The dance with .500 had worn thin.
Five separate times this season, the Mariners clawed their way back to that perfectly balanced mark only to drop the next game. After a chaotic walk-off win last night to put them back there, and with Bryan Woo on a bit of a roll after a shaky start in Kansas City, surely this would be the time the M’s finally broke through.
You’d be correct making that assumption.
Seattle romped to a 5-1 victory over the Diamondbacks, securing consecutive series victories for just
the second time all season. Woo was hellacious out of the gate, getting Ketel Marte to line out to right on the very first pitch of the game before deploying his familiar fastball-heavy repertoire to record five straight strikeouts – though not without a sprinkle of secondary offerings, as he froze Geraldo Perdomo on a painted down-and-away slider to end the first and undressing rookie center fielder Ryan Waldschmidt on a 1-2 sweeper to put the second to bed. Despite D’Backs starter Ryne Nelson working a tidy bottom of the first thanks to a first-pitch Julio Rodríguez double play erasing a leadoff knock from J.P. Crawford, Luke Raley and Dominic Canzone each made statement blasts to put the Mariners up 2-0 in the second.
That would ultimately be all the Mariners and Woo would need, but they weren’t done just yet. Woo set down the side on order in the third, and opened the fourth by dispatching Marte on strikes over three pitches to lead off the first on a slider and a pair of sweepers. After sitting down Corbin Carroll and Perdomo on a combined six pitches, this time letting his fielders get in on the fun with a respective 4-3 groundout and an easy fly ball to Julio, some buzz was starting to make the rounds that we could be seeing something truly special, and I’m not just talking about the fact that Woo just three combined four-seamers and sinkers to kick off the second time through Arizona’s order.
Not to be outdone just yet, Seattle’s bats struck once again in the bottom of the third. Colt Emerson led off the frame, whiffing on a fastball up in the zone before spitting on a pair of cutters and a second four-seam to work the count to 3-1. Nelson retaliated with a third fastball down and in, but this one caught juuuust a bit too much of the plate, and Colt earned the first barrel of his fledging big league career.
J.P. smacked a flyout to center field for the first out, but Julio climbed in with a vengeance. Fouling off a first-pitch four seamer, he let an outside slider pass him by before ambushing a sinker that hung at the top of the zone to complete the homage to Jason Bay and extend his single-month home run record to an even ten. And let me tell you, the joint was jumpin’.
Hopes of the unbelievable were briefly dashed when it appeared that Woo hit Gabriel Moreno on an 0-1 fastball to lead off the fifth, but a savvy challenge from the Mariners bench revealed it was all knob, and Moreno went down on strikes four pitches later. Sadly, they were dashed for real when Adrian Del Castillo reached out for a 1-2 sweeper that was just a bit too up and flicked it into center field for Arizona’s first baserunner. Booooo. He would be replaced by Waldschmidt thanks to a fielder’s choice, but Ildemaro Vargas struck with a clean base hit to put runners on first and second with two outs for the only remote threat the Snakes would put up. One quick mound visit later, and Woo sat down José Fernández – filling in for Nolan Arenado at the hot corner tonight – with a called third strike on a backdoor sinker that would make Eduard Bazardo blush.
The M’s would tack on their fifth and final run thanks to a Cole Young sacrifice fly in the sixth that scored Raley from third, and while Woo didn’t quite make it to double-digit strikeouts, he finished off his outing with two perfect frames in the sixth and seventh, ending his outing with nine strikeouts to zero walks, which he took time to opine on. “I think that was a big point of mine today, to set the pace of the game, be on the offense. Last couple starts, just too many walks. It feels like anytime you have walks, especially early in the innings, it slows the pace of the game down and makes it tough on the defense to stay locked in, so just trying to be on attack and keep the defense engaged in the game, then everybody’s focus is just that much sharper and you give them the opportunities to make the plays. You slow the game down on your own end with walks and long innings and it makes it harder to stay engaged like that.”
Most notably, he mixed in his slider and sweeper with aplomb once the fourth inning hit, clocking in at sub-50% four-seam usage for just the second time all season. The Diamondbacks are notoriously a strong team at hitting fastballs, but Woo was apparently none the wiser. “Honestly I had no idea that they hit fastballs well. [laughs] Just sticking with my plan. When it comes down to it that’s what I want to do, stick to my strengths and what I’m doing. If it ends up that we start a game and it’s not working out, then I’ll make my adjustments, but for the most part, just go out with my Plan A.” He also took some time to shout out Mitch Garver behind the plate tonight for the game plan: “Garv was great, he was fantastic back there. The fastball was really good, established it early, but as we got into guys’ second or third at-bats, just keeping them off-balance and giving them stuff that they hadn’t seen yet, and later getting some quick outs, which was nice.” Dan Wilson concurred, adding: “I thought he and Garv worked a master plan tonight. You got to give Garv some credit back there to push the right buttons, and Bryan did the rest. He executed every pitch.”
With the game pretty firmly in hand, the M’s turned to their pair of lower leverage arms. Cooper Criswell worked around a leadoff single that snuck through the 5.5 hole (fun fact: Criswell is running a ground ball rate north of 60% and career-best swinging strike and walk rates. Keep the Criswell unfurled!) for a scoreless eighth, but hopes of a shutout were once again dashed in the ninth. Perdomo worked a two-out walk from Alex Hoppe – the only walk of the game for either team – and took second on defensive indifference before scoring all the way from there on a wild pitch when it became apparent that Hoppe wasn’t making even a vague gesture towards home plate. Whoops. Not that at it really mattered, as one pitch later, he induced a groundout from Moreno to secure a five-game winning streak and back-to-back series wins for the first time in a month.
The Mariners will look to lock down a second straight series sweep to cap off a raucous ’90s weekend tomorrow afternoon, deploying the Bryce Miller/Luis Castillo one last time before temporarily shelving it once they kick off grueling thirteen games in thirteen games stretch – including a three-city East Coast road trip – this coming Friday. While they are guaranteed to hold first place heading into June, let’s get greedy. Let’s see Ernie in the chart tomorrow. Let’s leave .500 behind for good.
