Woo's consistency to start season reminiscent of the Big Unit

ARLINGTON -- No starter in the Majors has been more reliable pitching deep into games than the Mariners’ Bryan Woo.

Woo delivered his 16th straight start of at least six innings on Saturday afternoon, something that hasn’t been done to begin a season in franchise history since Hall of Famer Randy Johnson opened the 1993 season with 20 starts of at least six innings.

Unfortunately for Woo and the Mariners, the terrific start didn’t produce a victory, as the Rangers pulled out a 3-2, 10-inning win at Globe Life Field. But Woo’s stretch of consistency shouldn’t be overlooked, as he’s the only pitcher in the Majors this season with 16 straight starts of at least six innings.

“Honestly, just trying to do my job,” said Woo, who entered the season with 17 career starts of at least six innings over his first two seasons combined.

“My job is to go deep in games. My job is to take some [of the] workload off the bullpen. I feel like the way that I approach pitching and the way that I approach games, if I do my job correctly, it's efficient and gives me the opportunity [to go deep]. So I just have to do the little things right consistently, and then those opportunities come.”

Woo finished the game with a career-high-tying nine strikeouts, which also matched his season high, set in his previous start against the Twins on Monday.

Woo opened with two scoreless innings, generating nine whiffs. That matched his most whiffs in the first two innings of a start this season, along with his May 7 start at the Athletics.

It looked like things were continuing to roll in the third inning, when he got Josh Smith to hit a grounder to short with two outs. However, Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford had an uncharacteristic throwing error, bouncing the ball to first as Donovan Solano couldn’t come up with it.

“That’s baseball. J.P. is so dependable at shortstop,” manager Dan Wilson said. “That stuff is going to happen from time to time.”

The error kept the Rangers’ inning alive, bringing up slugger Corey Seager. Seager capitalized, turning on Woo’s 2-1 slider and sending it into the right-field seats.

“The pitch to Corey, I thought, was a good pitch,” Woo said. “He put a pretty good swing on it. He tends to do that a lot.”

Seager has given Woo problems throughout his career, as he is now 6-for-9 with two home runs and seven RBIs against him.

Woo rebounded after the home run. He retired 10 of the final 12 batters he faced, a stretch that included six strikeouts, and exited with the game tied at 2.

“Overall, I felt pretty good,” Woo said. “I feel like I got better as this game went on. I always like those outings.”

Woo also liked how he was able to mix in his sweeper.

“[The sweeper] is predicated on getting ahead and establishing the fastball,” he said. “As soon as you get ahead and you get them sped up, then you have a lot of opportunities with it. ... I really liked where it was today, felt like I had good command of it, movement was good. So hopefully just keep incorporating it a little more as we go on.”

In the end, the Mariners expect to win more often than not when Woo delivers the type of performance he did on Saturday. It simply just didn’t happen on a day the offense struggled to get much going against Rangers starter Kumar Rocker. The Mariners finished 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

“Our guys fought, that’s what they do,” Wilson said. “Just not able to get on top of this one today. I thought Bryan Woo threw the ball really well, he looked strong for six innings and got us deep into the game. We were hoping to get deep, and he took us deep. … Tough one to swallow, but we get a chance to win the series [on Sunday].”