Mariners drop mistake riddled loss to Twins to even series at a game each
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – Following last night’s win that got tight in the final inning, the Seattle Mariners kept that sort of edge of your seat feel going in this game early, as the two teams traded runs early with eight hits and five runs in the first inning combined. Totaling their hit total from yesterday’s win (seven) through just two innings, Seattle only tallied two more knocks in the final seven innings in yet another frustrating performance at the plate. Young right-hander Bryan Woo struggled mightily in his first outing of the second half, coming off ten days of rest that surely threw off any sort of rhythm that had been built up leading into the All-Star break. Seattle falls back to .500 even and are 2-3 on the ten homestand to this point.
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Bryan Woo struggled in his first start of the second half (Photos by Chris Lu)
Woo struggles in first outing of second half
In his first start of the second half, off some extended rest, young Seattle Mariners right-handed pitcher Bryan Woo had arguably the worst outing of his very young career in the big leagues. Battling with his first ever outing, back on June 3rd against the division leading Texas Rangers, Woo never seemed to hit a groove. It’s a tough circumstance for Woo and while it’s obvious that he’ll be frustrated, the deck wasn’t particularly stacked in his favor. These are new things that he’s adapting to, the longer rest while also trying to get used to an increased workload on top of the fact that he’s still developing his pitching arsenal and off-speed. While frustrating in the moment, I don’t expect an outing like this to hold Woo back from the growth that we’ve seen from him as the season has gone on.
Woo relied heavily on his fastball, with a smaller mixture of sinker and cutter with minimum usage of a slider and changeup. While his pitch velocity was up on all five of his pitch types, it wouldn’t mean much besides the fact that the Twins were able to get solid contact off him. With the eight hits that Woo allowed in this ballgame, he also added a wild pitch and hit a batter to really drive home how poor this outing was for the bay area native. And the funny thing is, those two latter notes of the wild and hit by pitch both came during the first inning. The two runs against in the first frame were a rough start, and his pitch count had gotten up, but the potential to shake that off was certainly there. Woo was unable to get his fastball established early, with the Twins putting it in play seven times, and it meant that when he pinpointed his off-speed pitches, they weren’t effective enough to fool Minnesota.
The Seattle Mariners offense started out hot, even with a few base running errors by Teoscar Hernandez and Ty France, before flailing the rest of the night (Photos by Chris Lu)
Hot start just a flash in the pan
The response that the Mariners offense had to the Twins two-run top of the first inning made it seem like Seattle was game and ready to go, picking up from where their bats had left off in yesterday’s win when they got all their production after the midway point of the game. Totaling their hit total of seven from the game last night through just two innings in tonight’s contest further seemed to say that things were going to go in favor of the Mariners with their bats heating up, and when you add the fact that Seattle was getting hard contact off Minnesota starter Bailey Ober? The green light was on and bright for the Mariners hitters, who proceeded to fall flat on their face after beginning the game in a sprint on offense.
After the first two innings showed signs of life, the Seattle bats flatlined for the rest of the night almost in some sort of protest of what they had accomplished in the last game. The Mariners went down in order in five of the remaining seven innings, putting out another lifeless display in front of their home crowd. After having barreled the ball up against Twins starter Bailey Ober in the first inning, Seattle seemed to be swinging toothpicks for the rest of the night as their strikeout and weak contact numbers continue at the plate. With nights like this, the Mariners offense continues to show that they are more than just one trade acquisition away from being a complete team. Seattle’s improvement needs to come from within, something that hasn’t fully materialized yet.
The Seattle Mariners bullpen saw Isaiah Campbell, Tayler Saucedo, and Ty Adcock deployed tonight (Photos by Chris Lu)
‘Pen report
The Seattle bullpen was in a bit of a bind from the jump tonight, considering that the team had to deploy five of their relief arms in last night’s victory. With a young Woo who hasn’t seen this sort of workload in his career to this point, plus the fact that he had been thrown out of the sort of rhythm that he’d been building, created the perfect storm for a Mariners pitching staff that’s largely carried this team throughout the course of this year, and the past three seasons. Manager Scott Servais stated pregame that the team was going to have to get creative and needed a strong outing from Woo if they were going to have things go their way tonight with the bullpen having been spent the night before, and the game did not in fact go their way.
Today, Servais and the coaching staff went with Isaiah Campbell, Tayler Saucedo, and Ty Adcock out of the bullpen, three pitchers who typically aren’t used in their high leverage situations. In tonight’s ballgame, Campbell was the only one of those three to not allow a hit or run, as he maintains his 0.00 ERA after being called up a few weeks ago with injuries to this bullpen. In some ways, you can look at this as a positive considering that the Mariners only used three of their relievers after their starter got off to a poor start, but this game was largely an uncompetitive one for Seattle after those first two innings and it felt like the right of the night was on cruise control even though the game lasted three hours.
Quick notes
The Mariners fell to the Twins tonight 10-3 in the second game of the series…the series is now tied at 1-1 and Seattle moves back to .500 on the season at 47-47.
The Mariners recorded 6 hits in the 1st inning for the first time since 5/21/22 @ BOS…it falls just 1 hit shy of the most hits recorded in an inning this season (7, 2x, last: 8th inning 6/23 @ BAL).
Eugenio Suárez went 1-for-3 with 1 home run, 2 RBI, 1 walk and 1 HBP in tonight’s game…he drove in the Mariners first runs of the evening to tie the game 2-2 in the 2nd inning.
With a 3-run home run in last night’s game, Suárez has now homered in back-to-back games for the first time this season…he had 5 such occurrences last year.
Suárez is also the 20th Mariner to hit a home run on their birthday (last: Mike Ford on 7/4 @ SF).
After reaching twice in tonight’s game, Suárez has recorded 41 games with 2+ times on base this year…he trails Julio Rodríguez (47) for the most games on the team this season.
Mike Ford picked up 2 hits on the night, including 1 double…it was his 7th multi-hit game of the year and 4th during this month.
Ford’s double was the hardest hit ball of the game at 111.1 MPH…it was also his hardest hit ball of the season.
During the month of July, Ford is batting .357 (15x42) with 5 doubles, 3 home runs, 9 RBI and 6 walks.
Jarred Kelenic extended his hitting streak to 6-consecutive games (7/9-c) following a single in the 1st inning…during his current hitting streak, Kelenic is batting .350 (7x20) with 3 doubles, 6 RBI and 1 walk…Kelenic’s season-high hitting streak is 10-games (last: 4/5-4/16).
Ty France picked up 1 double and 1 RBI…his double marked his 23rd of the season and his 3rd 3rd hardest hit double of the season (highest: 112.7 MPH on 6/3 vs. @ TEX)…he trails only Kelenic’s 24 doubles for the most by a Seattle hitter.
J.P Crawford picked up 1 hit and drew 1 walk tonight…his single in the 1st inning was his 13th leadoff hit of the season.
Crawford now has team-leading 54 walks on the year…entering today, he ranked 3rd in the American League and 9th among all hitters in the Majors in walks.
José Caballero picked up 1 double in the 2nd inning tonight…he has driven in 1 run in each game of the series so far.
The Mariners bullpen (Isaiah Campbell, Tayler Saucedo and Ty Adcock) combined for 5.2 innings pitched tonight and allowed 6 hits, 3 runs (3 ER), 2 walks and struck out 8…in 3 appearances this year, Campbell has not allowed a hit.
In his 3rd career start at T-Mobile Park tonight, Bryan Woo threw 3.1 innings and allowed 8 hits, 7 runs (6 ER), 3 walks, 2 home runs and struck out 4 over 87 pitches…it was his 2nd shortest outing of the season since his Major League debut on 6/3.
Tonight marked a new career-high in runs allowed (7) for Woo…he also tied his career-high in earned runs (6, last: 6/3 @ TEX), walks (3, 2x, last: 6/22 @ NYY) and home runs (2, last: 6/16 vs. CWS).
Prior to tonight’s outing, Woo had not pitched less than 5.0 innings in his last 5-consecutive starts (6/16-7/8).
Tonight was the 4th time this season the Mariners pitching staff has allowed 11+ runs in 2-or-more consecutive games.
Following tonight’s game, Cal Raleigh snapped a 7-game streak of starts where he reached base safely.
What’s next?
Following tonight’s loss that evens the series up at a game apiece, Seattle and Minnesota continue their four-game set tomorrow with a third straight 6:40PM PST first pitch game, as the Mariners celebrate international trading card day. The first 10,000 fans into T-Mobile Park will be getting a special pack of cards from Topps, and if you bought an exclusive ticket through the promotions link than you would be receiving a special Julio trading card shirt and access an exclusive trading card show on the rooftop boardwalk. Outside of the festivities of the game, Seattle will have their ace Luis Castillo on the mound, facing off against Minnesota’s Kenta Maeda. Maeda only pitched three innings in his last outing back on July 14th, so there’s potential for the Mariners offense to attack while he’s down.
