Astros beat Mariners for 10th win in a row
HOUSTON – After four days of seeing their pitching pummeled up by a plethora of home runs – each one eliciting the playing of “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” by The Gap Band in celebration – the Mariners limped out of Minute Maid Park, a beat-up and scuffling group, who never want to hear that song again.
The good feelings of a three-game sweep of the Rangers to start the current road trip were buried under a barrage of long balls while being swept by the hottest team in baseball – the Houston Astros.
With a 7-6 win on Sunday, the Astros have now won 10 in a row and 14 of their past 15 games. Houston (18-7) sits atop the American League West and leads the fourth-place Mariners (10-15) by eight games.
Of course, the decisive run came via the long ball.
Evan Gattis hit his second home run of the game – a line-drive, solo shot over the wall in left field – to lead off the bottom of the eighth off reliever Carson Smith to provide the difference. It was the first run the young reliever had allowed in 20 career big league appearances.
Seattle, happy to face someone other than Houston, will now travel to Anaheim to play the Angels for a three-game series, starting tonight. Felix Hernandez will try to stop the four-game losing streak.
In the four-game series, the Mariners were outscored 25-15 and their pitchers allowed 11 homers, which is in stark contrast to the month of April, where they allowed 10 homers - lowest in the American League.
“They played extremely well,” manager Lloyd McClendon said of the Astros. “But I will say this, we didn’t make quality pitches when we needed to. We elevated some breaking balls and they were taking advantage of them.”
Even J.A. Happ, who has been the Mariners’ best starter other than Hernandez, couldn’t stop the abuse or avoid having mistakes capitalized upon.
Happ pitched six innings, but gave up a three-run homer to Gattis in the first inning, a two-run homer to Chris Carter in the third inning and a RBI double in the fourth inning.
The Mariners did show some fight after getting down 6-1 in the fourth inning.
Seattle trimmed the lead to 6-2 in the sixth inning. Seth Smith tripled off starter Roberto Hernandez to right-center and trotted home when the relay throw to third base went wide and skidded into the Mariners dugout.
The Mariners put up four runs in the seventh. Back-to-back singles from Kyle Seager and Logan Morrison set up Mike Zunino’s RBI double off the wall in left field. The Astros called on lefty Tony Sipp to stop the rally. McClendon countered with right-handed swinging Rickie Weeks as a pinch-hitter. The move worked as planned. Weeks hammered a double over the head of center fielder Jake Marisnick to score two runs and cut the lead to 6-5. Weeks later scored on an error by third baseman Jonathan Villar, who missed a throw from catcher Jason Castro, allowing Weeks to jog home for the tying run.
Down 7-6 in the ninth, Weeks drew a one-out walk. But Brad Miller grounded into a double play to end the game.