The Seattle Mariners have had plenty of stellar pitching performances throughout this season, but Bryan Woo may have had the best yet in Wednesday’s 5-2 win over the San Diego Padres.

Drayer: The gloves are off for Mariners’ Bryan Woo

The second-year right-hander took a perfect game into the seventh inning – no hits, no walks, no baserunners whatsoever. It wasn’t broken up until Fernando Tatis Jr. lasered a home run into the left-field corner, which perhaps not coincidentally came right after Woo had to spend nearly 20 minutes in the dugout while the Mariners added on a pair of runs against two separate Padres pitchers in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Woo was taken out before making it through the seventh, putting a few blemishes on his final line (6 2/3 innings, two earned runs, one walk, five strikeouts) in a game where he was, for the most part, completely dominant.

Wednesday was far from the first time Woo has grabbed attention this season, which has been quite the breakout campaign for the 24-year-old former sixth-round MLB Draft pick. He currently owns a 2.38 ERA, 0.823 WHIP and 8-2 record in 19 starts (105 2/3 innings) with 82 strikeouts to just 10 walks, essentially putting himself among the game’s elite pitchers despite missing time at the beginning of the season with elbow inflammation and having a short stint on the injured list with a hamstring strain along the way.

It’s all pretty incredible considering Woo was a little-known pitcher in Seattle’s farm system just two years ago who had an unimpressive college career (his ERA in his final season with Cal-Poly in 2021 was 6.11). But the Mariners saw something in his makeup and have helped him nurture it, and that’s all a big part of why he was the story around the league on Wednesday night.

“The way Woo was cooking last night, man, that was pretty amazing,” Mariners broadcaster Aaron Goldsmith said Thursday morning to Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk. “With the exception of, like, one catch by (Randy) Arozarena, it was pretty effortless for Bryan Woo. That was awesome. It was fun to watch.”

‘A much different look’

Goldsmith dove into what he’s learned about why Woo has been so mysterious to opposing hitters.

“It is really fun to try to figure out. I don’t know if any of us have the exact answer, but I can tell you a couple of ingredients I think for Woo,” he said. “One is he just has a really unique delivery. He has among the very lowest release points in baseball, and different is good. I think we all know that. Different is very good, in fact, in baseball, and he’s an outlier in that standpoint of just how low the ball is when it gets released from his arm, from his hand. So it’s a much different look.”

It’s not just Woo’s unique armslot that makes him so hard to figure out. The ease in how he delivers a pitch, his ability to throw strikes at a high rate, and baseball’s pitch clock make for a lethal combination.

“I can’t speak to this myself, but I’ve talked to enough guys who have been in the batter’s box and they all say the same thing, and that is when your mechanics are that smooth and that easy, the ball does jump on you more,” Goldsmith continued. “When it looks like it should be coming out at 91 mph but it comes out of anywhere from 94 to 97, it pops. So you’ve got the release point, plus how smooth it is, plus the fact that – and there’s a number of guys for the Mariners who are like this – he is just kind of the ultimate on-the-prowl pitcher. He just keeps pumping strikes; he’s not a nibbler.

“So when you look at a guy who throws basically more strikes than any other starter – I mean he’s right there in the top five (in MLB), at some points this season has been No. 1 in that category – I think the pitch clock really helps a guy like that because from a hitter standpoint there is no relief. You cannot call time multiple times and step out and try to slow his rhythm down, so when he gets in a groove like that, you feel like you have to start swinging early because if you don’t, you’re behind 0-2. And so you get a lot of quick outs a lot of times for Bryan Woo. He’s really special. It’s very unique.”

Woo did add one extra thing to the combination Wednesday night, however, so maybe that’s why he was all the more unhittable against the Padres.

Must’ve been the cleats 🥷 https://t.co/OwoOidY8CA

— Bryan Woo (@BJW002) September 12, 2024

Hear the full Brock and Salk conversation with Seattle Mariners broadcaster Aaron Goldsmith in the podcast at this link or in the player near the top of this post.

Hyphen’s take on Bryan Woo

Just a few hours later Thursday on Seattle Sports, former Mariners pitcher and current MLB Network analyst Ryan Rowland-Smith talked about Woo when he joined Bump and Stacy.

Rowland-Smith shared what stood out to him from Woo’s performance on Wednesday night.

“It’s September, you’re reaching 20 starts, it’s that point where it’s like OK, the league starts to catch up to you – especially when you’re as good as he is, the numbers he’s putting up,” Rowland-Smith said. “So all of a sudden people start catching on the fact that, alright, this guy’s gonna be in the strike zone a ton. Not to mention the team he’s pitching against is literally the toughest team to strike out and to avoid contact against, especially the second, third time through the lineup.”

Rowland-Smith liked that Woo didn’t stray from his plan even as his strikeouts tapered off the more the Padres saw him.

“The most impressive thing for me was he was getting some swing and miss early on, then he didn’t, but he didn’t start getting away from the plate. You know, he didn’t start getting into these 2-1 counts cause he’s trying to avoid contact. That’s the one thing with Bryan Woo, man, he’s just so settled in the fact that, ‘You know what? I’m gonna have this upshoot fastball on the top of the strike zone and the hitters are just gonna make weak contact.’ And he just leans into that so heavily – he’s 80% fastballs last night, and you know the results just speak from themself. So really, really impressive.”

Listen to the full Bump and Stacy conversation with MLB Network analyst Ryan Rowland-Smith at this link or in the podcast below.

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Hundreds of people gathered at a Seattle beach on Wednesday for a vigil in memory of the Turkish-American human rights activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot and killed by the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank. Friends and family have called for an independent investigation into the incident, which the US and Turkish governments have criticised. Israel’s military acknowledged that one of its soldiers killed Eygi but said it was unintentional

Boeing faces a potentially crippling strike in the Seattle region, depending on how 33,000 workers vote Thursday on a new contract that has angered many employees despite solid wage gains.

Led by new CEO Kelly Ortberg, the embattled aviation giant had hoped a 25 percent wage hike over four years and a commitment to invest in the Puget Sound region would avert a strike at a time when Boeing remains financially weak after myriad crises.

But while the preliminary contract won an endorsement from leaders of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District 751, the response from much of the rank-and-file has been harsh.

Broadcast reports in the Seattle region have featured footage of line workers who hold daily rallies on the factory floor and call the wage hikes inadequate in light of inflation.

A Sunday posting on the IAM’s Facebook page announcing the deal was removed after drawing hundreds of comments, with many condemning the deal or calling for a strike.

A strike would shutter Boeing production assembly plants for the 737 MAX and 777, further delaying the company’s turnaround efforts.

Among the major points of contention, the wage hike falls short of the 40 percent IAM had sought, and the new deal fails to reinstate pensions.

IAM President Jon Holden told members what happens next is up to union members.

“We have achieved everything we could in bargaining, short of a strike,” Holden said in a message to workers.

“We recommended acceptance because we can’t guarantee we can achieve more in a strike,” Holden said. “But that is your decision to make and is a decision that we will protect and support, no matter what.”

Stephanie Pope, president of Boeing’s commercial plane division, said the contract delivers the largest-ever wage hike despite the company’s $60 billion in debt. The pledge to the Puget Sound region is an “unprecedented commitment” to the area.

In a statement Wednesday evening Ortberg warned against a strike, saying it would “put our shared recovery in jeopardy, further eroding trust with our customers and hurting our ability to determine our future together.”

The new contract is a “hard sell,” said aviation website Leeham News. “The deal makes progress in the areas IAM members identified as priorities, but falls short of the union’s stated goals in most of them.”

Leeham predicted the contract would fail to win a majority vote, but said it was unclear whether critics of the deal would win a two-thirds majority on a second question of whether to strike.

If the contract fails to win a majority but a strike vote also falls short, the contract offer is accepted by default, according to IAM rules.

In an interview with the Seattle Times published Monday, Holden said, “Right now, I think it will be voted down, and our members will vote to strike.”

Advantage: labor?

Boeing has been under renewed scrutiny since a January incident in which a fuselage panel blew out of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX plane mid-flight, necessitating an emergency landing.

That revived questions about safety and quality control after the company had seemingly made progress following deadly MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019.

The aerospace giant in March announced a management shakeup that included the exit of Dave Calhoun as CEO. It has also slowed production on the MAX as it beefs up quality control.

Ortberg, who took the helm on August 8, has pledged a “reset” on labor relations as part of a turnaround.

The IAM talks come on the heels of a more assertive labor movement as embodied by strikes at Detroit’s “Big Three” and John Deere, and a near-strike at UPS that was resolved with a last-minute deal with the Teamsters.

“The power balance has shifted in favor of workers,” said Cornell University labor relations expert Harry Katz, who noted that Boeing’s position has been weakened by “turmoil and management problems.”

Andrew Hedden, associate director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington, said strikes have become common at Boeing since 1970s.

Hedden said the company’s pledge for new investment, while encouraging, did not completely settle concerns about Boeing’s long-term footprint in Seattle because the contract is only four years long.

“There’s still work to do for the union and for the people in Washington state to make sure the company holds to that,” Hedden said.

© 2024 AFP