Woo Cares?

 

I don't understand it. I've been trying to understand it all year. With no avail. How a team like the Mariners, with as much talent as they had, could just refuse to win week after week. The Astros are likely winning the division, essentially unopposed, and it's happening not because the Astros were good, but because the Mariners were worse. I know I get shit for saying that, but sometimes a division win happens because someone loses harder than someone else wins. And that's the AL West. Like three teams losing extremely hard and one team winning by not losing as much. It's infuriating, but it works.

It sucks especially for someone like Bryan Woo, who is, in fact, trying. His second-to-last start against the A's was a 1-hit, 8-inning affair with 9 Ks. His last start against the A's wasn't too bad either, giving up 3 hits and a run but striking out 5 in 6 innings. He's just hitting his stride, and getting better as he goes along, getting over some of the fatigue that got his ERA to 4 in the first place. And he's probably not gonna be pitching in the postseason. On a better year this would be a ramp up. Logan Gilbert, Bryan Woo and Bryce Miller would be ramping up rather than just rallying pretty much. 

And it does really feel like a lot of the recent Mariners goings-on are just a late rally before a demise. Kade Anderson's becoming a great MLB option, with a 4.30 ERA in 4 starts. Randy Arozarena got to 25 homers again, and is making his free agency case look quite good. J.P. Crawford is suddenly springing to life, hitting .333 this month with 6 RBIs in 12 games. Raleigh and Naylor are hitting after a year of not hitting. Michael Arroyo also seems to be a savvy choice at 2nd, though I'm not sure where he fits into the long term plan if Emerson and Donovan are expected to be back next year. But you look back and you realize that Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodriguez, Logan Gilbert, Andres Munoz and Josh Naylor all gave very okay performances in a year where they were expected to do great things. Randy Arozarena and Cole Young carried this team, and they weren't supposed to. As good of a pitching year as this was, the lowest ERA in the rotation was Emerson Hancock's 3.57 [and he was throwing hurt for the last month or so], and everyone else, even Gilbert and Kirby and Woo, were in the 4 zone. Even the Astros have guys with ERAs lower than 3.50 right now. 

It's frustrating, because this team nearly made a World Series this year, and now they're 10 games under .500 with no shot at the playoffs. People will find a way to blame the people that didn't have anything to do with it. It wasn't Dan Wilson, it wasn't the GM, everybody really tried. But not having Raleigh at 100% this year, and having 3 months of very mediocre Julio Rodriguez stats, did not help. Next year needs to be better, or else they're gonna waste this regime's highest heights. 

Coming Tomorrow- He vetoed a trade to New York, and he seemed to know he'd do just fine staying where it was.