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# Clutch Hits Overcome Absent Slug, Ample Strikeouts; Mariners Log Second Straight Win
- URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/seattle-mariners-clutch-hits-overcome-absent-slug-strikeouts/
- Published: 2026-07-01T07:32:19.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T06:11:10.000Z
- Author: Callaghan Bluechel
- Tags: News, Analysis, Mariners, Bryan Woo, Dan Wilson, Eduard Bazardo, Michael Rucker, Andres Munoz, Julio Rodriguez, Josh Naylor, Randy Arozarena, Cal Raleigh, Cole Young, Colt Emerson, Victor Robles, Weston Wilson

\[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="5004"\]

![  Seattle Mariners shortstop Colt Emerson (4) hits a 2-RBI single against the Los Angeles Angels during the seventh inning at T-Mobile Park. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-Imagn Images  ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1d/f2/1df2f77b-83dd-4bc0-a6d2-6d1bb5df89a3/content/images/2026/10/colt-emerson-angels-format-original.jpg)

Seattle Mariners shortstop Colt Emerson (4) hits a 2-RBI single against the Los Angeles Angels during the seventh inning at T-Mobile Park. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-Imagn Images \[/caption\]

For the first time since June 9, the Mariners won back-to-back games. Tuesday night’s 8-3 victory over the Angels marked that occasion, one that the Mariners may want to quickly forget, but the way the team played during the game is something they surely want to keep going forward as they look to claw their way into a secure first place slot.

Both starter Bryan Woo and the Mariners’ clutch hitting had a recovery, as the hurler got the win and the quality start while the team went 5-13 with runners in scoring position. There were still issues to iron out: Cal Raleigh continued scuffling at the dish, the team struck out 16 times, and there was just one extra-base knock. But they papered over their flaws on Tuesday and notched another step in their road to retaking the division.

### Bryan Woo recovered from his clunker by the Allegheny, pitching into the seventh and getting the win.

Woo was the undisputed ace of the rotation in 2025, but his struggles in 2026 have been well-documented. Most recently, he gave up five runs in a four-inning outing against the Pittsburgh Pirates, letting one inning run away from him and leaving well before he would have liked to. [Harboring evident frustration and seemingly in a mental block](https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/seattle-mariners-bryan-woo-groundhog-day-pittsburgh-rout/), it was an outing that could have defined rock bottom for a pitcher.

Perhaps that description is apt, because Woo bounced back in force on Tuesday. Like many of the Mariners struggles that seem to have been put on hold for two games against the Angels, it’s unclear whether it’s a dead cat bounce or the beginnings of a true resurgence, but Woo certainly shoved like it was the latter during his 6 ⅓ innings of work against the Halos.

Unlike many of his outings, where he takes down the order the first time through with nothing but the fastball, Woo was mixing everything in his arsenal right from the rip on Tuesday. Leadoff man Zach Neto fought with the Mariners hurler in an eight-pitch at-bat to begin the game, and Woo’s deliveries were as follows: three sinkers, two four-seamers, two sliders, and a sweeper. Neto grounded out and Woo continued with the kitchen-sink approach.

“I just wanted to get the off-speeds going just a little bit more early or late, whatever it was, I just want to throw ‘em more. Feel like that was the only thing, didn’t feel like I was using them enough for how good they’ve been feeling lately,” Woo said. “The fastball’s been really good, but I feel like the fastball is good because of the involvement of the off-speeds and using them in different spots.”

Such an adjustment was just what the doctor ordered, as Woo immediately settled into a good feel for his four-seamer, sinker, slider, and changeup. Though he mixed in a few sweepers, especially with two strikes, the former four were his mainstays as he tore down the Halos lineup one inning after another. 

Woo dealt with a runner in scoring position in the second inning and two men on in the fifth, but both frames ended with an Angel walking back to the dugout in disgust. These at-bats showed his continued everything-bagel on the mound, as he threw three different pitches to punch out Logan O’Hoppe at the end of the third and Neto swung at a sweeper in the dirt for his inning-ending groundout.

By the end of the sixth, Woo had tossed a scoreless outing on 90 pitches with five strikeouts, one walk, and two hits allowed. But Mariners manager Dan Wilson, instead of going to his bullpen, decided to bring him back out for the seventh. Perhaps the five-run lead Woo was now nursing (more on that later) played a role in that decision, but according to Wilson, it was mainly to take some pressure off the bullpen.

“We still had a lot of outs to cover, and we thought, he was right there at 90, and with Bryan, that could be a whole inning … Just trying to get an out or two there in the seventh to make the bullpen tax\[ed\] a little bit less,” Wilson said.

The plan to get some extra outs from Woo was a bit odd considering the off day on Wednesday, but in any event, it didn’t pan out for the Mariners. Although he managed to get one flyout, two sandwiching singles put runners on the corners while his pitch count grew to 106\. Wilson pulled Woo from the game at that point and brought in Eduard Bazardo, whose 83.7% left-on-base rate was the 27th-best among qualified relievers coming into Tuesday’s game.

All pitchers are going to have their rough outings, and perhaps Bazardo’s came at an opportune time given Seattle’s sizable lead. Nevertheless, it took him four batters to record his first out, by which time the Halos had three runs on the board. That out was notable for the way it happened: right fielder Weston Wilson nearly made a diving catch, trapped the ball, and then went for the force out at second. This erased the middle runner, somewhat bizarrely, but it was an out, and as Nolan Schanuel flew out to center, the Angels’ last threat dissipated.

For Woo’s part, his frustrations may have died down with the win, but he was still frank about the fact he wasn’t exactly sure where his issues came from. He cited perfectionism, but - and this is probably a big mental key - he also showed acceptance that these things are sometimes the randomness of the universe.

“Honestly I think that the answer is that there is no answer. I don’t feel like I really did anything different from last start to this start, besides just a few tweaks here and there,” Woo said. “I think the more that I’m looking for this perfect mix of everything, it doesn’t really exist, you know? Baseball has its ups and downs, baseball has its times where you just get your butt kicked and you gotta weather it. I think the only answer, honestly, is just to stop putting so much pressure on myself, take a step back, and just keep playing baseball.”

### Cal Raleigh continued to struggle upon his return, with his swing selection still suffering.

Despite a flurry of home runs during his minor league rehab stint, upon coming back to the majors, Cal Raleigh hasn’t been an above-average producer with the major league team. Going into Tuesday’s game, he had a .186/.352/.279 slash line since coming back up to the majors on June 16, with most of his production coming from walks.

The walks, while good in and of themselves, are partially downstream of a lack of aggression from the Mariners slugger in the zone. He hasn’t had nearly as discerning of an eye as he did in 2025 all year; before he went on the IL, he had a 72.2% in-zone swing rate and a 37.8% chase rate compared to his 75.2% in-zone swing rate and 31.8% chase rate. The difference between these two metrics - where higher indicates a greater ability for pitch discernment - was 43.4 percentage points in 2025 and yet 34.4 percentage points before his 2026 injury.

That difference was a similar 36.7 percentage points in June coming into Tuesday’s game. Both his zone-swing and chase rates had decreased simultaneously (to 67.7% and 31%, respectively), but since the overall difference hadn’t changed, it wasn’t indicative of actually improved swing decisions, just a greater propensity to take pitches.

Frustratingly, this has included a lot of hitter’s count meatballs and two-strike mistakes from opposing pitchers, but this has been compounded by a renewed inability to make contact over the plate. Even last year, this sometimes became an issue, but it has been much more noticeable with his overall struggles as he goes through long droughts between hard-hit balls.

Seattle had an opportunity in the bottom of the first as Julio Rodríguez singled and Josh Naylor walked with one out against Angels starter José Soriano, but with a Randy Arozarena strikeout, it was up to Cal Raleigh to make something of the inning. The M’s remained scoreless, however, as Raleigh shanked a splitter down the middle foul and tipped another into Halos catcher O’Hoppe’s glove.

Early struggles with runners in scoring position continued independent of Raleigh in the second, while the next three innings didn’t see many threats on offense from anyone. Raleigh took an 0-2 pitch down the middle in the seventh with runners on second and third with no outs, but there was one time that his extreme patience did help him out.

### The Mariners finally tacked on some clutch hits in the late middle innings, finishing the day 5-13 with RISP.

Soriano had a shutout working into the bottom of the sixth, and with just 81 pitches under his belt, he was a serious threat to work deep into the seventh. 

But that threat dissipated very quickly as the Mariners quickly began stringing hits together. Rodríguez and Naylor singled - Naylor’s on a 1-2 pitch a foot above the zone - and Arozarena ripped a grounder through the left side hole for the Mariners’ first run. Just like that, Soriano was out and reliever Chase Silseth was in.

Raleigh was up to bat, and although he hacked and missed at the first pitch he saw and fouled off the second, he took the next four. The first three balls from Silseth weren’t at all close, but the fourth was initially called a strike.

With a 3-2 count, two men on, and nobody out, winning an ABS challenge is so valuable that is cancels out the risk of losing the challenge many times over. Averaging things out, an ABS challenge in that situation only needs to be successful 12% of the time in order to be worthwhile. Raleigh challenged and won, loading the bases for Cole Young.

It wasn’t a home run like he did twice on Monday, but Young came through as he torched a low liner into right and moved everyone up a station. Another run came home on a wild pitch before Weston Wilson finished things off with a two-out, two-run single. Seattle was up 5-0.

Though that lead had been cut to 5-3 by the time the M’s took up the sticks again, they picked up right where they had left off. Rodríguez had another single and Arozarena rocked a double (the team’s only extra-base hit) to get the baton to Raleigh; that was the setting for his aforementioned looking strikeout. But the next guys in the lineup did their jobs: Cole Young walked and Colt Emerson floated a two-run single to left to make it 7-3 before Victor Robles shot one into left to tack on Seattle’s final run.

### Things went better for Michael Rucker than they had in Cleveland, as he got through the eighth with no issues.

Seattle’s success with RISP on Tuesday may have come with a slight bitter tang, that being the backwards-looking desire to have been able to have some of these knocks all over their previous games. The M’s can’t afford to ponder long-spilled milk, but there is still the valid question in the air over whether they can consistently have these kinds of performances.

Reliever Michael Rucker also had a bounce-back outing on the heels of his blowup in Cleveland. It began roughly, though with a bigger lead, as he walked Jorge Soler with nobody out, but a double play from Wade Meckler immediately erased that runner and put the M’s within four outs of a loss. Jo Adell went down quickly to end the frame. It’s still very dicey for the Mariners to play Rucker in big situations given Sunday’s disaster, but a clean inning like he had on Tuesday might have a positive effect on his confidence.

It wasn’t a save situation in the ninth, but with Andrés Muñoz having pitched just twice in the previous week, the usual closer went in for that inning regardless, getting three quick outs to finish out the win and put the Mariners above .500.

### On Deck

The Mariners have the rare mid-series off-day on Wednesday as the city of Seattle makes way for a Round of 32 FIFA World Cup match between Belgium and Senegal. The Halos and M’s suit up for their final game of the series on Thursday, where Bryce Miller on the mound for Seattle will face off against Walbert Ureña taking the hill for Los Angeles.

Tuesday may have been the first time the Mariners won back-to-back games in nearly a month, but with the Rangers’ continued hot streak, Seattle is still a half game back after the night’s action. The standings underscore the need for the team to continue fighting and, to paraphrase George Kirby, leave no job unfinished.