The Phillies have fallen into the abyss, getting swept at the hands of the Yankees earlier this week to make it five losses in six games. Now, the test will become much tougher as they hit the road for one of the most difficult parks in all of baseball.
Waiting on the other side will be young Bryan Woo, a talented right-hander who has battled injury this year and made it through just 53 2/3 innings with solid numbers around a troubling drop in strikeouts.
Can Woo continue trending in the right direction against a Phillies team which rates among the worst in baseball over the last couple of weeks, or will this be the long-awaited breakout that the World Series hopeful has been waiting for?
Let's break it all down in our Phillies vs Mariners prediction and pick for Friday, August 2.
Phillies vs Mariners Odds & Prediction
| Philadelphia Phillies Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
-105 | 8 -110o / -110u | +1.5 -210 |
| Seattle Mariners Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
-115 | 8 -110o / -110u | -1.5 +175 |
Phillies vs Mariners Projected Starting Pitchers
| Tyler Phillips | Stat | Bryan Woo |
|---|---|---|
| 3-0 | W-L | 4-1 |
| 0.5 | fWAR (FanGraphs) | 1.2 |
| 1.80 / 3.11 | ERA /xERA | 2.35 / 2.49 |
| 3.44 / 3.44 | FIP / xFIP | 3.20 / 4.07 |
| 0.76 | WHIP | 0.89 |
| 19.1% | K-BB% | 14.9% |
| 41.2% | GB% | 41.3% |
| 98 | Stuff+ | 105 |
| 100 | Location+ | 109 |
Phillies vs Mariners Preview
Philadelphia Phillies Betting Preview: Live & Die By the Home Run
The Phillies are as cool as it gets at the moment. They sit 22nd in wRC+ over the last two weeks with a flat .229 batting average, which is well off their season-long mark of .255. The power is still more or less there with a .155 ISO doing well to come close to what we've been accustomed to seeing, but it's clear this team is living and dying by the longball at the moment.
Philly has built a much heavier fly-ball approach in the last two weeks, bringing its rate of contact in the air up by two percentage points, and while that's come along with a strong 12.8% home run-to-fly ball ratio, much of that has had to do with playing six games in the hitter-friendly confines of Citizens Bank Park and another favorable setting in Minnesota. Seattle grades out just 19th in Park Factor for home runs over the last two years-and-change and second-worst when isolating just the 2024 season.
That should hurt this offense, but it'll aid rookie Tyler Phillips who's struggled to match the high ground-ball rates he posted in the minors thus far after moving up to the highest level of professional baseball. The good news is that he's never been one to rely on strikeouts, so he should theoretically be comfortable pitching to contact and does boast a .234 Expected Batting Average through 25 innings. His walk rate alco reached some troubling heights at times, but he's only issued two free passes to this point.
Seattle Mariners Betting Preview: Who is Bryan Woo?
Woo, on the other hand, is a hard man to read at the moment. He had other-worldly strikeout numbers in Double-A last season which earned him a straight call to the big leagues, skipping over Triple-A entirely, and he did what few have been able to do when moving up to the major-league level by maintaining a rather high rate of punchouts.
Well, he's lost a hair of velocity on his four-seamer and sinker this year in what's been an injury-riddled sophomore campaign which has led to a drop in whiffs across the board. Those swings and misses have begun to trend back up in each of his last three starts, however, and now he's posted roughly a .200 xBA in his last two outings.
The big story for Woo is that he's become a full-fledged ground ball pitcher in an attempt to pitch around his depressed strikeout totals. His rate of contact on the ground in his last outing was at a season-high 64.3%, marking the fourth straight start that it's increased.
The Mariners' offense has picked things up a bit over the last two weeks with a 103 wRC+, but that's a number that may lie to us a bit here given it's been heavily reliant on a .173 ISO in that time and a decent 16 homers in 12 contests. Seattle embarked on a road trip that saw it travel to a hitter-friendly park in Boston and a more favorable one in Chicago, playing in Anaheim prior to that.
Despite some solid settings for offense Seattle is still hitting just .215 in the last two weeks, which does well to throw some cold water on the marginal increase in output. The positive news here is that the Mariners have lowered their strikeout rate to 23.4% over the 14 days with a slight uptick in walks.
Kenny Ducey's Phillies vs Mariners Prediction, Betting Analysis
Both of these teams may be starved for hits at the moment, and both are all too reliant upon their power bats to score runs. While Philadelphia's putting more balls in the air at the moment, which doesn't bode well for their chances here, the trend developing for Seattle is even more extreme as the home side has posted a 45.6% fly-ball rate in the last two weeks to lead all teams and come in almost six points higher than its season-long mark.
Against two pitchers who have become contact-oriented, the team which can register more baserunners should win this game. That's why I like the Phillies to take this one, opposing a pitcher who should force them to hit the ball on the ground with how he's been trending and help them snap out of their funk at the plate.
Woo, who just reached a season-high in ground-ball rate, will work against a Phillies team hitting .262 against ground-ballers to rank ninth in the league, coming in well ahead of their .239 mark in the reverse split. That should be all the fuel the Phillies need to get this win, given Phillips has exhibited a solid ability to pound the zone and get outs on contact. Our prediction is that the Mariners continue to hit the ball into the unforgiving Seattle air to their detriment all night.
Pick: Phillies ML (+100)
Moneyline
The line here opened up around -120 in favor of the Mariners and has crept towards a pick 'em as the morning has worn on. We're tracking sharp action and big money on the Phils to get this done, and while just 38% of the bets placed on the moneyline are on the road dogs, they've commanded a solid 86% of the handle.
Run Line (Spread)
The Phillies are just 1-4 over their last five games, but have at least covered the run line in one of their losses. Even with the poor run of form, the Phillies have still covered the run line in 57.1% of their games following a loss and are a solid 7-5 against the spread as road underdogs this year.
Over/Under
In a twist, the total has now gone o four of the Mariners' last five games, and despite Philly's issues offensively, the over has cashed in three of its last five. With that said, the under has now gone 5-1 in the last six games played at T-Mobile Park and is now 37-17 this season overall.
