Mariners continue up-and-down season with big series win vs. the Braves

Can't figure these Mariners out?

You aren't alone.

They went 5-1 on the previous road trip coming into this homestand, seeming to have righted many of the wrongs in the suboptimal start to their season.

Then they got swept by a middling-Royals team in a three-game series over the weekend at a packed T-Mobile Park, including a loss where their starting pitcher struck out 14 batters in seven innings of work.

Over that span, they put their two best setup relievers on the injured list and played without their All-Star catcher for three games, finally getting him back as a designated hitter.

All has not been right in Mariners land. It seems to be a continuous cycle - quality baseball for four or five games followed by it inexplicably dissipating into a series of mistakes and missed opportunities for a similar length.

Panic? Yep.

Aggravation? Always.

That familiar fan fatalism? Snowballing.

So of course, the Mariners closed out the current homestand by taking two out of three games against the Atlanta Braves - the team with the best record in baseball.

Pitching for a third consecutive day as the anchor of a bullpen that's being held together with duct tape and bubble gum and supplemented by a handful of pitchers that even ardent fans have never heard of, Jose A. Ferrer pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning, retiring the Braves 3-4-5 hitters - Matt Olson, Michael Harris and Mauricio Dubón to close out a 3-1 victory, Wednesday afternoon at T-Mobile Park.

The Mariners won their fifth series of the season while handing the Braves their first series of loss of the season.

This is definitely a confidence builder, no question," manager Dan Wilson said. "That's a very good team and we were able to take two of three from them. But we've talked about it earlier and we'll talk about it as we go forward, it's not necessarily the other team that we're concerned about or that we worry about. It's more about what we're doing. We played a little bit more consistent baseball in this series. We've got work to do, but we're heading in the right direction."

The Mariners have Thursday off and then open a three-game series in Chicago vs. the White Sox at Rate Field on Friday.

Momentum in baseball is more fickle than the flight path of a knuckleball. The Mariners certainly have seen it come and go, regardless of their opponents and their talent level.

"You definitely want to build on it," starter Bryan Woo said. "I think that's the only thing really that we're looking for now, is just consistency. We've seen some really good stretches, and then the next series would just kind of lose that momentum a little bit. We've got to start piecing some games together, piecing series together. Obviously, we still have a long ways to go, but just finding that rhythm and consistency series to series."

While trying to understand the Mariners as a whole might be impossible in the moment, Woo spent the days leading up his start trying to understand who he is as a pitcher and what makes him successful.

He had struggled in his previous two outings, allowing a combined 13 runs on 16 hits and leaving him searching for an effectiveness that had come so natural over the past two and a half seasons.

"I just tried to simplify things, honestly," he said. "It feels like the last two starts I just tried to do too much, think too much, diving into scouting reports, maybe too much. Just thinking too much. Honestly, I feel like my best brand of baseball is do my homework before and talk to catchers and whatnot. But like, when it's time to go on the mound, just go compete. I kind of got away from that my last two starts."

The simpler mindset led to immediate results. He worked six scoreless innings, allowing just one hit with two walks while striking out nine batters.

Dating back to the start of last season, it was the fifth time that Woo had pitched six-plus innings and allowed one or fewer hits in an outing - the most of any MLB pitcher.

"I was good, and I wanted to be great," he said of getting too granular in his mindset going into outings. "You try to do more, you try to be perfect, and then you just lose sight of what makes yourself so good. I feel like, for me, it's simplifying and just competing. Getting too much into scouting reports, for me, I think can be a detriment. You get out there, you're thinking too much, and you want to do this and do that, and you're trying to analyze. The more that you're thinking, probably the less effective that you're going to be."

The only real trouble that Woo found himself in came in the fourth inning. He issued a leadoff walk to Ozzie Albies that had him shaking his head in disgust. But he came back to strike out Olson and Harris. Dubón dumped a single into right field to allow Albies to race to third.

Woo was able to work out of the minor jam, getting Austin Riley to ground out to end the inning.

The Mariners found out veteran lefty Martín Pérez would get the start instead of right-hander Grant Holmes after Tuesday night's loss. It was somewhat anticipated when Pérez didn't pitch in relief in the first two games of the series, but it also meant going away from their main lineup.

The offense produced two runs off Pérez. In the second inning, Seattle loaded the bases on a Jhonny Pereda single, a double from Leo Rivas and a walk from J.P. Crawford. Cal Raleigh's hard topspin, one-hop ground ball was gloved by rookie shortstop Jim Jarvis, who was making his MLB debut, in an awkward way. But it was hit hard enough for the Braves to turn a 6-4-3 double play as Pereda scored from third for a 1-0 lead.

Julio Rodríguez made it 2-0 in the sixth inning. He crushed a solo homer deep into the The 'Pen off Pérez for his fifth homer of the season. The blast measured 436 feet.

With Matt Brash and Gabe Speier on the injured list and closer Andrés Muñoz unavailable due to usage, Wilson's experienced leverage options for late in the game were limited. When Woo was able to get through the sixth scoreless, it made things a little easier.

"He went out there with 85 pitches and it was going to be a little dicey as to whether he was going to finish that inning or not," Wilson said. "But he did, and he put an exclamation mark on his outing today.

Cooper Criswell worked a scoreless seventh. Eduard Bazardo got through the eighth, giving up a run and needing to pick off pinch runner Jorge Mateo to help limit further damage.

Cole Young provided a big insurance run in the bottom of the eighth with an RBI double that scored Josh Naylor.

BOX SCORE

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This story was originally published May 6, 2026 at 4:49 PM.