Woo's career-high 13 K's fuel Mariners' momentum

SEATTLE -- The reality of playing on the West Coast -- with their foes all playing three time zones over at the moment -- is that the Mariners go into their evening games knowing exactly how things stand when they take the field.

For the second straight night, Seattle took the field Saturday knowing that Houston and Texas had both won handily. The Mariners’ options were to keep riding the highwire, or lose a vital step going into the final 15 days of the season.

Bryan Woo made sure that, for the second straight night, it would be the option that a packed crowd at T-Mobile Park wanted to see, turning in a career-high 13 strikeouts in six innings to lead the Mariners to a 5-3 win over the Angels. It stretched Seattle’s winning streak to eight games and kept it tied atop the AL West standings and two games ahead of the Rangers for the final Wild Card spot – though now they're also tied with Boston for the second Wild Card spot.

“This is the time where you want to get hot,” manager Dan Wilson said. “This is the time where you want to play well. And these guys are doing it. It’s been a great stretch here.”

The win ran Woo’s home record this season to 10-2, making him the first pitcher to reach 10 wins at T-Mobile Park since Félix Hernández had 11 in 2015 and the seventh since the ballpark at First Avenue and Atlantic Street opened in the middle of the 1999 season. Of those seven, Woo's 2.40 ERA at home this season is second only to Hernández’s 2.07 ERA in 2014.

Woo ran into one spot of trouble in the second, allowing a solo home run, a 10-pitch walk and back-to-back two-out singles that made it 2-2 and sent him back to the dugout on 44 pitches. He finished his night by retiring the next 13 Angels he faced on 56 pitches.

And when he got another chance for a shutdown inning, he didn’t falter again. After J.P. Crawford gave Seattle a 3-2 lead with a solo home run in the bottom of the fourth, Woo went back to the mound and got through the next frame on just nine offerings.

“We’ve talked about how big momentum is this time of year,” Wilson said. “When you score, you really want to shut them down, and Bryan was able to do that.”

When Josh Naylor added two more runs with a bases-loaded single -- after fouling off seven straight 0-2 pitches -- in the fifth, Woo came back in the sixth and struck out the side, ending his night by getting Jo Adell to whiff on a sweeper before walking off to a standing ovation.

That sweeper was an unusually effective tool for the right-hander; the Angels swung at 12 of them on the night, and whiffed 10 times. Prior to Saturday, Woo had never gotten more than seven whiffs with his sweeper, and hadn’t gotten more than five since the 2023 season.

“I think it’s just been developing over time,” Woo said. “It’s a huge confidence pitch for me. As long as I’ve got a good mindset with it, it can be as good as any.”

Woo, who started the season by setting the franchise record with 25 consecutive six-inning starts, has shown he can be as dominant as any pitcher in the league. But Saturday took him to new heights, pushing into double-digits in strikeouts for the first time after matching his previous career high of nine -- set in his third career start -- five separate times this season.

“It’s one of those things you don’t shoot for; it’s the result of doing things the right way, consistently over time,” Woo said. “These types of games just kind of develop themselves after you do it enough. But it was nice to get over the hump after sitting at nine for so long.”

Ending his night with the three-strikeout flourish in the sixth, Woo became the third Seattle starter to reach 13 punchouts this season, joining George Kirby (who had 14 in Anaheim on June 8) and Logan Gilbert (who had 13 vs. the A’s on Aug. 24) and making the Mariners the first team since 2018 to have three separate pitchers do so.

“As a staff, we know how good we can be,” Woo said. “We’ve been saying it all along: As long as guys stay healthy and we can get that momentum going at the right time of the year, we’re as good as anybody.”

Now, it’s up to the Mariners to keep the momentum going, with the chance to wrap up a perfect homestand Sunday before heading off to their final -- and most consequential -- road trip. Once again, they’ll do so after the Astros and Rangers have finished their respective East Coast matchups, with everything in front of them.

“It’s really starting to feel like fall baseball,” Wilson said. “And that’s exciting.”