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This is Bump and Stacey on Seattle Sports.

Streaming through the Seattle Sports app and at SeattleSports.com.

Now, here are your hosts, Michael Bumpus and Stacey Ross.

This is the Bump and Stacey show.

We got Curtis Rodgers filling in for Stacey, but I'm still here.

We're joined now by MLB Pipeline senior writer Jim Kallis.

Jim, how are we doing?

I'm doing good. How are you guys doing? We're good, man. Thanks for having us. Man, to start this season, there are high expectations for the Mariners, and I was nervous for them. It was like when my daughter first made the A team on her soccer team, I'm like, man, it's going to be different stuff for you, baby girl.

Like, can you, can you handle this?

And she stumbled a bit, and then she found her footing and started. my daughter first made the eight team on her soccer team. I'm like, man, it's going to be a different stuff for you, baby girl. Like, can you, can you handle this?

And she stumbled a bit, and then she found her footing and started to excel a little bit. I'm still waiting for that with the Mariners. They've stumbled a bit. They've shown some potential. Just how do you feel about this team overall as we get into this long weekend? I still feel good about the Mariners.

I still think they're the best team in American League West.

I don't think, like you said, that they've gotten off to their best start. But the nice thing is nobody's really running away with anything in the American League West. I think, what, the A's are 500 in their first place by two games. I still would take the Mariners over everybody else in that division. I mean, Cal Raleigh has got to be better than it has been. I don't think they've had a lot of their, excuse me, offensive players have necessarily had the seasons we've expected out of them. The pitching still looks strong to me. And, you know, a, Jerry DePoto is not going to rest. He's going to make some move.

And they have some players in their farm system coming, you know, one of whom got promoted yesterday in Cold Emerson. So they've got a lot more talent, I think, than the other teams in their division. I think everything will be fine. And I think they're fortunate, like I said, that even though they haven't gotten off a good start, nobody else really has either. Yeah, Jim, you mentioned Cole Emerson's promotion yesterday.

Kind of a necessity with Brendan Donovan going down.

But you and all sorts of people who watch prospects across baseball have, you know, years of experience watching Cold Emerson, where I think a lot of my understands, you know, we've heard a lot about him, haven't exactly gotten to watch him day to day. But what are some traits of his that have really stood out to you during his time in minor league baseball? I think there's a couple things. I mean, I think the most obvious thing when you're talking about Colt Emerson, and it's the reason he was the first round pick, and it's the reason he raced through the big leagues and got to Seattle before he turned 21 is the hitting ability. I mean, the hitting ability stands out the most. But, you know, it's always going to sound kind of funny. Hopefully it'll make sense. You know, he was a first round pick. So he was obviously very highly regarded. But when guys are first round picked and they're better in pro ball than they were as amateurs,

that's always eye-opening.

And everybody always knew cold, I'm going to hit and the power would come.

But I think he's a lot better defender than people thought.

When he was coming out of high school in Ohio, people talked like, okay, you know, and this guy's going to definitely be a third baseman in the long run.

And now the guy, I mean, he's playing third base for Seattle, you know, his immediate position.

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