SEATTLE \u2013 What lingers as one of the great hypothetical questions in Mariners history \u2014 what if Bryan Woo was healthy last October? \u2014 also bleeds into the outlook for the Mariners this year.<\/p>\n
How good can they be with a full season of a fully healthy Bryan Woo?<\/p>\n
A year ago, Woo affirmed his place among the game\u2019s elite pitchers, posting a 2.94 ERA across a career-high 186.2 innings, with a 198-to-36 strikeout-to-walk ratio, earning his first All-Star selection and finishing fifth in the American League Cy Young voting.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old right-hander will make his first start of the season Saturday against Cleveland. By design, the Mariners scripted the rotation schedule to have Woo start the third game and thus give him an extra day\u2019s rest on Thursday, the team\u2019s first off-day.<\/p>\n
The Mariners had also delayed, by just a few days, his first start in spring training last month, trying to maximize his gradual build up after he missed most of the playoffs last October with a right pectoral strain. Woo had an 85-innings increase in his workload from 2024 to \u201925.<\/p>\n
Woo said this week he\u2019s feeling \u201cgreat\u201d physically, and no one has hinted any reason to think otherwise.<\/p>\n
The Mariners, though, will continue to be deliberate about finding time and space to give their youngest starter pockets of downtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsistency is really what I try to take the most pride in my job and my role in the team,\u201d Woo said. \u201cAnd if I can stay consistent with my plan and my routine week to week and all the little things that we do to get prepared for each start, just hitting those benchmarks every week \u2026 you just continue to raise your floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
The stability within the starting rotation \u2014 Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Luis Castillo, Bryce Miller and Woo are in their fourth season together, and Emerson Hancock has been a consistent presence, too \u2014 has built an open and trusting communication process between pitching coaches Pete Woodworth and Trent Blank and the training staff.<\/p>\n
Gilbert, Kirby and Miller all missed significant stretches with injuries during the regular season last year, and Miller began this season on the injured list with an oblique strain. The Mariners hope to have him back by May 1, and the team\u2019s goal is obviously to have a healthier season overall from the rotation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where I think Trent and \u2018Woody\u2019 excel, is figuring out who needs what, who benefits the most with the extra off-days, who benefits the most from pitch-count adjustments,\u201d club president Jerry Dipoto said.<\/p>\n
With prompting from catcher Cal Raleigh, Woo made meaningful changes to his between-starts routine midway through the 2024 season. The results were immediate, beginning his ascent as a staff ace.<\/p>\n
Since Aug. 1, 2024, Woo has thrown 254 innings across 41 starts, tied for the fifth most in MLB, with a 3.04 ERA that ranks ninth. He began last season with 25 consecutive starts of at least six innings, a franchise record.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe physical side of his (routine) was huge for him, but his emergence in the game isn\u2019t because of any physical adjustments,\u201d Woodworth said. \u201cHis \u2018stuff\u2019 isn\u2019t any different than it was in \u201923. The heart and the mind and the (fortitude) have gotten bigger. It\u2019s the grit and it\u2019s the consistency of your mindset.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about the right drill or the right amount of rest. It was him coming to terms with himself and pushing past wherever he was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woo\u2019s career ERA of 3.21 ranks as the best in Mariners history (among pitchers with at least 70 starts), and his overall strike rate (57.3%) and first-pitch strike rate (67.9%) also rank No. 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t have a bigger jump from where Bryan was as a (2021) draftee to where he is now,\u201d Dipoto said. \u201cIn five years, he\u2019s gone from kind of an unknown sixth-rounder coming off Tommy John (surgery) to one of the best pitchers in the American League. It\u2019s pretty incredible, and I don\u2019t think he\u2019s done getting better.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis intellect, his focus, his work habits \u2014 it\u2019s just on a different level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2013 What lingers as one of the great hypothetical questions in Mariners history \u2014 what if Bryan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-567548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}