Félix Hernández Was Tough on A's, But This Seattle Mariners Pitcher Owns Them

Nearly two decades ago, it seemed like the A's were set to face the Seattle Mariners every opening series to begin a new season, and with the M's having ace Félix Hernández in the rotation for 15 seasons, that meant a lot of 0-1 starts for Oakland.

King Félix certainly scarred A's fans that grew up during that time period. It didn't matter if it was Dan Haren (2007), Ben Sheets (2010), Trevor Cahill (2011), Brandon McCarthy (2012), or Brett Anderson (2013) starting for the A's, they were always opposed by the King on Opening Day, and the A's started each of those seasons 0-1 after getting little to nothing off the Mariners' ace.

Over the course of his career, King Félix held a 2.88 ERA against the A's across 349.2 innings of work. The Tampa Bay Rays (2.19 ERA) and Cleveland Guardians (2.81) are the only other two teams that Félix dominated as much as the A's, and he only reached 116 innings against Tampa and 109 when facing Cleveland.

But Seattle has a pitcher in their rotation now that has proven to be even more dominant against the A's that Hernández was, even during that stretch, and that's Oakland native Bryan Woo.

Now, to be fair, Woo doesn't quite have the long track record that Félix does, but the early returns have been promising. He's 17-9 in his career with a 3.31 ERA, which includes a 2.58 ERA so far this season. His performance in 2025 has been huge with both George Kirby and Logan Gilbert missing time for the Mariners.

Against the A's, Woo is 6-0, so that's 35.3% of his career win total. He also holds a 0.72 ERA across seven starts, spanning 37.1 innings of work. The only other team that he has shut down more than the A's was one start he made against the Philadelphia Phillies last August where he went seven scoreless.

Over his entire stretch of games against the Athletics, Woo has allowed three runs, and the A's had touched up Hernández a couple of times early in his career for single-game totals that matched or exceeded that three runs Woo has allowed.

After last night's tough loss where they held a 3-2 lead in the ninth before running Tyler Ferguson out there for his fourth straight day of work, the A's will be looking to close out the series with a win against the top team in the AL West. The one problem is that Woo is expected to start for the Mariners.

There are two paths to victory on Wednesday. The first is to try and keep the game close and get him out of there as quickly as possible by running up his pitch count. The second would be to actually score some runs off him.

The A's are already showing that they're a serious threat in the division, having split the first six games against the Seattle Mariners this season. They've also taken five-of-seven from the Texas Rangers while vaulting themselves into second in the West in the process. But figuring out a way to score off Woo would be absolutely huge.

Maybe the A's can dangle a contract extension for the next player to homer off him? So far Brent Rooker (already extended) and Tyler Soderstrom have taken him deep, which has accounted for two of the three total runs that Woo has given up to the A's.

Wednesday's game could be the start of a new era for the A's, where they slay the dragons in front of them, or it could be another feather in the cap of Seattle's emerging ace.