Mustangs In the Pros
10/2/2023 3:36:00 PM | Baseball
MUSTANGS IN THE PROS (PDF)
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS (BRYAN WOO and BROOKS LEE)
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- The 2023 professional season for 18 former Cal Poly baseball players has come to a close.
Highlighting the performances of the group of ex-Mustangs was pitcher Bryan Woo, who jumped from Double-A to the Major Leagues in early June with the Seattle Mariners, who finished the year a victory shy of the postseason playoffs.
After pitching 3 2/3 scoreless innings in an 8-0 win over the Texas Rangers last Friday in Seattle, Woo finished with four victories and nine no-decisions. Of Woo's nine starts resulting in a no decision, Seattle won six times.
Woo (4-5, 4.21 ERA) had a forgetful Major League debut June 3 and a disheartening outing Sept. 24, both taking place at Globe Life Field against the Rangers. But in the 16 starts outside of the two aforementioned outings, Woo flexed a 3.17 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP, highlighted by a 1.69 ERA in the month of August.
Woo far exceeded his career high in innings for a season. He threw under 70 total innings across three seasons at Cal Poly and, due to undergoing Tommy John surgery before he was drafted in 2021, he hurled just 57 innings in the minors in 2022.
This year? Woo pitched in 131 2/3 innings between Double-A Arkansas and the show. His fastball velocity started to dip a little bit in early September, though it picked back up late in the year. The Mariners managed his workload very carefully throughout the year.
With five strikeouts, three walks and two hits allowed last Friday, the 23-year-old rookie helped the Mariners notch their 17th shutout of the season, most in the majors. Woo had given up six earned runs in each of his previous two starts against the Rangers, going 0-2 with a 20.25 ERA.
"You try to not take (the crowd) in too much while you're playing. You just try to handle the baseball stuff while you can," Woo said after Friday's performance. "But when I came off the mound, sitting in the dugout, I was like, 'Yeah, this is pretty cool.'"
Woo, who threw 82 pitches, struck out the side in the first inning, working around walks to Corey Seager and Adolis Garcia by striking out Nathaniel Lowe on a check-swing strike three to end the inning. In a scoreless game in the third inning, the Rangers loaded the bases with two outs, but Woo escaped again when he got Josh Jung to fly out softly to left field to end the inning. Woo released a primal scream into his glove after Jarred Kelenic made the catch for that last out.
Ty France and Josh Rojas hit solo home runs off Texas starter Nathan Eovaldi in the bottom of the third inning, and Eugenio Suarez hit a ringing double to score J.P. Crawford and give the Mariners a 3-0 lead. That cushion allowed Seattle manager Scott Servais to send Woo, at 73 pitches, back out for the fourth inning. Servais had acknowledged pregame that Woo would be on a short leash in a game the Mariners needed to win.
Woo got Jonah Heim to fly out and Leody Taveras to ground out for the first two outs of the fourth inning. That was it for Woo, who received a standing ovation from the crowd of 45,274 on his walk back to the dugout. In his seventh start at T-Mobile Park, Woo improved his home ERA to 3.41, with 45 strikeouts and nine walks in 34.1 innings.
Seattle was eliminated from playoff contention Saturday in a 6-1 loss to the Rangers. The Mariners closed out an 88-74 campaign, one game back of Toronto in the chase for the third American League wild card race, with a 1-0 victory over Texas on Sunday. The Rangers and Houston Astros shared the AL West title, two games in front of Seattle.
Meanwhile, former Mustang shortstop Brooks Lee finished his 2023 season with a combined .275 batting average over 125 games. He hit .292 in 87 games at Double-A Wichita and .237 across 38 contests with Triple-A Saint Paul.
Lee doubled and homered, knocking in a run with each hit, on Sept. 20 against Toledo, his eighth multiple-hit game in Triple-A after notching 26 multiple-hit contests at Wichita. For the summer, Lee produced 39 doubles, 16 home runs and knocked in 84 runs.
Pitchers Drew Thorpe and Andrew Alvarez earned postseason accolades for their performances on the mound this summer.
Thorpe was named Minor League Pitcher of the Year in the New York Yankees organization by Baseball America while Alvarez was honored by the Washington Nationals as their top Minor League pitcher.
Thorpe notched a Minor League-best 182 strikeouts for the Hudson Valley Renegades and Somerset Patriots. He was 14-2 with a 2.52 ERA for the two clubs combined, walking just 38 batters over 139 1/3 innings. Thorpe averaged 11.8 strikeouts per nine innings. Thorpe's 14 wins this year are the most by Minor League starters this season.
Alvarez also pitched for two teams, posting a combined 7-7 record and 2.99 ERA with the Wilmington Blue Rocks and Harrisburg Senators. The lefty compiled a .229 opponents' batting average.
Outfielder Nick Torres powered Laguna into the final round of the Mexican League playoffs by going 16-for-48 (.333) in a six-game series against Monterrey, 6-for-23 in five games versus Tijuana and 6-for-27 in the semifinals against Dos Laredos. Laguna played Puebla in the best-of-seven final-round series, Puebla winning four games to two, with Torres going 8-for-22 (.364) with five RBIs, including a 3-for-3 performance with four RBIs in Game 2.
The outfielder finished the regular season 19th in the Mexican League in hitting, eighth in doubles, 22nd in home runs, 14th in hits and 11th in RBIs. He hit .338 in 83 regular-season games at Laguna.
Other highlights:
• Outfielder Mitch Haniger closed out another injury-slowing season with a .209 average in 61 games for the San Francisco Giants. He missed the first three weeks of the year with a left oblique strain, was out of the lineup from June 13 through August 28 after he was hit by a pitch and fractured his right forearm, and missed the final week of the season with a low back strain.
Haniger hit just .159 after coming off the injury list August 29 and finished with 13 doubles, six home runs and 28 RBIs.
• Spencer Howard signed a minor league contract with the San Francisco Giants on Sept. 22 and was assigned to the Sacramento RiverCats on Sept. 29. Howard became a free agent after he was released by the New York Yankees on August 30.
The Yankees acquired Howard from the Texas Rangers in an August 1 trade and assigned the right-hander to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where he was 0-1 with a 16.88 ERA in three games prior to his release.
Howard pitched in 17 games for the Philadelphia Phillies (1-4, 5.81 ERA) in 2020 and 2021 and 21 contests for Texas (2-7, 8.37 ERA) in 2021, 2022 and this year.
• Erich Uelmen, who was on the Injury List from June 5 through mid-September with an undisclosed injury, pitched in a pair of rehab games Sept. 7 and 15 -- one each for Clearwater and Reading, earning a victory for the Fightin Phils with one scoreless inning in relief -- and tossed one inning for Lehigh Valley on Sept. 19 before he went back on the Injury List on Sept. 30 with a right flexor strain.
Cal Poly had as many as six former players in the Major Leagues this year, a record for the program.
In addition to Woo and Haniger, Mark Mathias played 22 games for Pittsburgh and five for the Giants this season, Uelmen pitched one inning for Philadelphia on May 19 against his former team, the Chicago Cubs, Howard pitched three games for the Texas Rangers and Justin Bruihl, who pitched 21 games for the Los Angeles Dodgers before he was traded to the Colorado Rockies earlier this month, pitched in seven Rockies games.
Follow the progress of all former Mustangs in professional baseball by clicking the link at the top of the page.
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS (BRYAN WOO and BROOKS LEE)
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- The 2023 professional season for 18 former Cal Poly baseball players has come to a close.
Highlighting the performances of the group of ex-Mustangs was pitcher Bryan Woo, who jumped from Double-A to the Major Leagues in early June with the Seattle Mariners, who finished the year a victory shy of the postseason playoffs.
After pitching 3 2/3 scoreless innings in an 8-0 win over the Texas Rangers last Friday in Seattle, Woo finished with four victories and nine no-decisions. Of Woo's nine starts resulting in a no decision, Seattle won six times.
Woo (4-5, 4.21 ERA) had a forgetful Major League debut June 3 and a disheartening outing Sept. 24, both taking place at Globe Life Field against the Rangers. But in the 16 starts outside of the two aforementioned outings, Woo flexed a 3.17 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP, highlighted by a 1.69 ERA in the month of August.
Woo far exceeded his career high in innings for a season. He threw under 70 total innings across three seasons at Cal Poly and, due to undergoing Tommy John surgery before he was drafted in 2021, he hurled just 57 innings in the minors in 2022.
This year? Woo pitched in 131 2/3 innings between Double-A Arkansas and the show. His fastball velocity started to dip a little bit in early September, though it picked back up late in the year. The Mariners managed his workload very carefully throughout the year.
With five strikeouts, three walks and two hits allowed last Friday, the 23-year-old rookie helped the Mariners notch their 17th shutout of the season, most in the majors. Woo had given up six earned runs in each of his previous two starts against the Rangers, going 0-2 with a 20.25 ERA.
"You try to not take (the crowd) in too much while you're playing. You just try to handle the baseball stuff while you can," Woo said after Friday's performance. "But when I came off the mound, sitting in the dugout, I was like, 'Yeah, this is pretty cool.'"
Woo, who threw 82 pitches, struck out the side in the first inning, working around walks to Corey Seager and Adolis Garcia by striking out Nathaniel Lowe on a check-swing strike three to end the inning. In a scoreless game in the third inning, the Rangers loaded the bases with two outs, but Woo escaped again when he got Josh Jung to fly out softly to left field to end the inning. Woo released a primal scream into his glove after Jarred Kelenic made the catch for that last out.
Ty France and Josh Rojas hit solo home runs off Texas starter Nathan Eovaldi in the bottom of the third inning, and Eugenio Suarez hit a ringing double to score J.P. Crawford and give the Mariners a 3-0 lead. That cushion allowed Seattle manager Scott Servais to send Woo, at 73 pitches, back out for the fourth inning. Servais had acknowledged pregame that Woo would be on a short leash in a game the Mariners needed to win.
Woo got Jonah Heim to fly out and Leody Taveras to ground out for the first two outs of the fourth inning. That was it for Woo, who received a standing ovation from the crowd of 45,274 on his walk back to the dugout. In his seventh start at T-Mobile Park, Woo improved his home ERA to 3.41, with 45 strikeouts and nine walks in 34.1 innings.
Seattle was eliminated from playoff contention Saturday in a 6-1 loss to the Rangers. The Mariners closed out an 88-74 campaign, one game back of Toronto in the chase for the third American League wild card race, with a 1-0 victory over Texas on Sunday. The Rangers and Houston Astros shared the AL West title, two games in front of Seattle.
Meanwhile, former Mustang shortstop Brooks Lee finished his 2023 season with a combined .275 batting average over 125 games. He hit .292 in 87 games at Double-A Wichita and .237 across 38 contests with Triple-A Saint Paul.
Lee doubled and homered, knocking in a run with each hit, on Sept. 20 against Toledo, his eighth multiple-hit game in Triple-A after notching 26 multiple-hit contests at Wichita. For the summer, Lee produced 39 doubles, 16 home runs and knocked in 84 runs.
Pitchers Drew Thorpe and Andrew Alvarez earned postseason accolades for their performances on the mound this summer.
Thorpe was named Minor League Pitcher of the Year in the New York Yankees organization by Baseball America while Alvarez was honored by the Washington Nationals as their top Minor League pitcher.
Thorpe notched a Minor League-best 182 strikeouts for the Hudson Valley Renegades and Somerset Patriots. He was 14-2 with a 2.52 ERA for the two clubs combined, walking just 38 batters over 139 1/3 innings. Thorpe averaged 11.8 strikeouts per nine innings. Thorpe's 14 wins this year are the most by Minor League starters this season.
Alvarez also pitched for two teams, posting a combined 7-7 record and 2.99 ERA with the Wilmington Blue Rocks and Harrisburg Senators. The lefty compiled a .229 opponents' batting average.
Outfielder Nick Torres powered Laguna into the final round of the Mexican League playoffs by going 16-for-48 (.333) in a six-game series against Monterrey, 6-for-23 in five games versus Tijuana and 6-for-27 in the semifinals against Dos Laredos. Laguna played Puebla in the best-of-seven final-round series, Puebla winning four games to two, with Torres going 8-for-22 (.364) with five RBIs, including a 3-for-3 performance with four RBIs in Game 2.
The outfielder finished the regular season 19th in the Mexican League in hitting, eighth in doubles, 22nd in home runs, 14th in hits and 11th in RBIs. He hit .338 in 83 regular-season games at Laguna.
Other highlights:
• Outfielder Mitch Haniger closed out another injury-slowing season with a .209 average in 61 games for the San Francisco Giants. He missed the first three weeks of the year with a left oblique strain, was out of the lineup from June 13 through August 28 after he was hit by a pitch and fractured his right forearm, and missed the final week of the season with a low back strain.
Haniger hit just .159 after coming off the injury list August 29 and finished with 13 doubles, six home runs and 28 RBIs.
• Spencer Howard signed a minor league contract with the San Francisco Giants on Sept. 22 and was assigned to the Sacramento RiverCats on Sept. 29. Howard became a free agent after he was released by the New York Yankees on August 30.
The Yankees acquired Howard from the Texas Rangers in an August 1 trade and assigned the right-hander to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where he was 0-1 with a 16.88 ERA in three games prior to his release.
Howard pitched in 17 games for the Philadelphia Phillies (1-4, 5.81 ERA) in 2020 and 2021 and 21 contests for Texas (2-7, 8.37 ERA) in 2021, 2022 and this year.
• Erich Uelmen, who was on the Injury List from June 5 through mid-September with an undisclosed injury, pitched in a pair of rehab games Sept. 7 and 15 -- one each for Clearwater and Reading, earning a victory for the Fightin Phils with one scoreless inning in relief -- and tossed one inning for Lehigh Valley on Sept. 19 before he went back on the Injury List on Sept. 30 with a right flexor strain.
Cal Poly had as many as six former players in the Major Leagues this year, a record for the program.
In addition to Woo and Haniger, Mark Mathias played 22 games for Pittsburgh and five for the Giants this season, Uelmen pitched one inning for Philadelphia on May 19 against his former team, the Chicago Cubs, Howard pitched three games for the Texas Rangers and Justin Bruihl, who pitched 21 games for the Los Angeles Dodgers before he was traded to the Colorado Rockies earlier this month, pitched in seven Rockies games.
Follow the progress of all former Mustangs in professional baseball by clicking the link at the top of the page.
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