ARLINGTON, Texas – Hands on his hips, Bryan Woo lingered in the middle of the pitcher’s mound, looking out toward center field with a stilted blank stare after allowing a fifth run early in Saturday’s game.
As Woo wrestled with another baffling road start, it would be impossible for someone else to articulate exactly what the Mariners’ right-hander was feeling in that moment. Anger? Confusion? Disbelief? Dejection?
It’s probably safe to suggest it’s some combination of all the above, and it’s also probably safe to suggest the rest of his Mariners teammates were feeling much the same after yet another listless loss, 7-1, to the Texas Rangers to continue their most demoralizing stretch of the season Saturday night.
The Mariners (51-54) have lost four in a row to fall 2.5 games back of the Rangers (53-51) for the AL West lead, and the search for meaningful answers carries on for team that had eagerly embraced World Series aspirations coming into this year.
“We’re a way better team than what we’re playing like this whole year, and we all know that,” veteran infielder J.P. Crawford said. “It’s definitely frustrating. But we can’t do anything about the past, so we’ve just got to keep working hard to get going and finish where we need to finish.”
The M’s are 0-5 now here at Globe Life Field this season, 21-31 on the road and have lost the first two games of a defining weeklong road trip that still features a stop in Los Angeles to play baseball’s best team.
Even more ominous, the M’s dropped to third place in the division behind the Houston Astros (52-54), who have won five in a row to surge into second place.
“There’s still a lot of baseball left. We’ve obviously said that a lot this year, and it’s frustrating,” Woo said. “Obviously, we’re not playing the way we want to play, but still a lot of baseball left.”
Woo’s season-long road woes continued.
In nine starts at home, Woo is 6-0 with a 2.20 ERA. In 11 starts on the road, he is now 1-7 with a 6.52 ERA.
“It’s baseball. It really tests you,” Woo said. “I feel like we’ve had a good amount of games over the last month or six weeks that we’ve played some good baseball. It’s just not going our way. We’ve hit balls hard right at guys. Made some really good pitches and balls are just finding holes.
“But that’s part of a 162-game season. … You just have to continue to ride the wave of the season.”
The Rangers tagged Woo for three runs on three extra-base hits in the first inning. Ezequiel Duran drove in the first run when he set a soft line drive into the right-center gap – 85.4 mph off the bat – past a diving attempt from Luke Raley, the M’s center fielder Saturday (while Julio Rodríguez was DH’ing).
In the second inning, the Rangers scored two more runs on three straight hits to build a commanding 5-0 lead.
Woo needed 25 pitches to get through the first inning and 21 more in the second inning.
“I just have to do a better job of executing with two strikes, especially those first couple innings,” Woo said. “Then just some bad luck, obviously. A couple balls that just found holes. ‘Rales’ goes all out for that ball, and it doesn’t go a way … but I certainly still take full responsibility for how it went.”
The Rangers were ready to hit Woo’s four-seam fastball – and they rarely missed. Of the 18 balls the Rangers put in play against Woo, nine registered at 95-mph or greater (officially categorized as “hard hits” by MLB standards).
Given how poorly things have been going for the Mariners’ offense, a five-run deficit immediately appeared insurmountable.
And, indeed, it was.
Nathan Eovaldi, the Rangers’ veteran right-hander, shut down the Mariners over seven strong innings, allowing just three hits and one run, with one walk and eight strikeouts.
The top six hitters in the M’s lineup combined to go 1 for 19, and that one hit was a Randy Arozarena single with two outs in the ninth.
Crawford, back in the lineup after missing the previous four games because of a sore left wrist, drove in the M’s only run with a double down the right-field line in the fifth.
“We’ve got to try to keep our heads up get these next two games because they’re really important,” Crawford said. “We’ve got to come out tomorrow, put a fire under our ass and be ready to play.”
Prospect Watch
A few days after being named baseball’s No. 1 prospect by the Athletic, left-hander Kade Anderson threw five perfect innings for Double-A Arkansas on Friday night, his first start since July 3. Anderson’s line: five innings, no hits, no runs, no walks and seven strikeouts on 56 pitches (43 strikes). The No. 3 overall pick in 2025, Anderson has a 1.27 ERA in first 15 pro starts, with a 115-to-10 strikeout-to-walk ratio and 40 hits allowed in 77.2 innings.
Ex-Mariner of the Week
Rookie catcher Harry Ford hit his first major-league home run in his debut with the Washington Nationals last weekend in a 23-4 romp of the Athletics in Sacramento. Ford has four hits in his first four games with the Nationals, with a homer, a double, four RBI and a stolen base.