Mariners stumble vs. Astros, unable to finish sweep of AL West rival

SEATTLE – This might be the one. You know, the games that when late September arrives and fans look at the standings, pining over that one game earlier in the season which definitely should have been chalked up as a win and is looked back upon with frustration because of how it ended up.

It feels like there’s been several options for one of those through the first 99 games of this Mariners season, but Sunday could very well be that game. With a chance to cut the deficit in the AL West down to two games, with their ace on the hill and holding a three-run lead, the Mariners let it all slip away.

The M’s lost the final game of their series with Houston 11-3 on Sunday, giving up 11 unanswered runs over the final five innings putting a damper on what could have been a statement weekend.

“Pretty frustrating. That can’t happen in a kind of game like that,” M’s starter Bryan Woo said. “You can get to two games (back). Got a lead. I got to do a better job.”

Yes, the M’s took two of three from the division-leading Astros and trimmed the deficit to four games in the AL West by winning the series. And yet it felt somewhat hollow because of how Sunday played out. This was the chance to be greedy against an Astros lineup that resembled something more out of spring training than the middle of July.

But the Mariners couldn’t do their part. They failed to build on an early 3-0 lead and the work they did to knock out Houston ace Hunter Brown after just four innings. They weren’t crisp defensively with one clear error and a few little things coming back to prove significant. And while Woo continued his streak of 19 straight starts pitching at least six innings, it was far from his best performance.

M’s manager Dan Wilson tried to put a positive spin on the weekend and didn’t view it as a missed opportunity, even if it clearly was.

“I wouldn’t say that. This was a day where we got an early lead, but they came back. Offensively, they played to what they normally do and got a couple of home runs to help that out. But outside of that, this is an offense that likes to do that and that’s what they did today. But overall, like I said, we took the series and got another series starting tomorrow,” Wilson said.

That other series is against Milwaukee, a team riding a 10-game win streak after sweeping the Dodgers. The challenge facing the M’s only gets tougher.

The loss snapped the M’s five-game win streak and with the knowledge they won’t see the Astros again until mid-September in Houston. And it’s likely to be a far different and far healthier Astros roster by the time September rolls around.

It’ll probably be Yordan Alvarez, Jeremy Peña and Isaac Paredes in the lineup for Houston and not Sunday’s lineup that featured former Mariners Taylor Trammell and Cooper Hummel, both of whom contributed to the five runs – four earned – scored off Woo.

The M’s best pitcher the first half of the season mostly cruised through the first four innings, then labored to get through the fifth and sixth. He wasn’t helped by J.P. Crawford dropping a shallow pop up in short left field from Shay Whitcomb in the fifth inning, an error that was compounded when Miles Mastrobuoni threw home trying to get Trammell scoring from third rather than throwing to second base where there could have been an easy force out on Hummel.

“I should have caught the ball,” Crawford said. “I missed it. Can’t happen. (Messed) that one up. Move on.”

That error and the decision to throw home became a big deal one batter later when Cam Smith doubled and both Hummel and Whitcomb scored – the second maneuvering around the tag attempt of Mitch Garver – to pull Houston even at 3-3.

An inning later, Houston took the lead as Woo twice let fastballs leak back over the middle of the plate. Christian Walker homered on the first pitch of the inning and Trammell reached the first row in right field for his second of the season.

“Sixth inning, can’t let those two score. Got to keep it a tie game,” Woo said. “So, yeah, a lot of things that I just I didn’t do well.”

It was only the fourth time in 19 starts Woo has allowed four or more earned runs. He struck out six and the fact he’s the first pitcher with 19 straight starts of pitching at least six innings to begin a season since Clayton Kershaw in 2019 mattered little in the context of the day.

“Just feel like a lot of it is on me and I didn’t do a better job,” Woo said.

Casey Legumina allowed four more runs in the seventh on Victor Caratini’s RBI single, a sacrifice fly from Yainer Diaz and Trammell’s two-run double to center field where Julio Rodríguez got badly turned around.

Offensively, the M’s did their part early against Houston’s best arm. Brown had thrown five innings in every start this season and in his past four starts against the Mariners had allowed a total of two runs in 24 innings.

Brown was done after four innings and 89 pitches, as the M’s got to him early, taking a 2-0 lead on Jorge Polanco’s two-out, two-run single in the third inning. Rodríguez added a two-out single to score Garver an inning later for a 3-0 advantage.

But the M’s managed just four hits the rest of the way and the closest they got to scoring came in the sixth inning when Mastrobuoni attempted to score on Crawford’s two-out double. He was initially ruled safe and would have cut the deficit to 5-4, but replay correctly overturned the call.

While his manager didn’t want to go down that path, Crawford acknowledged that it was a missed opportunity Sunday.

“Absolutely. These games matter,” he said. “But you got to keep going. Got a good team coming in. Got to get ready for them.”