In an hour away from first pitch of
the American League Division series,
it is the Seattle Mariners
versus the Houston Astros,
and this will be Seattle's
biggest playoff test yet.
For some perspective,
I am joined now by KING5 news anchor
and sports fanatic Steve Bunan.
Thank you so much for being
thank you for having me. What a
great time to be a Mariners fan.
Seriously. And you've been a
lifelong Mariners fan, have you not?
Yeah. Born and raised.
That was a bad boy for the
team when I was a teenager.
I've watched a few of
the ups and all the ohh.
You did bring this
around. Of course we did.
With the whitewashed.
Events for a little bit.
And the Brian Bosworth
T-shirt to be on the left.
Harold Reynolds on the right,
later worked with him at ESPN.
That was a long time ago. I love it.
A lot of the hair is gone,
but the smile is the same.
This smile.
Do you still have the pants, though?
That's what I really should have.
You really love this team.
This is your team.
How are you feeling going
in against the Astros?
Well, I mean, if I'm being really honest,
not confident because the Astros are
arguably the best team in baseball.
But I I do feel like the
Mariners have a good shot.
They they've done this the right way.
They sort of took a step
back for a couple of years.
They've added the right pieces,
and they started to.
Pay for the right pieces.
Once they had the young guys
in place and they do have the
pitching to make this happen,
they just don't have a great offense.
Yeah, that's the real key is can the
can the bats come alive against the
great pitching staff with the Astros.
You know, one of the things I thought was
so great when we decided to have you on
the show today is that not only are you
born and bred in Seattle in your mind,
but you also spent some time in Houston, too.
Yeah. But before we came
to to back to Seattle,
we spent four years in Houston and
I was at the Sports Network there.
That was the the partnership
with the Houston Astros.
So, so every one of their games when
they were doing their step back.
Yeah, so they lost hundreds of games,
and we saw all of those,
but it paid off for them.
And now they won a World Series.
They're in the playoffs every
year and this is, you know,
they're sort of at their Crest,
and the Mariners are on the upswing.
And it's time, hopefully,
for Mariners fans to kind
of pull that David Goliath,
you know, upset.
It is certainly going to be that
we've got some stats here for you.
So I don't think it's any secret.
The Astros are gonna be tough.
We've kind of talked about this already.
So why don't we talk about some of these
things, like 105 wins?
I mean, that's not the Mariners
record of 116 back in the day,
but that's pretty darn good.
Justin Verlander.
The likely Sayong award winner,
the best pitcher,
arguably in baseball.
He's gonna be pitching game one.
That's a tough,
tough matchup for the Seattle Mariners.
Batters.
Absolutely. And also houstons's.
You know, they're the third
best offense in the league.
Yeah, they can bring.
So, like, the Mariners have great
pitching and not great hitting.
The Astros are that rare breed where
they can both pitch it at an elite
level and hit and an elite level.
They can go yard.
They have five guys who can go
with one stroke of the back,
change the flavor of the game.
So that's a real challenge for Logan
Gilbert and the Mariners pitchers.
Houston has won twelve games.
We've won seven.
Yeah, when they go head to head.
And that's actually the best the
Mariners have done in quite some time.
This is just this season,
how Seattle has done against Houston.
They've lost the thing 80% of their games
over the last four years in Houston.
So you got games one and
two at Minute Maid Park.
It's gonna be an uphill battle,
no question about it.
For the Mariners,
as tough as Toronto was,
to get past Houston is a different kind
of challenge. There is something to be
said about momentum, though, right?
Yeah, and the Mariners have that after the.
I mean, first of all, dominate game
one against the Toronto Blue Jays.
And then Game 2, the historic comeback.
You haven't seen anything like that
in decades in Major League Baseball,
so the team's feeling great about itself.
You go in and something when when you're
young, you think about us back in.
You don't know any better when you're
22. Not that all the players of
that age, but they have a little
of that. The Astros have been there.
They've got the experience.
The Mariners are kind of like, not.
No one's expecting anything of us.
Let's let's go do
it. And the mirrors are so hot
right now. They've been playing.
Houston has not been playing
right. Houston's had a little
bit of that rust factor.
They've been sitting around watching
that said, they've also had a chance
to line up their rotation and get
their baseball, their pitchers,
ready to go in the order that they want.
The Mariners. There's a little bit
of question mark there, but yeah,
the Mariners have played more recently.
Maybe that gives them a tiny
bit of an edge in game one.
How do you feel about the
pitching standoff today?
I don't feel optimistic about
game one as much as I do game two,
and I love Logan Gilbert.
This is a guy who's got the long hair.
Every time he throws, he's,
like, spinning around.
He's a great guy to get one
of these young guys to watch.
But for me, game two,
with the Mariners pursuing,
they have Luis Castillo in game two.
That's where they have the edge.
You just want to take one of the games
in Houston in this best of five,
then you're coming back to Seattle
with two of the remaining 3
here on our home turf.
Alright, what is going to be the key?
To today's game and the series head,
I think the Mariners have to have somebody
do what Adam Fraser did in Toronto,
which has come from the bottom of the lineup,
and really deliver.
We've seen Cal, Raleigh, yeah, big dumper.
They call them all the kids.
I love that video that we saw
trending from the Snoqualmie.
I think so the big guys are
going to have to do their work.
But I think you have to have one of
those X factors and Adam Frazier,
JP Crawford to do something that's
unexpected for the Mariners to
come out with a win in Houston.
What
do you think about this incredible
enthusiasm that our fans
have? It's been so long.
We've been waiting so long and so many
kids that have never seen a winning team,
which reminds me.
In the 80s and 90s, the Mariners never won.
They were born in 1977.
They didn't go to the playoffs
for 21 years or so, give or take.
So it's been that same kind of drought.
And I think that's kind of causing
this just swell of emotion that
we usually see for the twelves,
for the Seahawks,
maybe for the Sounders.
But with the Mariners,
it's been such a long wait
that people are just,
they're just itching for some kind
of advance here in the playoffs.
Who
do you think is going to
be the standout today?
I love Gilbert. He's like I said, the hair.
Anyone with great hair, I like.
I like short athletes and I like athletes
with great hair because I
don't have that much anymore.
But that's what I love. So I'm.
I would love to see Logan Gilbert
put up a bunch of zeros and have have
the the world kind of wake up to him.
And of course, Julio Rodriguez,
he is the team's best player.
He had a little bit of a quiet series
against Toronto in those two games.
I love for him to have a
breakout game with a home run.
That'd be fun to watch. I love
it. The whole nation, Whole nation
is watching this guy, right?
We've got our blue and green.
We are red, blue and green.
He's got his Mariners socks on.
Shoelaces as well. Let's go
in. I love it. What is it like?
Do you explain to your daughters the
significance of what's happening right
now? Yeah, of course.
She's 13. She has.
No, she kind of doesn't care.
But she's excited. I mean, she cares.
She doesn't care about the 21 years.
That doesn't doesn't resonate with her.
But I tried to tell her, like,
since before you were born.
Almost twice that long.
That's all in. Daddy's been
waiting for another playoff birth,
so let's hope that it keeps going.
For the Mariners and Houston,
it's it's a tough draw.
Look, Houston's the best team in the
playoffs in the American League.
You got it. You got to play the games.
And in a short five game series,
you only need to win three.
Ohh
my goodness. You know,
I'm so glad we had you on today.
Where have you been?
I needed your help next door in the news.
I need your help.
And we put that thing together.
I'm like, Ohh, can we call you?
Can you phone a friend?
Alright. Thank you so much.
Pleasure. Alright,
we're gonna be back soon meantime.