There’s a baseball cliche when a pitcher has an OK night but still takes the L: “He just made the one mistake, and it got punished.” It’s tempting to tag that to Bryan Woo in tonight’s 7-3 loss to the Tigers, but I’m not so sure it’s true.
The pitch you’d want to pin that canard to is the slider that Kerry Carpenter took into the seats in the bottom of the third. After all, Woo left it right in the lefty loop zone.
The thing is, though: despite being a modern lefty slugger, Carpenter isn’t really a lefty-loop-zone guy. He’s more dead red, with his power output declining in nearly perfect concentric circles the farther you get from middle-middle. If anything, he’s a little better up and out rather than down and in. So I’m declaring this pitch not a “just the one mistake” pitch from Woo, notwithstanding the result.
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What’s more, I no longer hold Mariners pitchers responsible for what Kerry Carpenter does to them. Including the postseason, Carpenter has a .346 wOBA against all the other 28 clubs for his career. That’s Brandon Lowe’s career number. After today’s game, he’s at .475 against the Mariners. That’s Lou Gehrig. For whatever reason, it’s his manhandling of Seattle’s pitchers that’s propping up the Kerry Bonds nickname.
So that pitch is off the hook. How about the other 89? In one sense, they went pretty well, with seven strikeouts and no walks. And the Tigers’ ten hits benefited from some good BABIP fortune, including a ball that Julio Rodríguez let drop in front of him, which is at least an excuse to link to Ryan’s excellent piece from this morning. The rub came in Woo’s last inning. Trying to get through a full seven innings, he just had to get through the bottom of the lineup for a third time. But he couldn’t do it, leaving the game with the bases loaded on a triplet of singles, two of which were hard hits off the sinker.
I know I’m becoming sort of obsessive about this—and that Woo’s been great lately—but it gives me pause. He only used three sinkers in his first time through the order. As he ran out of tricks the third time through, he went to it more often, and the Mariners paid the price. He did get three whiffs on the 13 sinkers he threw over the course of the game, but those final ones leave an aftertaste that infects my impression of the whole performance. I don’t want to overstate the issue, and it felt worse because Eduard Bazardo allowed two of those inherited runners to score. If he’d induced a double play, I’m sure I’d have an easier time letting this go. But until Woo’s sinker comes back, I’ll still be nervous. The situation is less “one mistake pitch” and more “one mistake pitch type.”
Tonight’s Sun Hat Award goes to J.P. Crawford, his first since 2023. He was the early favorite for kicking off a string of opposite-field singles—precisely the way to get to Tigers starter Framber Valdez—that scored the Mariners a run in the first half inning. Still, I grimaced when he scored that run on an uncomfortable-looking slide into home plate and hobbled back to the dugout. No matter! His body held up enough to pull off a web gem in the second inning. I don’t know what to make of it, but it’s undeniable at this point: J.P. has been playing his ass off at shortstop since he volunteered to eventually move over to third base.
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Still, I grimaced when he was slow to get up, and not in an I’m-milking-this way. No matter! His body held up well enough for him to work a full count in his next at-bat and win the battle by getting on base a second time. Still, I grimaced when the reason he reached was that he took a pitch to the hand. Matter! He did not return to the game. Mercifully the x-rays came back negative. (The HBP was probably unintentional, but please just kick Framber out of the league already.)
The Mariners threatened a few more times: Colt Emerson hit an oppo taco, checking off another first in his young career, but with nobody aboard. And Josh Naylor laid down a cheeky little bunt, but was left stranded. Maybe the Mariners will have more luck behind Bryce Miller, unshackled from the piggyback, tomorrow.
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