ARLINGTON, Texas \u2013 Hands on his hips, Bryan Woo lingered in the middle of the pitcher\u2019s mound, looking out toward center field with a stilted blank stare after allowing a fifth run early in Saturday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
As Woo wrestled with another baffling road start, it would be impossible for someone else to articulate exactly what the Mariners\u2019 right-hander was feeling in that moment. Anger? Confusion? Disbelief? Dejection?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s probably safe to suggest it\u2019s some combination of all the above, and it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a way better team than what we\u2019re playing like this whole year, and we all know that,\u201d veteran infielder J.P. Crawford said. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely frustrating. But we can\u2019t do anything about the past, so we\u2019ve just got to keep working hard to get going and finish where we need to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
The M\u2019s 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\u2019s best team.<\/p>\n
Even more ominous, the M\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still a lot of baseball left. We\u2019ve obviously said that a lot this year, and it\u2019s frustrating,\u201d Woo said. \u201cObviously, we\u2019re not playing the way we want to play, but still a lot of baseball left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Woo\u2019s season-long road woes continued.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s baseball. It really tests you,\u201d Woo said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve had a good amount of games over the last month or six weeks that we\u2019ve played some good baseball. It\u2019s just not going our way. We\u2019ve hit balls hard right at guys. Made some really good pitches and balls are just finding holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s part of a 162-game season. \u2026 You just have to continue to ride the wave of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u2013 85.4 mph off the bat \u2013 past a diving attempt from Luke Raley, the M\u2019s center fielder Saturday (while Julio Rodr\u00edguez was DH\u2019ing).<\/p>\n
In the second inning, the Rangers scored two more runs on three straight hits to build a commanding 5-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Woo needed 25 pitches to get through the first inning and 21 more in the second inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just have to do a better job of executing with two strikes, especially those first couple innings,\u201d Woo said. \u201cThen just some bad luck, obviously. A couple balls that just found holes. \u2018Rales\u2019 goes all out for that ball, and it doesn\u2019t go a way \u2026 but I certainly still take full responsibility for how it went.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rangers were ready to hit Woo\u2019s four-seam fastball \u2013 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 \u201chard hits\u201d by MLB standards).<\/p>\n
Given how poorly things have been going for the Mariners\u2019 offense, a five-run deficit immediately appeared insurmountable.<\/p>\n
And, indeed, it was.<\/p>\n
Nathan Eovaldi, the Rangers\u2019 veteran right-hander, shut down the Mariners over seven strong innings, allowing just three hits and one run, with one walk and eight strikeouts.<\/p>\n
The top six hitters in the M\u2019s lineup combined to go 1 for 19, and that one hit was a Randy Arozarena single with two outs in the ninth.<\/p>\n
Crawford, back in the lineup after missing the previous four games because of a sore left wrist, drove in the M\u2019s only run with a double down the right-field line in the fifth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to try to keep our heads up get these next two games because they\u2019re really important,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to come out tomorrow, put a fire under our ass and be ready to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prospect Watch<\/p>\n
A few days after being named baseball\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Ex-Mariner of the Week<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas \u2013 Hands on his hips, Bryan Woo lingered in the middle of the pitcher\u2019s mound, looking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-387189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}