GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- Whatever tension can exist in a Spring Training exhibition, it was mounting as Will Brennan stepped to the dish at Goodyear Ballpark in the fifth inning Tuesday.

Brennan’s Guardians, in the midst of a seven-game losing streak, had a one-run lead and had loaded the bases for him with two out. The Mariners gathered together at the mound to talk things over. Then, right-hander Sean Poppen, desperate to get out of the jam, went into his delivery.

That one pitch was all it took for Brennan to make his mark. He scorched a single to the right-hand side to score a pair in what would turn out to be a 4-1 victory for the home club.

Such results don’t count in Spring Training, but the hard hits that fall can stay with a player like Brennan, who is looking to assert himself in a camp crowded with young position players.

“There's a reason why they brought in so many guys,” Brennan said. “Lack of consistency in production last year. Now, only the strong will survive.”

Brennan believes he is strong enough to come through, and he showed it on this day, with not only that two-run single but also a double in his first at-bat. He’s also tripled and homered in the Cactus League, showing the kind of power that was basically absent in his first full season in the big leagues last year.

Brennan had burst onto the big league scene in late 2022, making his debut and then starting postseason games in a matter of a couple of weeks. But in 455 plate appearances last year, his .266/.299/.356 was muddled by some of the lowest barrel and hard-hit rates in MLB.

“Everyone's always looking for more power numbers,” he said, “but how or why are you going to get there? You have to be able to solve that. You have to change your identity, in a way.”

For the 26-year-old Brennan, the identity change comes down to a mechanical one. He lowered his hands to create an easier loading pattern to, hopefully, generate more power.

“We’ll see what happens this year,” he said. “But I feel like I’m in a great spot.”

Brennan also feels he’s in a better spot to handle the mental rigors of the big league season.

“The biggest thing is learning how to fail gracefully,” he said. “You’re gonna struggle in the big leagues. It’s the hardest league in the world. But you’ve got to show up the next day and not change anything. Last year, I got into trouble because I would try different things and search and then it would kind of cascade.”

Right now, the hits are cascading for Brennan, and that could place him among the strong who survive.

Williams gets his work
Gavin Williams’ sheer size (6-foot-6, 250 pounds) and extension gives him a good leg up on batters and the potential to overpower people with his explosive stuff. But now that he is a bona fide big leaguer, having made 16 starts for the Guards last year, the No. 23 overall pick from the 2021 Draft is learning how to keep that big body in check throughout the length of the long Major League season.

After Tuesday’s outing against the Mariners, in which he allowed a run on four hits with no walks and five strikeouts in 2 2/3 innings, Williams said he has “fixed” his windup. He no longer slides his left foot before raising his knee.

“Just being more fluent, really,” Williams said. “Not tilting back or making my head go back. Making my head as still as possible.”

The goal of this change is to maintain that above-average velocity both through the length of a start and the length of a season. Though his rookie year was undoubtedly a success (3.29 ERA, 127 ERA+ in 82 innings), Williams learned overpowering big league batters is a more difficult assignment. He struck out 12.1 batters per nine innings in Double-A and Triple-A last year. In MLB, that rate was reduced to 8.9.

“I’m still asking a lot of questions to a bunch of the veteran guys,” Williams said. “This is still my first [big league camp], so I’m getting the hang of everything, really.”

Tuesday’s start was also Williams’ first opportunity to throw to veteran catcher Austin Hedges, another step in his process of assimilating to life as a bona fide big leaguer.