the way so it can turn on a dime and it needs to turn sooner rather than later for the Mariners and the good news is they have the ability to do that but they need to do that. So who will be the fire starter? It's okay in here Brock. I thought maybe you could. Darn it. Brock, Brock. I'll figure it out. Short question and it's not a you thing. It's an us thing. Who Brock just said who will be the fire starter? Nobody knows Brock. I wish I could tell you like nobody knows how the story is. Like it's you know and I'm not saying that this is what Brock was saying but it's not like oh well we're going to lean on our quarterback right now. Or we're going to we're going to give the rock to Sharpen a 30 times and he's going to get us out of it like. That's not how this game works. It could literally be anybody the thing that I have learned the most in recent years watching Mariners baseball and I think this is a baseball thing. I don't think this is just a Mariners thing is that it can turn like this and oftentimes when it does turn there are almost no signs to indicate that it's about to turn like that's just a baseball thing man and I wish it I wish baseball could give you more signs like sometimes it happens like especially if you're talking about an individual hitter. Oh he's hitting the ball harder. Oh he's getting the ball in the air more but it's been caught and maybe it and now it's going over the fence with the Mariners year after year after year. It's just the walking dead and then they're hotter than the sun right and they're the best team in baseball and they carry that for a month at a time. So I understand the panic amongst people listening right now and the greater fan base. I totally get it. I've watched basically every pitch so far this year but I'll also say they've been here and they've proven that they get out of it. It's just it is a very Mariner thing. You know she was you're right. And we've been trying to have this conversation. I mean look we're going to talk about this every day here on the show and you're sort of caught between two masters on one hand trying to recognize that it's a long season and what you do over now a two week stretch does not indicate what you're going to do over the next two week stretch or the week after that but also recognizing that what we've seen for two weeks has been awful. I mean it really because it's not just the offense to me I can actually live with the bad offense. To me it's the execution and the little things that have gone with the offense that have been magnified because of the offense that have been problematic. It was two nights ago you know the error and then Cole Young not getting to the ball that goes for a hit and all of a sudden that's a couple of runs and then it's the ninth inning where you get first and second and unfortunately really misses the bag and you know credit to him for for saying so and doing the right thing but you know unfortunately mental mistake followed by can zones inability to get the ball to the right side instead of the left side you don't move the runners and it cost you a game and then yesterday you have a chance to throw home and you throw it over his head and it cost you to get like unfortunately those lack of concentration issues can't come with a team that's not hitting you can't do both. Totally agree. I think the the little things are little the big things are big which I know seems like an obvious statement. We want to be talking about this if they had just put five runs up on the board every game on the road trip right or four or five runs which are which I mean let me be clear that's not going to happen every night it's baseball but there isn't there's no team that has a great offense. Does anybody ever talk about the little things or hardly ever right because like oh yeah they just got there and they score and the Mariners I think what makes this team project so well is that they have the personnel to do both like they they have really good baseball players both on the mound and in the box. I think defensively it is a question about what the Mariners will be like this year even with the town that they have they they should be a team that can make the routine play they should be that team even with the guy at third base who's who's really learning that position on a full-time basis now in Donovan and he's you can tell in his comments he's beating himself up a little bit about some early season miscues but you still love the player and he makes the Mariners better but they they have the ability to get out of this that doesn't mean they will like I'll be frank about it doesn't mean they will that's just the reality that being said it is really hard to squint your eyes and look at this lineup if we just focus on the offense since the pitching has been so dynamite and say oh yeah I think for 6 months they're going to all struggle. You know guys who up and down the lineup have had a massive career milestones and achievements and silver sluggers and all-star games like you really believe that over the length of the season which is why they play 162 of these things that it's it will come together and the good news for the Mariners it could come together as soon as tomorrow and then they can get as hot as the sun and carry it into October but it needs to happen doesn't have to happen on Friday no but it needs to happen pretty soon before they start to get to the start a little more important this year than maybe some other seasons and I think what happened after the WBC and the expectations and all of that kind of puts a little more emphasis on this. Matt and Oregon weighing in saying I love that it would somehow be faster for salt to listen to half of Brock's question summarize it and then spit it back that it would be for Brock to ask the whole question that's not untrue thankfully via text Brock has to be a little faster so he just sent me this one Aaron why are they pitching so well. It's a broad question I have to Aaron why are they pitching so well the expectations have hurt their pitchers yeah the expectations have only affected their hitters. Why are the expectations not affecting pitchers stop just having fun at Brock's expense because I love Brock you know it would be funny if the whole time Aaron could actually hear Brock if this whole thing is messing with Brock messing with the audience and poor Morris back there trying to do 12 different things to work and I was like I actually can hear him the whole time. We had a fun Microsoft Teams update overnight. Oh good thank you. All right. I think what I'm trying to ask is why having the expectation that the pitchers have issues affected the pitching. Well I that's that is it's an interesting question Brock let me let me give you a pat on the back there. I'm. I mean pitching is very different than hitting right one is one you got control the other you're very reactionary but I think the bigger thing for me on the pitching front is you know the pitching was not great last year for the Mariners there were elements of it that were great to elite right Brian andris moony else but in terms of how the Mariners got to eight outs away from the World Series last season. If somebody had told you that at this point last year that that was the Mariners future you would say oh man well they wrote this rotation again and we all know that was on the case. So for the Mariners pitching and the rotation in particular to come out and look like it did two years ago is incredible and not that we're surprised by it but it's kind of like take a little bit of a breath like yeah okay this is the warm pair of slippers the Mariners fans remember this is what it's like when every single day the Mariners send a starting pitcher out there and you expect them to get into the sixth inning and you expect them to hold the other team to three runs or fewer and that's that's what makes the Mariners great so they are doing their part of the deal and they're not asking for much and that's what has made it so frustrating right if the Mariners offense had just gotten like two or three runs on certain nights that would have been I don't know like a 500 road trip maybe or close to it and instead they only won one game so this is a it's a proven pitching staff clearly especially in the rotation and it has been great to see them get back to where we all know they can be. Hey you mentioned the defense at third with Donovan which we've all seen the defense in left I think we've had some questions as well I appreciated your question the other day in the game we were like isn't that maybe the left fielder's ball to call everybody off. I thought that was funny so thank you for making me laugh while I was sitting at home that and as we've talked about the the National Cattlemen's beef breeds which are just the best. Just the way they drop in is just hilarious. Those have been two of my highlights of the year. Yes that's that's too bad at some point. Well unfortunately there hasn't been a tremendous amount of highlights on the field are at some point could we see more of Donovan and left Randy D. H. and maybe somebody else coming in to play third base I don't know where they come from I don't know Tacoma maybe guy named Cole Danverson but like at some point could we see that sort of shift to try to improve the defense. So I've thought about that I haven't spoken to anybody within the Mariners about that yet. Here's my one concern with that I'm just gonna be perfectly honest Randy's in a contract here. You're gonna tell a guy in a contract here. Hey you're now a part time D. H. It takes a pretty big man to say I got you skip. Yeah I'll do I'll do what you need there now if Randy just signed a big fat free agent deal and he was taking care of the rest of his life. Maybe it's different. I don't know I've never been on the receiving end of a conversation like that. In fact I can't even I'm sure it's happened I can't even point to a time in history where something like that's happened although I'm sure something like that has happened. I mean Devers had all his hair and you're up for a contract next year but we're gonna have you just do three innings on radio moving forward instead of all of the games on TV like I'm sure that you wouldn't take that all that well either. No I'm with you I think you're right I don't and if I'm Randy I wouldn't take that well myself. Yeah now if you're the Mariners you say well then hey we need you to be a little more locked in out there right and and I'm sure that they've said that to have someone at some point in the first two weeks this season. So that I have no idea what Donovan is like as a left fielder is he probably around average. Yeah I bet he's probably around average. Is that an upgrade. I'll let other people decide that. I don't know but I think the point is it it's start it isn't as I guess my point Mike is that as you probably understand like it isn't as clean as it sounds if you're making a fantasy baseball lineup. There's some emotion and honestly I first of all I agree with you 100 percent and thanks for saying it. It's a good conversation it's an uncomfortable conversation for all of us because unfortunately it leads back to what happened at the WBC and soon afterwards and a question of you know is everything hunky dory is everything copacetic here with Cal Randy and everybody associated with whatever the heck went down because Randy still in a contract year there was still the awkwardness of how it all went down and now you've got the pressure of a team not playing its best that is sort of pushing on all of that. Yeah I don't think I don't think that there's this is at all a Cal issue or WBC issue. I don't I don't think now I haven't I haven't talked to either one of those since the season has started about what is going I think right now the issue is the Mariners stink. I think that's the issue right and the Mariners need to do everything they can to be the team that they think they can be which is a potential World Series champion and they're going through it they're going through it right now and I think the last thing the Mariners want to do whether you are the pitching coach the bench coach Scott or Dan Wilson or Jerry DePoto is you want to make things as as harmonious as possible and try to get this thing steer in the right direction. So something like that doesn't seem to me like would do that right now but at the same point if if we're having this conversation Mike two weeks from now four weeks from now I don't know maybe things become more desperate but I guess like continue to fall back on they were in this exact same position last year they were in the exact same position and so we'll just put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks so we'll put out the next two weeks is they, we've already seen the benefits of Donovan as a lead off hitter. Like they're, they're a noticeably better offensive team, but it'd be hard for me to convince somebody of that right now. And I understand that. Can you thank God, thank him for his time. So they need to play better. I'd be happy to thank him. They have, this has been the Mariners thing for a couple of years now. They have the people in the room. The people just need to play better. Please do that. There's certainly the games are being called. Well, by the way, I've mentioned this on the air a couple of times. I love the app. The app is great. It works so well. It is awesome. Honestly, I know that there was some frustration from some people at the beginning of the year. The app is awesome. It's crystal clear. You and Angie and Ryan and everybody sound great. Look great. The ability to start a game at the beginning where they already are in the game. And it gives you all those options. If you turn it off and turn it back on, you can resume where you were or go to live or go back to the beginning. If you're fast forwarding or rewinding, they give you a little notation for each, the start of each half inning. So like it really is a tremendous, tremendous product. Once you figured out how to use it all, it has been a great experience. And as always, you're doing a great job navigating all of it. Aaron, thank you for taking some time. Sorry about the awkwardness with Brock, but that's just sort of par for the course. And we'll catch you next time. I thought it was Brock's best performance. We'll see you. Yeah, I think we were all pretty impressed with Brock over the course of that 25 minutes. Aaron Goldsmith, voice of the Mariners, and he'll be back in action tonight as they take on the Astros first of four here back in Seattle. Really be nice to win this series and then just sort of see this team take off the way we've all expected it to before the season got underway. All right. We think we know what's going on with the Mariners. And Adam Jude did a really nice job kind of putting this together. There's a lot of what that I definitely feel like makes sense. The problem is some of the why behind the what and it's next. I'm Brock and Salk.