MLB Network analyst owned Mariners' Game 7 pitching plan with perfect explanation

If anyone thought the baseball world was ready to move on from Dan Wilson's bullpen management in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, you can think again. It is a veritable gold mine for analysis, and we have a new front-runner for the most clear-minded breakdown.

If you haven't seen it, Mark DeRosa took a six-minute look at how Wilson let the Seattle Mariners down with his decision to lift Bryan Woo for Eduard Bazardo in the seventh inning of Game 7 on Monday. The full segment is very much worth watching:

The result is the result. George Springer hit a three-run home run off Bazardo, which proved to be the difference for him and the Toronto Blue Jays in a 4-3 win. The problem was Wilson's process, and DeRosa's conclusion is largely the same as everyone else's: compared to calling on Bazardo, either sticking with Woo or calling in Andrés Muñoz would have been a better call.

Mark DeRosa nails why Dan Wilson screwed up his pitching plan in ALCS Game 7

The notion that sticking with Woo would have been a better play is actually debatable. Yes, he was the Mariners' best pitcher while he was healthy in 2025, but he was making only his second appearance since September 19 — and he had already gone 10 pitches beyond the number he threw in Game 5 the previous Friday.

To boot, half of the 10 pitches Woo had thrown in the seventh were balls. His last two fastballs clocked at 94.3 and 95.4 mph, compared to an average of 96.1 mph for the game. With runners on second and third and one out, giving him another at-bat against Springer would have been risky.

What DeRosa nails, though, is how much riskier the Bazardo matchup was just by virtue of the exposure penalty for relievers in October. The 16-year big-leaguer referenced a graphic that showed the splits for the postseason since 2019:

• 3rd time through the order vs. SP: .252 AVG, .324 OBP, .438 SLG
• 3rd time facing hitter for RP: .271 AVG, .343 OBP, .486 SLG

For all the modern handwringing over the third-time-through-the-order penalty for starting pitchers, relievers who face a hitter for the third time in a series have it much worse. And that was the case with Bazardo and Springer, who had previously faced off in Game 2 and Game 6.

What's more, Bazardo is not a complicated pitcher. He's a sinker-slider guy, and Springer had only seen the slider once. He had every reason to sit dead red on the sinker, and Bazardo's pitch pattern in the first two matchups suggested he could narrow his focus to the inner third of the strike zone.

Had Bazardo been able to perfectly hit Springer's cold zone up and in, he might have been able to get him out. But as DeRosa noted, it's hard to hit an exact spot with the same pitch over and over. This was ultimately Bazardo's failure, as Cal Raleigh set the target up and in only for the pitch to stray into the danger zone: belt-high and too close to the middle of the plate.

The rest, as they say, is history. Specifically, history in the form of Springer's 23rd career postseason home run and the Blue Jays' first World Series appearance since 1993.

The Mariners, meanwhile, are still searching for their first World Series appearance since their birth in 1977. Wilson isn't the only reason it remains elusive, but there really is no other candidate for Public Enemy No. 1 in Seattle right now.