Defense Falls Apart as Mariners Get Shredded 11-3 By Astros
SEATTLE, Wash. – Sometimes, a team can win a series and still come away looking like the worse of the two squads. That’s what happened today, as the Houston Astros came alive for the final game of the series and walloped the Seattle Mariners 11-3, outplaying the home team in every aspect of the game of baseball.
With Sunday’s blowout, the ‘Stros outscored the Mariners 18-16 in the series and really made it look like Seattle got lucky with their wins in the first two games (frankly, they did get lucky in that second contest). Houston still walks away with a solid division lead, though a game less than when the second half started. But today’s game perhaps served best as a get-right game for an injured Houston team that had gone 1-7 in their last eight games going back to July 7.
For Seattle, the loss is a stark reminder that the team needs some help at the deadline both in the offense and in the bullpen, as both Casey Legumina and the six through eight spots in the order did the team no favors in the finale of the three-game set.
Hit It Where They Ain’t
Astros pitcher Hunter Brown was dealing for the first two innings. He worked through the M’s with ease in the first, getting J.P. Crawford looking and Rodriguez and Arozarena swinging. Just like Woo, he dealt with a two-out base knock in both the first. And just like Woo, he dealt with one in the second. By the end of the second, Brown had five strikeouts on 34 pitches.
But in the third, the Astros starter ran into trouble. Seattle successfully scratched together base knocks the old-fashioned way, finding holes among fielders and legging out grounders, and by the end of the inning, the opening tie was gone.
Miles Mastrobuoni got it started with a grounder between first and second for a leadoff single. Two batters later, Julio Rodriguez hit a soft grounder to the left side and beat out an infield single. With a 1-1 count to Cal Raleigh, the runners got a move on, bringing the crowd to its feet with an electric double steal. Then Raleigh walked to load the bases.
Then the white-hot Randy Arozarena rolled up to the plate. The first pitch was a ball in the dirt. Arozarena took a mighty hack at the next two, but fouled them off the backstop. But the next pitch ended up in shallow left, too close for Mastrobuoni to test Cooper Hummel’s arm.
Jorge Polanco now stepped into the box. On a 2-2 count, Brown tried to blow past a fastball at the top of the zone – and Polanco hit it perfectly, cracking a liner over Altuve’s outstretched glove and into right field. Mastrobuoni and Rodriguez easily scored while Raleigh made it to third. Raley struck out to end the inning, but Seattle took an early 2-0 lead.
Brown continued his struggles in the fourth. Gone was his early confidence, instead replaced by skittish misses off the plate and longer at-bats from the bottom of the Mariner order. Garver was the second straight leadoff man to reach, this time on a hit by pitch, and Mastrobuoni walked on five pitches two batters later to put runners on first and second as the lineup turned over. Astros pitching coach Joshua Miller came out to the mound after this.
He settled down a bit, striking out J.P. Crawford. Then the Astro starter tried to get Rodriguez to ground into a double play with a sinker over the plate – but instead, he chopped it up the middle to get Garver home and Mastrobuoni to third.
Brown’s attention was split between the runner and batter, with Rodriguez dancing around off the first base bag. Despite two throws over, Rodriguez swiped second without any contest from Yainer Diaz.
Raleigh harmlessly flew out to left, but the score was now 3-0 and Brown had thrown 89 pitches.
Tables Turn in Fifth
But the good times didn’t last.
It started with some struggles for Mariners starter Bryan Woo. Early on in the game, Woo had been relying heavily on his fastball to pound the zone and attack the Astros while sprinkling his off-speed stuff in pitcher’s counts. With Houston’s panoply of injuries, Woo and the Mariners were betting against the visitors’ ability to make good contact on fastballs out over the plate. This worked very well for the first few innings, and his fastball command looked really strong in the third and fourth.
But by the fifth, Astro bats were catching up to his deliveries over the plate in the fifth, smacking hard-hit balls right to holes in the Mariner defense. It was that same Mariner defense that proved a critical difference, and not in a good way.
It started, as many bad innings do, with a walk. Woo barely missed his spots to give Taylor Trammell a free pass on six pitches before Mauricio Dubón cracked a line drive into left. Two men on and nobody out.
Mitch Garver went out to the mound and had a quick chat with his pitcher. This got Woo back in the zone a little bit; Cooper Hummel hit a slow grounder to Polanco that ended up being a fielder’s choice at second.
Then Shay Whitcomb popped one up towards no man’s land on the left side. Crawford and Mastrobuoni raced for it, but it was Crawford that got there first – and dropped the catch. Mastrobuoni tried an impossible throw-out at home rather than going for the probable out at second, and everybody was safe with a run in for the visitors.
On a 1-2 count, Cam Smith cracked a high line drive into right center. Dominic Canzone drifted back but let it bounce off the wall and into his hand. He fired into the infield, then the relay came home. Hummel scored, but there was a play at the plate with Whitcomb. But Mitch Garver was slow on the tag at home and the third Astro of the inning crossed the plate.
Jose Altuve strolled to the plate, serenaded by ferocious boos. Woo’s first pitch was a ball, but his next two were strikes. After a sweeper in the dirt, Altuve turned around into a knot fishing for a sinker inside. Caratini grounded out to first to end the frame, but the momentum had shifted and the game was tied.
Solo Shots Put Houston On Top
Woo’s issues became yet more prominent in the sixth. His first pitch was a sinker that didn’t sink and ended up right down the middle to Christian Walker. The ball flew off the Astro first baseman’s bat with a crowd-silencing crack. Arozarena didn’t even turn his head. The ball crashed into the out-of-town scoreboard to put the Astros up 4-3.
Two batters later, it was former Mariner Taylor Trammell doing the damage. Again, it was the sinker. Again, it found far too much of the plate. And again, the Astro batter put the barrel to the ball. Canzone drifted back for a couple seconds in right, but there was nothing he could do. Houston led by a score of 5-3.
By the end of the inning, Bryan Woo had thrown 91 pitches. His day was done, and he finished his outing with six innings pitched, six hits given up, five runs, four earned runs, six strikeouts, and one walk.
Seattle nearly got a run across in the bottom of the sixth, as J.P. Crawford landed a two-out double in left center with Miles Mastrobuoni on first. But the throw came home true and Diaz tagged Mastrobuoni out at home in the nick of time. 5-3 was the score going into the final third of the ballgame.
Loss Becomes Blowout
Casey Legumina came out for the seventh and the deficit promptly ballooned for the M’s. Shay Whitcomb cracked a single into left to start it off and got to second on a fielder’s choice. Jose Altuve nearly struck out on a 2-2 fastball low but Garver couldn’t hold on to the foul tip, and three pitches later, Altuve walked.
Then Caratini smacked a liner into left center, knocking home Whitcomb and bringing Altuve to third. Walker went to first after replay review showed a hit by pitch to load the bases. Altuve came home in the next plate appearance as Yainer Diaz knocked a sacrifice fly to right.
Taylor Trammell – and his counterpart in center, Julio Rodriguez – put the jewel in the crown of Seattle’s day to forget. He swung on the very first pitch, a fastball low and in, and drilled it to center field. Rodriguez got a late jump and then turned his body around thrice while backing up onto the warning track. Ultimately, Rodriguez’ unsure play on the ball resulted in it falling over his head and scoring both runners. Nine to three.
The eighth saw yet more Astros cross home. Cooper Hummel got on with a leadoff single, and although Mariner reliever Juan Burgos fanned the next two Astros, Jose Altuve got the softest-hit double of the ballgame on a hit-and-run play that took Polanco away from the path of his soft grounder. Caratini cracked a fly ball into left center and Arozarena got to it, but was unable to catch it and it was 11-3.
So it remained for the rest of the ballgame. Crawford led off the bottom of the inning with a double but Ryan Gusto breezed through the next three men, getting Randy Arozarena to loudly fly out to left for the game’s final out.
Defense Dropped Ball At Key Points
Counting up all the misplays by the Mariners on defense during the Astros’ four straight innings of production, the M’s had: a dropped catch by Crawford, a throw to the wrong station by Mastrobuoni, a missed tag by Garver, a missed bare-handed grab (admittedly a difficult play) by Crawford, a dropped foul tip by Garver, and a misplayed fly ball by Rodriguez.
If all of those things had been dealt with correctly, the game would have looked quite a bit different different. The fifth inning would have ended with the Mariners still up by a run and Woo in a better spot. Obviously, beyond that, it’s hard to extend the counterfactual in such a game of inches as baseball, but it’s easy to see how less of a momentum shift could have led to much less late-game production from Houston.
The clear area to work on is Mastrobuoni’s awareness. After Crawford’s dropped ball, the out at home was not going to be close no matter what he did – but he had an available out at second, with Hummel caught dangerously off-guard by the error.
Rodriguez also is in need of some honing in. There have been some clear miscues in center field this month that are adding up to a worrisome pattern. The Mariner outfielder seems to be having trouble getting jumps or reading balls in center field, and it has resulted in his usual No Fly Zone self regressing pretty roughly on defense.
For Crawford, perhaps it’s just one of those days. Given his incredible performance at short all year, it doesn’t present that much worry for the future.
Seattle Needs Deadline Bats
It was not a good game for Luke Raley, Mitch Garver, or Dominic Canzone. They combined to go 2-11 with eight strikeouts and a .182/.250/.182 slash. Especially not Luke Raley, who ended up with a golden sombrero. But Garver and Canzone, despite getting one knock each, looked really bad in each of their other at-bats. Their strikeouts (two each) involved weak waves and misses at balls well off the plate.
While Mitch Garver fills his role well enough as a backup catcher and Dominic Canzone still has an impressive .317/.349/.554 slash in 101 at-bats over a much-improved 2025 season, first base is looking like a weak spot. His 112 OPS+ and 115 wRC+ going into the game would be solid at many positions, but for a first baseman, a serious contender usually wants more production.
The real issue is third base. Miles Mastrobuoni had an excellent game with the bat, going 2-3 with a walk, but for the season, his offense has been lacking. His lack of extra bases brings his OPS down to .624, well below league average. If the team brought in a big power bat at third to bolster the middle of the lineup, that would change the offensive outlook of this team immensely.
On Deck
With today’s loss, the M’s fall to 53-46 and are now four games back of the Houston Astros for the AL West lead. They are tied with the Red Sox for the second and third wild cards, but the tiebreaker gives Seattle the second wild card. The Tampa Bay Rays trail Seattle and Boston by one and a half games while the Texas Rangers are three games back.
The next team coming to town is the white-hot Milwaukee Brewers. They are tied for first in the NL Central (though the Cubs have the tiebreaker) with a 59-40 record and have won ten straight games going back to July 6. The Brew Crew aren’t just winning, they’re crushing their opponents: the combined score over their past ten games is 56-26. In their sweep of the NL West-leading Dodgers, the games were closer, but Milwaukee still pulled it through in each game.
Seattle will be facing a daunting challenge over the next three days against one of the best teams in baseball – can they hold up under the pressure?
