Sami Jarjour
The Seattle Mariners 21 year playoff drought has been a tough one, George & Sami, our two brother founders, were on ‘Sports ON Tap Seattle‘ to discuss whats going on in the Mariners world.
This is a transcription of the podcast, so please excuse the typos and mishaps in grammar. If you want to listen to the full podcast you can find it on all platforms here:
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Transcript of the ‘Sports ON Tap Seattle Podcast Episode:
This is the Sports ON Tap Seattle. Seattle podcast almost messed up already, George, but welcome on in I’m Sami and I’m George, how you doing? I’m doing great, man. How are you? I’ll let you know in a little bit, Mariners are still zero, zero. We gotta get off to Schneider. I can’t believe we’ve lost four out of five to the angels in athletics.
It is unbelievable, but if you’re listening to this like tomorrow right now, we’re recording. 7:30 PM on the 21st, , which is the Wednesday, whatever. So this is Robbie Ray’s pitching, whatever we don’t know. You’re not gonna hear if this is a winner or a loss on this podcast. It’s the second inning. So they have lost four out of five.
Against, I mean, three of ’em against the angels. And one of ’em against the A’s. The A’s are the second worst team in baseball record wise, not just the worst in the American league, second worst in all of baseball. And, , if you lose too straight to them, I mean, this is just annoying at this point. A absolutely.
So hopefully we get off to Schneider, , because it’s about time. Like, I, I can’t, my heart does not handle this time of the year. Well, I know we’ve almost clenched a playoff spot, but I need to clench it to just be comfort. And we’ll get to that because, , we are gonna be talking just to give people a heads up here.
We’re gonna talk about Jared Kelenic. He has been called up. He’s not on the lineup today, but probably will pinch it at some point or be in the lineup tomorrow. , we’re gonna talk about that. We’re gonna talk about our over our, our win, sorry. Our record verse teams that are above 500 and below 500. It’s pretty fascinating.
Ryan Divish. , Tweeted something about it. And then we’re gonna talk about that magic number that you just talks about. For a lot of people I know on Twitter are asking, what does the magic number mean? , so we’ll break that down. And then we have a new segment coming, , called, did this really happen? So, , you guys should stay tuned for that at the end, as always, , after this podcast on Friday, we will be dropping a Seattle Seahawks preview.
For the upcoming week. So make sure you check that out. It’s the sports on tap Seattle. If you looked up everywhere, sports on tap Seattle podcast, you’ll find it on all platforms. And then if you wanna find our other videos and other content, it’s like youtube.com/on Seattle, Twitter slash on Seattle.
TikTok Instagram, all of them. @SONTSeattle. So check those out. And, , George, let’s talk about ick. Yeah. And before that real quick, I just wanna give you guys a quick heads up. If you like all sports, all NFL, all sports content, content, the sports on tap podcast and vendor sports on tap on all social media for the same type of Seattle content you see, but all sports more broad.
Yeah. And a lot of YouTube content, youtube.com/the sports on tap. All one. Obviously. And so check all those out for us. These sports on tap on all platforms too, I’m gonna use one of your, , one of your tweets, , which was his last 11 game hitting streak in AAA, which was batting 403 home runs, nine RBIS.
And, , obviously it made people start speculating. Is it once again? Time to bring him up and he did well. Yeah, all the speculation ended up with him being up. It is about time. I mean, when you put up those stats and you have invested as much in, in Nik as the club did by, you know, trading. You know, Edwin Diaz, , getting a big package to get this guy you’re invested.
I know we haven’t invested a lot of money. He’s still on that, you know, cheap deal, but we are invested in Jared Kelenic. So when he does this good in triple a and you have injuries and you have an opportunity to bring him up, I think this is the right thing to do. You have to bring them up? Yeah. , I don’t think you have to.
To be honest because UAS will be back in a few days. And there’s not that many spots for him, but I think the reason they’re bringing him up is one. Nobody knows what’s going on with Winker. He’s just not playing well. , correct. And you had Jake lamb on the roster that I literally don’t even recall him getting a bit since his time being called up.
, I just feel like there’s been a lot of failed experiments with the Mariners, right? Players wise that it’s like, fuck it. I guess he can be called up. Right. For me, it’s not even like they should, or it’s a must or like he earns it because we’ve seen him be a triple a MVP multiple times. Well, hold up.
That’s where I wanted to get to. You said he was good against triple a pitching, right? Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, technically with the athletics tigers and Rangers and athletics, no, not that might be some triple a type of pitch. No. Cause they, cause they did not. They, they have brought up all their, , matter guys from triple a, the guy had played, the guy has played in the MLB multiple times and he can’t hit, which is.
I don’t think his I’m not like the dramatic his career is over the guy’s like 24. Like he has, even if he doesn’t do well this time, there is still a chance that he does. Well, eventually. I mean, the guy’s still young. I just don’t know if it’s the best thing for him to get called up. And if he doesn’t play well, Mentally, that’s gonna be really tough for him, and it’s gonna be hard for the Mariners to keep calling a guy up that fails to perform even when he is dominating in AAA.
So it’s just a hard, we saw that with Jesus Montero, a few like 10 years back. Yep. So it was dominated, but, but we did see him do it well in September last year. So, I mean, that could be some type of hope. Maybe, you know, he he’s can do what he did last September. And I think last September, he bated like 2 50, 2 60 at that point would be great for us.
Yeah, it would, , Once again, obviously I’m rooting for him to do well. And I actually think he’ll probably play better right now. , the reason I think he’ll play better is I think he probably got his confidence up, right? Like in AAA, I, I did somebody replied to your tweet, , cam in presence. Kelenic season.
So obviously a fan, he said in a more expanded timeframe since the New York series, remember that New York series, he did play bad, but he did hit a home run in one of those like home run barrage games we had, which yeah. Off of Garrett Cole. Yeah. We had like five runs in the first. , he’s had 127 at bats batting 3 0 7 39 hits, 12 doubles, seven home runs, 28 ribs, 15 walks, , 23 Ks six stolen base.
Ops of 9 55, which is pretty good. So he’s been playing really good baseball. Now I think the hard thing with him is. This is just like, from what I see, obviously everyone has different interpretations. I just think that he emotionally it’s been really tough on him in baseball. Like, I feel like he hasn’t been that guy that gets like Julio in like SW res and all these guys on the Mariners seem like happy go lucky kids playing baseball.
I feel like Kelenic, will hit a home run and still be angry, like tense. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don’t feel the joy. Is a problem. Yeah. I, I think that’s, cuz he’s, he’s really trying his best, like in his head and there’s no confidence. I think once he gets it, he will have that joy back if he ever gets it.
Yeah. He just needs. All, all the kid needs, cuz he obviously, I mean like he’s obviously so good at baseball, right? Like look at these numbers in triple a. And he obviously was a top prospect for a reason. He just needs to come in, get like three base hits in one game. And I think it clicks like sometimes it’s just like, almost like having the Ys, even though it’s not like technically the hips, it’s just like, you can’t.
Can’t see the baseball in the major leagues right now. And I think it’s a lot of it probably has to do with that with confidence. Yeah. And I just, like you were saying, maybe you’ll pinch hit today. I don’t wanna ever see him pinch hit at least hit the first game back cuz he strikes out or doesn’t do good.
It’ll be in his head for the next time. I, we, he needs four at bats today to find out what he is. Yeah, no, they should just start him. Like we have Abraham Toro star. Well, I think, I think they were, they had to fly out somewhere from AAA. Like I think he just got in late today. So I think he’ll be starting tomorrow.
I think. We’ll see, who knows, but I do like his comment. , he did say that whatever I can help, what am I let’s restart that, whatever I can, you know what? It’s actually the person that made this tweet, Daniel Kramer, who’s a great Mariners follow. So go follow him. This is not hate on him. I just think he missed the word.
It says whatever I can to help. I think he meant do the quote was whatever I can do to. This team win, whatever they need me to do. If they need me to pitch, I’ll be ready to pitch. So he is like, I feel like he’s pretty, that’s a good comment. He’s pretty fucking hyped to like, but just, just for those listening pod, he will not be pitching.
He will not, but he did, he did pitch once on team USA, but like, that was, I think they were, you know, it’s one of those, like, You needed ran out of pitchers situation. Yeah, exactly. But it’s, I think it’s a good mentality because he’s been going through a lot. So to say like, whatever, like I just, he really obviously just wants to play and win.
So yeah, that’s a good and I, and I hope that he does so. It’s just the hope for the best. The hope that’s almost the hope. George just thought JP Crawford did a home run, but as usual it was not a JP Crawford home run. Mm-hmm so, , let’s move on George to the Mariners records that I was talking about. So Ryan DK put this out today.
Cause a lot of people on Reddit, it were talking about it. The Mariners record with teams with winning, with updated. Look at the M record record versus teams with winning records. We are 38 and 33. Okay. With losing records, we’re 43 and 33. So we have the same amount of losses to teams with losing records.
As we do to teams with winning records. Now, if you took the Astro. Out of the equation. Okay. Let’s do some math. We have 38 wins you minus seven from it. So remember the number 31 31 33 losses minus the 12 losses, 31 31. So with 31 and 21, , without the Astros losses, we play much better. Against teams with winning records.
Then we really do sometimes against teams with losing records. We literally have the same amount of loss as to teams with losing records. And I know if you look at it in just pure American league, I think it’s much worse of an example. And I just find it interesting Mariners do seem like that team that like just always play bad against bad.
Yeah. And you know, it’ll be interesting to see here down a stretch with a bunch of bad teams left. If we can kind of pad that record against bad teams. So far, we haven’t done a good job of it losing four out of five to the angels in athletics, but maybe we can pad that and end up with this season with a better record against losing teams.
That’s the hope right? With 15 games left, if we can go 10 and five, 11 and four against these shit teams, hopefully, or it could be a good sign for the playoffs because I okay. And I got the other stat that I found from Reddit. Like from battle something on Reddit, the Mariners have the best record of any wild card team.
Teams four, 500 and over, they also have the worst record of any wild card team against the teams that are below 500. So, well, the good news is we’ll not be playing any teams below 500, exactly playoffs. So that just means we’re going to, we, we we’re just gonna win in the playoffs and just hopefully not see the Astros.
I, I really hope so, man. I mean, or we’re getting, I hope we see the Astros, cuz if we, if. Think no matter what happens. If we wanna win the world series, we have to go through the Astros unless they lose the, you know, we avoid them and they don’t get to the Al CS, but I think they’re too good not to get to the Al CS unless we beat them.
Imagine I, my thing is I fully expect us. If we are gonna get to the world series, we have to go through Houston. Maybe, maybe not. That’s what I feel. Like they’re the Bo they’re like the final, not the final, the world series, but they’re like the final boss in a video game. Right? Like the Mariners can beat the Astros in a playoff series.
Oh my God. The amount of happiness for like, not just Mariners fans, I feel like the MLB will just be like, like baseball fans will be like, they be rooted. We’ll be rooted for very heavily in that season. There will not be a person. outside of Houston and people who bet on this have hold world series tickets from Houston.
Okay. But you know what I mean? Yeah. But if you don’t have any play on it or you’re not from the city of Houston, there will not be a single human being probably that’s rooting for the Astros over the Mariners. If they’re in a series totally. That also probably holds true for most Astros series with baseball fans.
Right? Yeah. Maybe Yankee haters will not Yankees and Dodgers. Other than that, like, no, one’s rooting for the Astros against the white. So. No. No, absolutely not, man. I mean, there that’s, if the Mariners are America’s team, the Astros are America’s hate, most hated team. Yeah. Them and the Yankees. And I think the Astros last year got like voted more hated than the Yankees, which says a lot.
So the Mariners that they could beat them be amazing. And this is what I love about this Mariners potential, you know, playoff run is they are America’s team. Like they, people will want to see them win just because it’s. 21 years since they’ve been the playoffs. Right. You know, you know, sometimes I think about that, like for example, the Rockies, right?
Let’s go with the Rockies. They made one world series when people are watching the Rockies, they’re like, oh, this is so cute. It’s the Rockies. That’s probably how people feel about the Mariners, right? Like this is so weird. We’re watching the Mariners.
Hmm. Probably because like, I watch some teams sometimes. Yeah. Like they’re new in the playoffs and I’m like, huh? Like if the pirates made the playoffs, you’re gonna like, huh. Hmm. Yeah. Or like in basketball, it, the Kings they’ll like, wow, I’m really watching the Sacramento Kings in the playoffs. This is all.
Yeah. That’s probably how people feel like, oh yeah, we’re watching the mirror so cute. Like fuck you guys. that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing. No, but it’s like, oh, so cute. Like, no we’re I don’t wanna be cute. I wanna be fucking good. It is cute. If they make the PLA the first 7 21 years we saw. I know, but I know it is cute.
It is cute. But do you wanna be cute or you wanna be good? I, I, I want be at a point the Mariners, or just, I wanna be cute to start was better than being playoff course. Of course, of course. But I just want, like right now, it’s cute. I wanna one day not be cute. Well, if we get out of the wild card, then it stops being cute and it’s, you’re in a real series.
Exactly. And some people like, wow, this team’s not joking. Speaking of real series. And speaking of all that stuff, The magic number, George, as of yesterday, the magic number was 10 as of today. It’s 10 also. , and basically I’m gonna explain it yesterday terms. There’s obviously that table, right. And this is applies for the white Sox too, because they’re tied basically with Baltimore right there.
Right? Like if we went six oh and 16, the next 16 games. Baltimore would have to go six and 10 yep. To get into playoffs. Right. So just it’s a scale like that. And what the magic number means like right now, let’s say the magic number is 10. Any Mariner’s win is subtracted from that magic number and any Baltimore loss subtracts from that number.
So for those that are wondering, when you go on Twitter, what these magic number means, that’s what it means. So if the Mariners win today and Baltimore loses that tensions into an eight, for example. Yeah, you can, you can pick up two magic numbers in one day. And it can, it can go up, right? If we lose. No, no, you can’t go up.
It stays like your magic number is your magic number. You wanna subtract when your magic number can’t go up. So we’re at 10 we’re at 10. Yeah. Our loss would make nine. Did they lose today? , I don’t know if they’ve even played yet. B Cleveland is destroying Chicago and Baltimore one. Chicago’s gonna be out if they lose today.
Pretty much. Yeah. Baltimore, one eight to one. Okay. So the magic, number’s still 10, still 10 with the Mariners win today. You’d be at nine. So let’s see what happens. , all that matters is that the Mariners continue to win. So basically. If, I mean, at the, at some point when they win probably six or seven games out the next 15, if they win six or seven of ’em, it’s pretty close to over.
Baltimore would have to go like 13 and three during the season. So, and Tampa’s lost three in a row. So they’re also in the mix to, so to be out, they have the magic number as us. Yeah. And if we win right now, we’d pass Tampa. We would today we’d pass Tampa. Yeah, it’d be the second in the wildcard, which we can go back to that topic now.
, Toronto’s vaccine thing or the can vaccine vaccine thing was dropped, so right. Robbie, Ray, or any other unvaccinated player? Well, it’s not dropped yet. It’s expected to be dropped at the end of September expected. Okay. It’ll probably be dropped if like baseball there’s like drama in sports or like ignored it’s at that point.
Right. Maybe be ignored. Hopefully, we don’t have any complications with COVID and Robbie Ray going to Toronto, if that’s what happens, but I I’m more and more in belief now that I wanna play Cleveland and get the third spot for some reason. Me too. I mean, I’d rather have a home game if we’re not gonna get the first spot, I’d rather get the third spot.
Yeah. For some reason I’ve kind of just like counted out the top spot. I kind of forgot about that. Yeah. It just feels like it’s out. Like what? It’s two games now, two and a half right now. Are they won? Yeah, it seems for some, I know it’s just two and a half games, but it just feels outta reach probably because the Mariners dropped four outta five.
exactly. I don’t know though. Do you think, do, what do you think, do you think they’re gonna get the, what, what, like if you had a real guess, I think we’re gonna end up in the third spot. , I think we end up in the second spot. , but I really wanna end up in the third spot, not the second. yeah. Like all the way in Toronto and the game times are probably gonna be weird.
East coast. Yeah. Game east coast. All of ’em are east coast. It’s a different country. Yeah. They’re all east coast actually different country. Like, I, I, I don’t need that. And I, I just don’t like the blue Jays. Yeah. And like they almost take over our fucking stadium too. It’s always all blue Jay fans in the Mariners blue Jay.
So let’s, , actually they’re playing right now against the Phillies. Let’s check. Let’s check in on the blue Jays. They’re tied three, three in the 10th Inn. Okay. Well go Phillies. They’ll fill these baby. I would hate the blue Jays coming to Seattle for three games. Oh yeah. But that’s not happening so well, never know, but that would, that would stop had two game swap and then all of a sudden that’s what’s happening.
That would suck so fucking bad. The crowd would be so messed up like, oh, and from Vancouver, how many, many blue Jays fan, how many games have you been doing in your life? Never been to blue. Jay. Yeah. Like why? Like you mayor under fan. If you’re from Vancouver, not, I know name a blue J player. George Springer?
No, no, not you I’m talking about the, well, I think they would all say that. Yeah. Carrero they’d all know who V LA Guerrero Jr. Is. Yeah, I don’t wanna pitch against him. That’s not, I don’t wanna play the blue Jays. That’s it either. That’s pretty simple. All right. Well, fuck. Hopefully the mayors get a little better.
, and don’t lose to teams like Oakland and Oakland is ahe. , no respect to them. I’m not gonna call them the Los Angeles angels. They’re the Anaheim angels. So Bootle LA team. It’s very true. Well, let’s do George, our final segment, which is drum roll, please.
I was gonna, I was gonna edit it in there. Yeah, well that was a real, supposed to be a real drum roll for me. the drum roll. First time ever, we’re doing our segment. Did this really happen? And what this did, this really happen. Segment is 2001, the Mariners. Won 116 games and made the playoffs ever since then, George, what has happened?
They haven’t made the playoffs since they’re, they broke the record for most major league wins in history of baseball, and they haven’t even made the playoffs since, and they didn’t even win the world series that year. And that joins like, you know, it’s pretty crazy. The national basketball association warriors hold the record of 73 wins did not win the champ.
In football, the Patriots, , were undefeated in the regular season with 16 wins. That’s more than the dolphins, 14 than O season. They have also lost a championship and they have also, they lost. They lost the championship, the championship. Yeah, the championship. And then the Seattle Mariners hold the record for most wins in a major league baseball season, and also did not win.
Now. I don’t know enough about hockey to tell you if the regular season hockey not sure did or not, but the three most major sports in, in America have had their highest. Regular season win total team, all not win championships. It’s pretty crazy if you think about it, , no matter how good a team is during a regular season, sometimes in my opinion, like it makes it harder to win in the post season.
There’s certain things I feel like in sports where you need ups and downs throughout a season or. A couple losses you didn’t expect and kind of fight through those in the regular season, not in the post season, cuz when it happens in the post season, all of a sudden you’re eliminated and it’s pretty nuts to, to think 2001, the best record of all time.
You had the rookie of the year who also won MVP in each rose Suzuki, which I don’t know if that’s ever happened other than that year. Not quite sure. I’d have to look at that. Probably not in the past 1950s, first one ever to do that from. Obviously, thank you. Probably the first time, not in the 19 hundreds, early 19 hundreds that somebody won MVP and rookie of the year, the team broke the record for 116 wins.
Didn’t win the world series. And obviously that adds to the Seattle Mariners being the only team. In history of baseball to never even make a world series. , and it’s been 21 years since 2001, since they’ve been in the playoff. So this year’s really important for the Mariners as a team that, you know, it’s been 21 years that are close there.
They’re close to getting into the playoffs because yeah, that did really happen. George it’s been 21 years since they’ve been in the playoffs after breaking the record for the most. Of all time. Yeah. And I got a smile on my face, but it’s a smile of disappointment. It’s a smile of despair but the Mariners now have a 99% chance to make the playoffs, even though they are testing that measure as much as humanly possible by losing mini games recently, but the Mariners should break.
The curse should break the 21 year drought. And I think it’s important to mention it is the longest drought in all four major sports. In America right now. I mean, I think the next closest, the Sacramento Kings in the NBA at 16, but mm-hmm 21 years. I, I personally to give some personality in this video or in this podcast, whatever, you’re listening this on I’m I was in first grade the last time, the Mariners.
Made the playoffs. I have a couple gray hairs now and I was in seventh grade and I had a mustache then and I have a mustache now things don’t change, but it did really happen, George. And it’s been 21 years, but hopefully the, hopefully some of that magic comes back at the end of this season. I really do hope so.
Well, I think that’s all we got for today. , make sure you always check in on like Georgetown in the beginning of the podcast, these sports on tap podcasts is our main sports podcast, all sports, NFL, NBA, anything that’s happening in the world. Make sure you check that out. And it’s at the sports on tap on all platforms and YouTube slash the sports on tap and for Seattle stuff as always at San Seattle, S O N T Seattle on all platforms and sports on tap Seattle.
If you type that in, on YouTube or YouTube back slash on Seattle, you’ll find it. And on all platforms here, and we do have a very specific Mariners page on Twitter that is very fun to interact with. So if you love Mariner stuff, app Mariners on tap, , on Twitter as well. Love it. Well, thank you guys for listening too sports on tap Seattle podcast and George, you know what you like to say to people, right?
Yeah. Amen. Thanks for stopping by. Thank you so much. Thanks. Can I get.
