SEATTLE -- Coming off his roughest outing of the month, a matchup with the Diamondbacks wasn’t necessarily the easiest recipe for a bounceback for Bryan Woo.
Woo didn’t care.
Flashing the stuff that earned him down-ballot AL Cy Young Award votes last year, Woo dominated the D-backs with nine strikeouts in seven scoreless innings in a 5-1 win, which stretched the Mariners’ winning streak to a season-best five games and put Seattle over .500 for the first time since the fifth game of the season.
“You know when it’s one of those days where he’s just coming after you,” said center fielder Julio Rodríguez. “He definitely had them uncomfortable throughout the game.”
The D-backs managed just two hits off Woo, both coming in the fifth, and he didn’t issue any walks.
And he did it by going strength-on-strength.
Arizona came into the day hitting an MLB-best .288 vs. fastballs. The D-backs’ .846 OPS vs. heaters ranked third, behind only the Dodgers and Yankees. Their 17.7% whiff rate vs. fastballs was tied for fourth lowest, and their 166 strikeouts on them were the fewest in baseball.
But Woo came out Saturday with his signature combination of the four-seamer that was tied for the fourth-most valuable pitch in baseball in run value last year and a sinker that had an even higher putaway percentage, and shoved.
“Honestly, I had no idea they hit fastballs well,” Woo said. “I was just sticking with my plan. When it comes down to it, that’s what I always want to do: stick to my strengths and what I’m doing.
“If it ends up that we start a game and it’s not working out, I’ll make my adjustments. But for the most part, just going out there with my Plan A. If we need to make adjustments, then we will. But until then, keep doing what I’m doing.”
It started with a heater-heavy first inning -- nine straight four-seamers to get a first-pitch lineout vs. Ketel Marte, strike out Corbin Carroll and put Geraldo Perdomo in a 1-2 hole, setting him up to stare at a perfect slider on the outside corner.
That put Woo in a groove, and he didn’t take his foot off the gas, retiring the first 13 D-backs of the night before Adrian Castillo broke up his perfect-game bid an out into the fifth.
Woo finished his night on 86 pitches, 59 of which were fastballs -- just about exactly the 86.4% usage rate he’s had all season. He finished with 14 whiffs on the night, seven of which came against fastballs.
As the night wore on and he took on the Arizona lineup for the second and third times, his secondaries began to show up more and more, leading to weak contact and quick at-bats. A nine-pitch sixth inning featured four sliders and three sweepers, and a seven-pitch seventh ended his night on 86 pitches with the final seven D-backs retired in order.
“As much as we love the fastball, I think his slider and sweeper were pretty good tonight,” manager Dan Wilson said. “He kept them really off-balance at times, which made that extra life on that fastball tough. That’s what he does.”
The rebound -- in such dominating fashion -- was a huge positive sign from Woo, after he allowed four runs on six hits and didn’t clear the fifth inning in his previous start in Kansas City.
After posting a 2.25 ERA in his first five starts of the year -- three of which went seven innings -- Woo posted his first real clunker in St. Louis, ending April by getting tagged for four home runs and surrendering seven runs in three innings.
That was rough, but what was arguably rougher was that he followed it with another uncharacteristic outing, giving up six runs -- including two more homers. In two outings, his ERA more than doubled.
Since then, he’s gone five straight starts without allowing a homer. And Saturday, he slammed the door on any lingering worries from his last outing with authority.
“It really looked like he was sailing, cruising, giving us seven strong and doing an incredible job at it,” Wilson said.
Meanwhile, the Mariners gave Woo plenty of insurance early, going deep four times in the span of seven batters between the second and third innings off D-backs starter Ryne Nelson, as Seattle continued to ride its strongest wave yet.
“When you have as good a team as we do,” Woo said, “sometimes it’s just taking a step back and trying to just relax and let your game come out on its own.”