Injured Mariners All-Star expected to return for ALCS

After an epic 15-inning win over the Detroit Tigers in Game 5 of the ALDS, the Seattle Mariners are advancing to their first AL Championship Series since 2001. The club’s overworked pitching staff will likely be getting some major reinforcements, as M’s president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto told reporters (including the Seattle Times’ Adam Jude) that right-hander Bryan Woo is expected to added to the Mariners’ roster for the next round.

Woo probably won’t pitch until closer to the midpoint of the series, Dipoto said. This means Woo is being lined up for a start when the ALCS shifts to Seattle for Games 3-4 and (if necessary) 5. It also leaves open the question of who exactly will be starting for the Mariners in the first two games in Toronto, as the M’s used starters Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo out of the bullpen during Friday night’s 15-inning marathon.

Castillo threw 15 pitches while Gilbert threw 34, so Castillo is probably still the favorite to be first on the bump in Game 1 on Sunday.  Bryce Miller would be working on three days’ rest if he started Game 1, so he is a more plausible candidate for the second game against the Blue Jays unless Gilbert is ready to go.  The Mariners could use Miller as a floating piggyback option for either Game 1 or 2 behind Castillo and Gilbert, with George Kirby likely starting Game 3 and then Woo making his first start of the postseason in Game 4.  This assumes that Woo will be used in a normal starting capacity, and holding him off until the middle of the series would give the right-hander more time to fully ramp up.

This is all speculative, of course, and it could be that the Mariners themselves don’t have their ALCS pitching plans finalized yet, given how they needed so many arms to outlast the Tigers.  It is a problem the M’s are happy to have since it means their season is still going, and it is a testament to Seattle’s rotation depth that the team could advance even without its best pitcher from the 2025 season.

Bryan Woo had been sidelined since Sept. 19

Woo posted a 2.94 ERA over 186 2/3 innings during the regular season, but he developed pectoral tightness in a start on Sept. 19 that forced him out of the game after five shutout innings.  Woo hasn’t pitched since, though he wasn’t placed on the 15-day injured list, and he was able to throw a bullpen session and a simulated inning prior to the start of the ALDS.  Jude wrote before Game 5 that Woo threw close to 30 pitches during a bullpen session on Friday, and “appeared to be throwing at roughly 75 percent effort” before kicking things up “closer to 100 percent” for the final few pitches of the session.

Seattle and Toronto don’t have to reveal their ALCS rosters until Sunday, so we’ll get the final word then on Woo’s involvement and whose spot he’ll be taking on the 26-man.  The move to a seven-game series likely means the Mariners will carry an extra pitcher after using 14 position players and 12 pitchers in the ALDS, so a rookie like Ben Williamson or Harry Ford could be the odd man out.