ANAHEIM -- It took nearly three hours for the Mariners to come to life on Friday night at Angel Stadium. But when they did, they completed a 3-1 win with two of their wildest highlights of this young season.
Andrés Muñoz won a tense showdown with Mike Trout for a three-pitch strikeout to end in the bottom of the ninth inning and send the game to extras, where in the very first at-bat, Cole Young drilled a go-ahead triple that broke a scoreless tie.
Those efforts backed a gem from Bryan Woo, who twirled seven shutout innings and surrendered just one hit -- a bloop single that right fielder Victor Robles nearly made a diving catch on -- and one walk, with six strikeouts.
“Just analyzing the situation of the game, and just trying to do a job,” Young said. “Because usually in that situation --- I mean, obviously, every time in that situation you want to get the runner over. So that was my whole approach in that at-bat, is to just hit the ball to the right side and get the runner over and just do a job and let the top of the order do the rest.”
When Muñoz took the mound against Trout, the Mariners faced a very real possibility that they could lose a game in which they surrendered just two hits -- had Trout done the worst and taken Muñoz deep for a would-be walk-off homer. But instead, Muñoz generated two called strikes on breaking balls, the second of which was in Trout’s wheelhouse, before dialing up a 100.1 mph fastball up and in for a swinging K.
“I was thinking fastball the whole time, just making sure that it was up,” Muñoz said. “That's it. Sometimes when you try to do too much, when you try to put extra effort on it, it says middle-middle. And that is not what I wanted. So just try to attack, be aggressive -- but smart at the same time.”
That sent Young to the plate to lead off the 10th, and the 22-year-old ambushed reliever Brent Suter for a left-on-left knock that nearly left the yard. Instead, it caromed off the right-field fence and sent automatic runner Luke Raley off to the races.
Amid gusty conditions, Raley held at second base off the bat -- unsure if the ball would find the seats or right fielder Jo Adell’s glove. But there was enough juice on it that Young was thinking three-bagger once it landed, because any throw would’ve been for Raley at the plate.
Young is now 5-for-12 vs. lefties and 9-for-29 overall, with five of his hits for extra bases.
“The game doesn't speed up on him,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “And he's able to keep that consistent pace to his game, and that plays extremely important in those kinds of situations.”
After Young’s breakthrough, Julio Rodríguez drew an intentional walk, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored -- with Young -- on an RBI single from Josh Naylor, giving Gabe Speier enough breathing room to reach the finish line.
Between Woo, Matt Brash, Muñoz and Speier, the Mariners retired each of their final 22 batters -- and collectively had three baserunners, one being the automatic runner in the 10th, which scored on a sacrifice fly.
And the headliner was Woo, who was extremely self-critical after his regular-season debut, when he was tagged for two decisive runs in the sixth inning of last Saturday’s 6-5 loss to the Guardians.
That frustrating finish was on his mind as he steered from the strike zone with a four-pitch walk to Trout to begin the fourth inning on Friday and over a 19-pitch fifth. That followed a hit-by-pitch to the three-time AL MVP in the first, which prompted a brief staredown from Trout.
But Woo got his pitch count back on track from there, needing five in the sixth and seven in the seventh -- thanks to a few words-of-wisdom mound visits from Cal Raleigh.
“That's what I keep talking about -- raising the floor,” Woo said. “Just the days that you don't feel like you have it or have your best stuff, still figuring out how to get through it and make the most out of those days.”
One thing the Mariners will be monitoring the rest of the weekend is the status of third baseman Brendan Donovan, who exited after landing awkwardly on first base when attempting to leg out an infield single. Wilson didn’t have a detailed postgame update, other than that Donovan is dealing with discomfort in his leg.