At scene of first ‘W,’ Woo shows how much he’s grown

NEW YORK — The top of the strike zone was open for business on Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium, and for Bryan Woo, business was booming.

Woo returned to the site of his first career win last June and wore down the Yankees over six dominant innings with his pair of overpowering fastballs, lifting the Mariners to a 6-3 win. Seattle advanced to a season-high five games above .500 in its eighth attempt and extended its season-high lead in the American League West to three games.

No moments were bigger within the context of the victory — at least within Woo’s player development — than his pair of punchouts of Juan Soto, who watched a 96.4 mph four-seamer fly past for a backwards K on the inner black in the first and flailed at an off-plate changeup for strike three in the fourth.

Both sequences evoked uncomfortable body language within the batter’s box for one of the game’s most confident hitters and the early frontrunner for the AL Most Valuable Player Award. Soto was also Woo’s final batter, and he flied out to center after falling into a 2-2 count. For good measure, Woo also blew a 96.2 mph heater right down Broadway past 2022 AL MVP Aaron Judge for a first-inning punchout.

“You know when you come in here that you’ve got to be ready to go,” Woo said. “There’s no messing around, falling behind and whatnot. Like, [the Yankees] are going to be ready to go. Crowd is going to be ready to go. So I think it just raises your game a little bit. And I think if you really enjoy competing and being in environments like this, then it’s just a lot of fun.”

Why were these specifics such a big deal? Beyond Soto’s pedigree, he hits left-handed, the side of the batter’s box that Woo was overpowered by in his rookie season for a .928 OPS against. This year it’s .406.

Both of the hits he surrendered on Tuesday — a single to Austin Wells and a double to Alex Verdugo that he legged for three bases after an error by Julio Rodríguez — were from lefties, but his overall numbers this year against them are vastly improved.

“It’s an elite fastball,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I thought he got it to the spots he wanted to. He had a presence with a secondary to make it work for him even more. He was tough and kind of had his way. He was real pitch-efficient, too. He beat us tonight.”

In three starts since coming off the injured list due to right elbow inflammation, Woo has surrendered just one run on six hits, with 15 strikeouts and two walks among 55 batters faced. Translation from small-sample size to grand, that’s a 0.57 ERA, 0.51 WHIP, 27.2% K rate, 3.6% walk rate and .280 OPS against. These numbers are as gaudy as they are likely unsustainable, as there are bound to be hiccups.

Woo’s workload is also being intently monitored, which could limit how deep into games and/or the season he can go. He was on a threshold of 80-85 pitches on Tuesday, yet he didn’t even reach that mark — finishing with 77 (58 strikes) — and still twirled a quality start, the Mariners’ AL-leading 29th. That underscored how valuable he can be within a rotation that’s already touted among the game’s best.

It’s only three starts, but the Mariners are undefeated when Woo pitches. And Tuesday was easily his best outing yet.

Woo filled up the strike zone for 15 first-pitch strikes among the 20 batters he faced and was particularly dominant with his fastball mix, using the four-seamer up and the two-seamer down, generating 11 misses on the 37 swings for a 37.9% whiff rate (league average is 19.4%). He also fell into only two three-ball counts and walked zero.

“You have to pitch that way against this ballclub,” manager Scott Servais said. “You get into bad counts, that’s what they feed off of.”

Woo was backed in a big way by a two-run homer from red-hot Dylan Moore in the third, then after he departed, Moore went yard again in the ninth for a critical insurance run — marking his third career multihomer game. Ty France and Luke Raley also went deep, which gave Andrés Muñoz plenty of cushion to lock down his 10th save and second in as many nights in the Bronx.