Rookie Bryan Woo bounces back from rough first start as Mariners hit Angels hard

ANAHEIM, Calif. — So, true, maybe the Mariners caught a break when Shohei Ohtani was called out on a pitch from lefty Gabe Speier that the Angels argued as vociferously as possible was a ball.

The Los Angeles Angels star argued so much about the the full-count pitch with two outs and runners on second and third in the fifth inning that his manager, Phil Nevin, was ejected when he came out to defend him.

Otherwise, this felt like a game that the Mariners — who beat the Angels 6-2 — deserved to win.

Rookie Bryan Woo had an impressive bounce-back start from his first major league outing a week ago, striking out seven in 4 2/3 innings, including Mike Trout twice, to give his club an early lift.

And the Mariners, who hit the ball hard all game in a 5-4 loss on Friday night, got the breaks this time around to pound out a season-high 16 hits (their previous high was 15 against the Red Sox on May 15). 

It all proved enough to get a Mariner team that had lost seven of their previous nine a much-needed win to improve to 31-32.

Woo, a 23-year-old, gave up six earned runs in two innings against Texas a week ago. This time, he showed why the Mariners drafted him in the sixth round in 2021 out of Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo.

Woo struck out Mickey Moniak on three pitches to start the game, got Ohtani to fly out to center after blowing a 96-mph fastball by him for strike out, then struck out Trout on a 95.9-mph fastball to end the first inning and set the tone.

In the second, Woo gave up a one-out walk to Matt Thaiss and went to a 2-0 count on the next batter, Brandon Drury. After a visit from catcher Tom Murphy, Woo struck out Drury on three straight — the last a swinging strike on a 95.8-mph sinker — and struck out Hunter Renfroe to end the inning.

It was the kind of game Mariners manager Scott Servais predicted might happen before the game and then was happy to see afterward

“Nice step forward,” Servais said. “That’s what he can do. He’s still young; he’s still learning. But a nice bounce back outing from him.”

What also helped was the Mariners giving Woo and the rest of the relievers an early lead, thanks in large part to another mammoth blast from Julio Rodriguez, who finished the game 3 for 5.

Following a J.P. Crawford single to lead off the their, Rodriguez fell behind 0-2 against Angels starter Patrick Sandoval. After taking two pitches for balls, he fouled off a slider and pounded an 85.3-mph changeup over the wall in left-center for his 12^th home run of the season to make it 2-0.

Ty France then doubled to left. Teoscar Hernandez followed with a grounder to short. As Angels shortstop Zach Neto dived for the ball, France ran in front of him. The ball just eluded Nato and France easily scored to make it 3-0.

Three runs in the inning marked as many as the Mariners had scored in five of its last eight games, all of which were losses.

Woo gave up his first hit to Neto with one out in the bottom of the third. With two outs, Woo got Ohtani to swing and miss at an 84-mile an hour slider. Woo tried it again, but this time to little — rather, absolutely no — avail as Ohtani crushed an 84.2-mph slider into the right-field seats to make it 3-2. 

But Woo wasn’t deterred, coming back to strike out Trout on five pitches to end the inning, the kind of competitiveness Servais said before the game he expected Woo to show this time around.

“A lot of it was making my adjustments from the last outing,” Woo said. “Learning from it, building off of it. A really good step in the right direction.”

The Mariners scored two more in the fourth, getting the kind of breaks they hadn’t on Friday night, when it seemed every hard-hit ball went right to an Angel defender.

Eugenio Suarez reached on a blooper, A.J. Pollock singled to left, and Murphy drove one to right to score a run.

Crawford lined one hard up the middle that just eluded the grasp of Neto and bring home Pollock and make it 5-2.

Then came the game’s crucial battle.

In the fifth, the Angels got two on when Gio Urshela singled with one out and Mickey Moniak followed an out later with a ground-rule double off Woo.

Servais replaced the right-handed Woo with lefty Speier to face the left-handed Ohtani.

After falling behind 1-2 Ohtani worked the count to 3-2 and fouled off two pitches before looking at an 84.2-mph slider that home-plate umpire Phil Cuzzi called a strike, even if the Angels argued it was a little low and out of the zone. 

With right-handers Trout and Rendon to follow, Speier said he didn’t want to walk Ohtani.

“I wanted to get him there,” he said. “I knew I needed to make a good pitch. Walking him was not in my mind. It was a close pitch and it worked in my favor.”

Said Servais: “Tough at-bat against one of the hottest hitters in the league. Ohtani is on it. You’ve got to execute and make pitches. He got ahead in the count and then all of the sudden he looked up and it’s 3-2 and you’re fighting for your life. He didn’t want to face the next couple of guys behind him. You can’t to get that guy out. Credit to him he made a pitch.”

And whether the Angels may argue into the night about the call, it was a badly needed win for the Mariners, who send Logan Gilbert to the mound Sunday to try to get a much-needed series win.

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