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This week Kate and John are joined by staff writer Matthew Robeson to talk the current state of the team, the slumping offense, and a bunch of other nonsense because talking about the team isn’t super-fun right now.
0 - 12:00: Matthew and John offer a preview of their TED talk, How to Watch Mariners Baseball: a Primer. Matthew is outraged the team rosters both Nick Vincent and Zach Vincej, although for how much longer, who knows. The current state of the offense is discussed, and the word “brutal” is used a fair amount of times. Matthew is forced to revisit the long interview he just wrote up with prospect Bryson Brigman, traded for Cameron Maybin the day the article was set to publish.
12:00 - 18:00: Discussing Maybin and the trade deadline. Matthew invokes the name of Austin Jackson and some heavy magical thinking. John raises the question of what the Mariners’ best-ever trade deadline acquisition was, and Matthew makes a good argument that it might be Denard Span. John goes on a bit of a Vince Coleman tangent, as one does.
18:00 - 24:00: Picking our National League horses. Bullpen discussion, including Oh No What’s Wrong With Nick Vincent? and Oh No Is Félix a Bullpen Arm Now? Kate tries to delineate between loyalty to Félix and wanting accountability for things the King could have done better, and inadvertently causes Matthew to black out from sadness.
24:00 - 38:00: Looking down the stretch and assessing the panic levels for all teams not named The Boston Red Sox. Discussing the A’s bold trade deadline strategy of doing nothing and whether or not their heavily-taxed bullpen can continue to support starters who can’t make it through the seventh, assessing the sustainability of their offensive production, and examining their schedule compared to ours.
38:00 - 45:00: Assessing panic levels. John points out that the fanbase has a longer memory of the Mariners’ longterm failure than almost anyone who is currently playing for the Mariners. Sometimes not having any homegrown prospects is good! Matthew notes that in that way, the fanbase reflects the city itself.
45:00 - end: Questions! We do some totally non-creepy Seager family planning, talk about our favorite hip-hop albums of the year (okay, Matthew and John talk about this), our favorite swings in baseball, Lana Del Rey (in which Kate makes a wild but defensible Lana Del Rey : Marina and the Diamonds :: Beatles : Rolling Stones comparison), and possible other recreational sports for LL gatherings instead of softball. We close on the question “which LL staffer would be the best mariner, little-m?” and unfortunately neglect to mention Jake Mailhot, the only one of us who is an Actual Sailor. Sorry, Jake.
Music:
Cardi B, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin - “I Like It”; Christopher Cross - “Sailing” (Matthew’s choice; Kate pushed for the chorus from Orinoco Flow, but we agreed the lyrics for the Christopher Cross song were more appropriate for the feeling of needing to escape this team for a while.)
Note: If you’re searching for the podcast to subscribe (and we would love it if you did) please be aware that it is listed as simply “Lookout Landing” and not “Lookout Landing 2.0” which is understandably confusing. We’re sorry.
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Enjoy! Leave feedback! And go Mariners.