Woo keeps Mariners close, but offense sputters

PHOENIX -- Pitching against left-handers has been a challenge all season for Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo. Against a D-backs lineup that featured seven lefties, it wasn’t going to be an easy task.

But Woo went out in front of the Chase Field crowd and kept the Mariners in the game as he worked five innings, allowing three runs on seven hits. Ultimately, the Mariners fell, 4-3, to the D-backs.

The next step in the 23-year-old Woo’s career is to learn from every opportunity presented to him. Saturday night’s loss in the desert provided him with a new lesson.

“You’re not always going to have your best stuff,” Woo said. “You have to be able to compete, you have to be able to keep the team in the ballgame and in a position to win. It’s not always going to be pretty, you have to be able to get it done.”

Woo was able to get through the order the first time pretty cleanly, but the D-backs’ hitters adjusted to the rookie’s arsenal. In the fourth inning, Woo gave up a one-run double to Christian Walker. In the next-at bat, rookie Dominic Canzone singled in Walker to cut the Mariners' lead to 3-2. In the fifth, Alek Thomas led off with a triple before Carson Kelly brought him home on a single.

“I kind of was just making it hard on myself, falling behind counts, making dumb mistakes, being ahead with two strikes,” Woo said. “They made their adjustments, but I still think that it's more things that I can control than things that they were doing.”

One thing Woo was in control of was his pitch selection. Mariners manager Scott Servais said before the game that he was hoping Woo would incorporate his cutter and changeup more, but out of Woo’s 76 pitches, eight of them were cutters and only one was a changeup.

Woo said there wasn’t really a reason why he was more reserved with those pitches, but looking back at it, he wished he used them a little bit more. His goal is to gain confidence in those pitches to throw them in the zone and rely on them when he has two strikes.

When asked about Woo’s changeup and cutter usage postgame, Servais said, “He tried to get a feel for it, and you need to have that other pitch to slow it down, because it doesn't matter how good your fastball is, if you can't slow it down a bit. You saw that as the game went on, they started timing them up a little bit. Again he is a young pitcher, he’s developing, he’s working on things. Tonight he just didn't have the consistent secondary pitches. It showed as you try to get through that lineup a second or third time.”

Woo did enough to keep the Mariners tied, but Seattle’s offense struggled. Getting runners on base wasn’t an issue. The hot-hitting Tom Murphy brought in two of the Mariners' three runs, one a sacrifice fly that plated Cal Raleigh, and one on a home run in the fourth inning. Eugenio Suárez also had a sacrifice fly in the third inning.

But the Mariners were 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position. At this point in the season, every run matters, especially in a tight AL Wild Card race.

“You’ve got to figure out a way to win these games,” Servais said. “We're right in there. We're doing a lot of good things offensively. Just getting the big hit late, we weren’t able to do that tonight. We have a chance to win this series tomorrow and finish up a really good road trip. We’ll see what happens.”