Astros tighten hold on WC spot with emotional series win in Seattle
SEATTLE — To a participant, the Astros mentioned they approached Wednesday’s collection finale towards the Mariners as a must-win. Considering the season is in its ultimate days and a loss would have slid them out of the playoff image, the Astros’ urgency was definitely warranted.
The Astros took a serious step towards their seventh consecutive postseason berth Wednesday evening by getting a clutch three-run homer from heart fielder Mauricio Dubón and 5 scoreless innings from their bullpen to beat the Mariners, 8-3, at T-Mobile Park in certainly one of their greatest regular-season wins in years.
“I guess this was a must-win,” mentioned nearer Ryan Pressly, who recorded the ultimate 4 outs. “We approached it like a playoff game, there was a little bit of a playoff atmosphere out here and we kind of felt at home a little bit.”
By taking two of three video games from the Mariners, the Astros moved 1 1/2 video games forward of Seattle for the ultimate Wild Card berth within the American League, with Houston having three video games remaining this weekend at Arizona. If the Astros sweep the D-backs, the Mariners can’t catch them.
Every Astros starter had a minimum of one hit, with Michael Brantley — enjoying for the primary time in 9 days — going 4-for-5. Yordan Alvarez and Martín Maldonado additionally clubbed homers for the Astros, and Jose Altuve recorded his four-hundredth profession double within the fifth inning.
“We think this game was huge,” Maldonado mentioned. “Everybody was talking today that we’ve been here before in this situation — a must-win game. We went out there and executed from the first at-bat. We followed our game plan and we got the W. We have to take the same thing to Arizona.”
Alvarez tied the sport at 1 with a Statcast-projected 442-foot homer to heart subject to guide off the fourth inning, and Dubón hit a three-run homer off Mariners starter Bryce Miller later within the inning for a 4-1 Houston lead. Dubón’s tenth lengthy ball offers the Astros 11 completely different gamers with double-digit homers.
“Got us ahead against a good pitcher,” Dubón mentioned. “It’s been a crazy year. Down to the last three games. It’s a pretty good swing.”
Astros starter Framber Valdez flirted with catastrophe within the first inning, giving up a leadoff homer to J.P. Crawford on his second pitch of the evening and strolling the subsequent two batters. Valdez was visibly upset at some balls he thought had been strikes, and pitching coach Josh Miller and Maldonado tried to settle him down.
Valdez wound up going 4 innings, permitting three runs on 5 hits and 5 walks whereas hanging out seven batters, giving him 200 strikeouts for the season — the primary such yr of his profession.
Valdez joined Dallas Keuchel (2015) and Mike Cuellar (1967) as the one lefties in membership historical past to succeed in 200 in a season.
“The strike zone was moving all around for Framber early, but luckily we had Maldy back there to direct him,” Astros supervisor Dusty Baker mentioned. “He only gave up one run in that inning. I think it was a 30-pitch inning or something like that. We had the crooked-number inning in the fourth. He got out of trouble again. He was sharp at times and not sharp at other times, but we got some big hits in there.”
The Astros-Mariners rivalry bubbled up within the sixth, when Hector Neris struck out Julio Rodríguez to finish the inning and the 2 exchanged phrases. Benches emptied, and the Astros answered by scoring 3 times within the seventh inning on RBI hits by Kyle Tucker, José Abreu and Brantley to take a 7-3 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
Kendall Graveman (one inning), Neris (one inning), Bryan Abreu (1 2/3 innings) and Pressly (1 1/3 innings) held the Mariners to a few hits within the ultimate 5 frames. Houston’s bullpen has posted a 0.67 ERA with 32 strikeouts in 27 innings within the group’s final seven video games.
“The bullpen’s been our strength all year,” Maldonado mentioned. “Everything you asked from [Bryan] Abreu was huge. He was getting a little tired. Those guys carried us all year and last year to the postseason. We weren’t expecting anything less, especially with an off-day [Thursday]. Those guys stepped up.”
