A tale of two vibes: Mariners defeat Phillies, 10-2

Bryan Woo turns in longest start of big-league career as Mariners open long homestand with dominant win

Going into this series, the Mariners and Phillies were both teetering at an inflection point, division leaders (or former division leaders) looking to turn around a recent stretch of bad baseball. The Phillies are 3-7 over their last ten games, but still comfortably atop the NL East; meanwhile in the AL West, the Mariners are clinging by their fingernails to the top or near-top or slightly below the cliff edge on any given day, but have found themselves some new energy with some impactful trade deadline (and, in the case of Victor Robles, pre-deadline) acquisitions. Tonight it was the Mariners who seized that energy and ran with it, walloping the Phillies 10-2 (with those two runs, it should be said, scored fully in garbage time).

The party at T-Mobile Park started long before the evening’s drone show when Victor Robles snapped a string of 15 consecutive scoreless innings for Phillies starter Tyler Phillips on the very first pitch of the game:

What Daniel doesn’t include there is the trot around the bases Statcast, which featured an immediate dugout point, a salsa step around first, and a double-touch of home plate. We better be shipping in some extra gallons of milk for the coming months for our tender PNW palates because these Mariners are spicy.

Luke Raley, admittedly, is a very funny contrast to follow that sentence, because our strapping Midwest lunchpail-mindset lad is about as spicy as pickle relish on a hot dog eaten at the state fair, but this home run in the second inning was very spicy indeed, coming off the bat at a scorching 115.4 mph and traveling 459 feet. Four hundred fifty nine feet. That’s tied for the second-longest home run by a Mariner at T-Mobile Park in the Statcast era (tied with Nelson Cruz, good company to be in), with of course Big Mike Zunino well ahead of the pack with 470 (the June 29 2018 blast that gave us the legendary Nelson Cruz gif; listed at the time at a petite 454 feet but apparently adjusted with better tools).

That’s some rare air, and while you will look at that pitch and notice that’s an Absolutely Terrible Place to throw a 93 mph fastball to Luke Raley, Luke earned himself that fastball by working ahead in the count, 2-1. See what happens when we work ahead in counts, fellas? Also, that homer was a three-run jobby thanks to Dylan Moore working a one-out walk and Mitch Haniger smacking (108.3 EV!) a line drive single off Phillips, for whom there would be no complete game shutout tonight, to put two on ahead of Raley. Both Scott Servais and Raley spoke to the improved quality of the at-bats tonight.

“I’m not the only guy that’s been fighting to get on time, and I see a lot of guys starting to come out of it and have better at bats,” said Raley. “Obviously you’re not going to go out there and get a hit every time, but just the quality of the at-bats, you can just tell that people are on time and the misses are better. You know, it’s not fouling things off back side or being late, it’s like foul balls straight back that you’re on time for, you just miss a little bit.”

The trouble didn’t stop there for Phillips, experiencing a polar opposite from the game where he’d held off the wily Guardians—a contact-happy, hittarific group—keeping them off the scoreboard for nine innings. Victor Robles bounded a two-out hit on a sweeper well off the plate for a base hit, because when you’re hot you’re hot but when you’re Victor Robles right now you’re incandescent, and then Randy Arozarena and Cal Raleigh each worked walks to load the bases, because see what happens when you’re patient in the box and make the pitcher come to you? With the bases loaded, that brought up the Mariners’ lesser-heralded trade deadline acquisition, noted Professional Hitter Justin Turner, who immediately gave the crowd at T-Mobile Park a reason to cheer loudly for him all homestand:

“You just see the professionalism in his at-bats,” said Servais postgame about his newly-acquired slugger. “Looking for pitches, knowing what the situation calls for...you’ve already seen that rub off on some other guys.”

As you might expect, Turner’s blast ended Phillips’s night at just 54 pitches. That left manager Rob Thomson having to push some pitchers around, and he did (and he did), patchworking together the rest of the game with a handful of relievers who managed to cap the damage, allowing just another two runs between the four of them. The Mariners actually had a chance to do a fair amount of damage against Yunior Marte, who loaded the bases twice in one inning, but the Mariners were just able to small-ball a run off him thanks to Josh Rojas’s resurgent ability to put the ball in play.

The other run was a bit more dramatic:

But the Mariners really didn’t even need all those runs, overstocked on them like the toilet paper-hoarders of 2020 (you know who you are), because Bryan Woo was absolutely stingy tonight. Woo carved through Philadelphia’s lineup, daring the aggressive Phillies hitters, who swung early and often, helping Woo to make it through a career-high seven complete innings.

The first time through the order, six of the nine Phillies hitters offered at Woo’s first pitch, resulting in three strike ones and three balls in play, with two hits. Woo continued to attack them on the plate, however, not wavering from his commitment to first-pitch strikes: he faced 26 hitters over his seven innings and threw first-pitch strikes to 19 of them.

“If you put a good swing on the ball first pitch and you make good contact and you get a hit, good for you,” said Woo postgame. “I’m not going to change what I’m trying to do. I’m still going to stay aggressive...I’m not trying to change too much from what I think my strength is.”

With all that weak contact, Woo wound up with just nine whiffs tonight on the 90 pitches he threw, but he made those whiffs count: four of them ended in strike three swings, with two of them elevated four-seamers to Bryce Harper, who had two of Woo’s six strikeouts tonight.

What’s most impressive about Woo’s evening is the way he stayed on the attack all night, even when given a large lead.

“I still have to do my job and put up zeroes,” he said matter-of-factly postgame. “No matter what the score is or whatever, I have to keep going.”

“I think it means a lot to me to be able to do that [staying calm and composed] over a distance of however many innings, but doing it the whole way through, not letting off in the six or seven or whatever, just being consistent and staying focused on that the whole way through.”

But waht did mean a lot to Woo, obviously emotional and fired up coming off the mound after the end of the seventh, to be able to contribute in a way his rotation-mates have been doing all season.

“It’s been a tough year just watching the rest of the staff do what they’ve been doing and staying healthy and just being horses. That’s all I’m really trying to do is just contribute that and be that for the team.”

“And to finally feel like I’m doing something like that, it feels good.”

The feels were very good at T-Mobile Park tonight; the Mariners now have a long homestand to show they can keep bringing this energy and seizing the good momentum going forward.