SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - SEPTEMBER 25: Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Luis Castillo #58 reacts after giving up a solo home run to Houston Astros left fielder Yordan Alvarez #44 during the third inning at T-Mobile Park on September 25, 2023 in Seattle …
SEATTLE - The Seattle Mariners have just about run out of margin for error in their chase for a spot in the postseason.
In kicking off a critical seven-game home stand to close out the regular season, the Mariners were steamrolled by Justin Verlander and the Houston Astros in a 5-1 loss on Monday night that pushed Seattle further out of playoff contention. The Astros moved 1.5 games ahead of Seattle in the race for the final Wild Card spot in the American League.
Verlander took a shutout into the ninth inning with just three hits and one walk allowed along with eight strikeouts for Houston and Yordan Álvarez and Kyle Tucker each homered for the Astros to suck the wind out of T-Mobile Park.
"We got beat. There's no way around it. Verlander dealt. Seven of eight innings were 1-2-3," manager Scott Servais said.
While the Mariners were coming off a sweep at the hands of the AL West leading Texas Rangers, the Astros entered Monday's matchup with Seattle in free fall. They had lost nine of their last 12 games overall with seven of those losses coming against the Kansas City Royals and Oakland Athletics, who are the two worst teams in baseball and the only teams to have at least 100 losses on the season.
You wouldn't have known given Houston's showing on Monday night.
The Astros roughed up Mariners ace Luis Castillo with five runs on eight hits over six innings. A three-run rally with two outs in the second inning put Seattle into chase mode the rest of the night.
Julio Rodríguez was unable to cleanly field a drive into the gap by José Abreu as the ball reached the base of the wall in right-center field for a leadoff triple. The Astros delivered with two outs as Mauricio Dubón singled to drive in Abreu for a 1-0 Houston lead.
Martin Maldonado followed with a double to left-center field that scored Dubón and José Altuve singled to center field to bring home Maldonado as the Astros took a 3-0 lead.
"I thought Luis Castillo's stuff was maybe as good as we've seen it all year. Unfortunately, he made a couple mistakes in the middle of the plate with the fastball there in the second inning," Servais said. "I thought he was going to work his way out of it after the leadoff triple to Abreu, he gets the ground ball, keep in the infield, gets a punch out, gets two strikes on Dubon and he left the ball out over the plate and drove in a run and then after that, they were on him. They got on the fastball and they squared it up."
Álvarez then delivered a 439-foot blast into the center field seats to leadoff the third inning for his 30th home run of the year as the lead extended to 4-0 Houston.
The Mariners created only one real chance to score against Verlander in the bottom half of the third inning. Dominic Canzone and Josh Rojas each singled and J.P. Crawford drew a one-out walk to load the bases. However, Verlander got Rodríguez to ground into a double play to end the only Seattle threat of the against the Houston starter.
Tucker added a 419-foot home run to right field for his 29th of the season in the sixth inning for Houston.
Beginning with the Rodríguez double play, Verlander retired the next 16 batters he's faced before Josh Rojas led off the ninth inning with a double. That ended Verlander's night as he gave way to Bryan Abreu to close out the contest.
Rodríguez's sacrifice fly in the ninth inning scored Rojas to avoid the shutout for Seattle.
The Mariners have lost their last seven games to teams that aren't the Oakland Athletics and have lost 11 of their last 16 games overall. Since taking a one-game lead in the AL West with an 8-7 win over the New York Mets on September 2, the Mariners are just 7-14 in their last 21 games played.
"We know what’s at stake. S--- is in the past. We’ve got to look forward to tomorrow," Crawford said. "We’ve got bigger games ahead of us right now. Nothing we can do about these games. Terrible losses. All these losses suck right now but there’s nothing we can do about them. We’ve just got to keep our heads up, look on the positive side and get ready for tomorrow."
The Rangers beat the Los Angeles Angels 5-1 on Monday night as well to take a four-game lead over Seattle in the AL West. The Astros remain 2.5 games back of Texas in the division race. The Toronto Blue Jays are 1.5 games up on Houston and 3.0 games up on Seattle for the second Wild Card spot. Barring a Toronto collapse, there's only two spots available in the playoffs between Texas, Houston and Seattle with the Mariners currently on the outside looking in.
With just six games left to play, the Mariners are nearly out of losses to give. They can erase the pain of Monday night's loss if they're able to win the final two games of the series against Houston. If they're unable to do so, the chances of reaching the playoffs for a second straight season will be close to over.
It doesn't help that Seattle's final four games all come against the Rangers, whom the Mariners are just 1-8 against this season.
"Coming into this series with how things have gone for us lately, you need to win a series," Servais said. "That's just where we're at. We still have chance to do that. Come in tomorrow, get after it. We have to do a whole lot more offensively, obviously, against their starter and see where that takes us. Really a game at a time right now. You can't look any farther ahead. We need to win tomorrow's game. That's just where we're at in our season."