Five Key Moments that Led to Mariners’ 4-0 Friday Win against Astros
HOUSTON, Texas — It’s still too early to tell what the biggest news from Friday night’s Houston opener was, but until Bryan Woo’s MRI comes back, the Mariners can guardedly celebrate a massive 4-0 win against their arch-nemesis.
Any time your pitching works a shutout, you’ve had a good day as a team, but the Mariners played a complete game from start to finish as they silenced Daikin Park’s once-hopeful crowd and took a one-game lead in the AL West with eight games left to play—and there are some moments that stand out above the rest.
I: Julio Rodríguez launches a “statement” first inning blast to give the Mariners an early lead.
In games like these, there’s a great importance that comes with setting the tone. Sure, comebacks might carry a bit more legend, but getting out ahead is the best way to ensure that the final result goes your way.
The Mariners did that on Friday night. Hunter Brown, the ace of a quality Astros staff with a 2.27 ERA going into Friday’s game, initially looked rock-solid against the first two batters he faced. But on a 2-0 count, Julio Rodríguez somehow jumped on a ball about a foot inside and launched a moonshot above the Crawford Boxes in left, giving Seattle a 1-0 lead in the first inning. It was an incredible display of athleticism, with a swing path low enough to resemble a stroke with an undersized pitching wedge.
“In some ways, it’s more of a statement than anything else,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said about Rodríguez’ early shot. “But being able to get ahead, I think, did allow Bryan to relax and get into that ballgame.”
II: Eugenio Suárez torches a two-strike curveball onto Daikin Park’s train tracks.
The out pitch for Astros starter Hunter Brown curveball. In a baseball world where most pitchers rely on side-to-side motion—hence the popularity of two-seamers and sweepers—Brown’s curveball has an almost truly vertical 12-6 action. Over the first three innings on Friday, he had gotten five strikeouts on the hook, and it only made sense for him to keep going to the crème de la crème of his arsenal.
That tendency was even more pronounced against a hitter like Eugenio Suárez. Seattle’s power-hitting third baseman is an all-or-nothing slugger that strikes out at one of the highest rates in MLB, so it was natural for Brown to look to the hook once more. On a 2-2 count, Brown threw the pitch, yet he missed his spot and hung it over the plate. Suárez fouled it off, giving Brown another chance and leaving a misplaced breaking ball unpunished.
Houston’s starter decided to go for it again, and for the second pitch in a row, a pitch intended to be down out of the zone was left around knee-high. Suárez did what he had done 46 times before in 2025: reach down and knock the cover off the baseball. Of all of Seattle’s four home runs on Friday, his was the most majestic: a 425-foot nuke that put a dent into Daikin Park’s train tracks above the left field wall. Seattle had a 2-0 lead, and although Rodríguez’ shot ended up being the game-deciding blast due to the Astros drawing a complete blank on runs, there is no overstating both the mental and physical value of insurance runs.
III: Bryan Woo strikes out Jose Altuve to halt nascent Houston momentum and get the second out of the fourth.
Bryan Woo had looked completely lights-out over the first three innings, completely turning around the Astros on his first time through the order. His secondaries were already unhittable, but as per usual, it was the fastball that was the true killer. Woo got a boatload of swings and misses on his elite heater during his first 10 batters, but he found his first bit of difficulty with one out in the bottom of the fourth inning.
It was a good example of the impact of first-pitch strikes. Woo fell behind Carlos Correa early, missing with two of his first three pitches, and Correa pounced on the following fastball down the pipe. The ball fell in the gap for a double and the jam thickened as Woo walked Isaac Paredes to put the go-ahead run at the plate.
The pivotal batter was Jose Altuve. The longtime Astros second baseman came into Friday’s game with a .312/.368/.463 slash line against Seattle, and as the face of Houston’s 2017 cheating scandal, he carries an extra aura of terror. Like the previous two men he had faced, he started off on the wrong foot with a ball, but he recovered from a 2-1 count with a well-placed up-and-in sinker that Altuve fouled off. The killer stroke was the change of eye level, as he got Altuve to commit to a swing on a sweeper a foot off the plate. He may have realized his mistake mid-swing, but he was unable to check his momentum, and it was a key strike three that led to the Astros drawing a blank in the fourth inning.
IV: Josh Naylor slam-proofs the Mariners with the team’s fourth solo homer.
It may have been a different pitcher on the mound, but the Mariners’ fourth run came the same way as the first three: the home run ball. Seattle is one of the most prolific longball-launching clubs in the majors, and that’s with half their games at T-Mobile Park. In the friendly confines of Daikin Park, it’s no wonder that Seattle got some fly balls over the short porch in left.
Víctor Robles’ seventh inning blast may have been the more surprising of the two late-game shots, but the more impactful was the eighth inning home run by Josh Naylor. Incidentally, Naylor’s was the only one by a left-hander on Friday and the only one that went out to right field instead of left.
Much more could be written about the journey of Astros reliever Craig Kimbrel, but the once-elite closer has found himself playing a solid role in Houston’s bullpen less than a month after being released by the Texas Rangers. Evidently, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but Josh Naylor found some treasure of his own in the form of a hanging 2-1 changeup from Kimbrel—and he sent it well into the seats in right center.
There’s a reason why a four-run lead is the point where the game ceases to be a save situation. When a team is leading by three or less, there is the possibility of one swing switching the score entirely. Before Naylor’s big fly, an Astros grand slam would have put Houston out in front. Now, all the ‘Stros could do with one swing was tie the game, while a four-run cushion gave Dan Wilson ample time to pull any struggling reliever that might make the game closer.
For Naylor, meanwhile, the blast made some history of his own. It was his 20th on the season, and with the Mariners first baseman having already accrued 27 stolen bases, he became the fourth ever Canadian-born player with a 20/20 season and the 14th ever first baseman with a 20/20 season. The 2025 Mariners as a whole, meanwhile, became the third team (after the 1988 Mets and the 2009 Phillies) to have three 20/20 players on their roster.
V: Jesús Sánchez grounds into a double play to erase an eighth inning defensive error by the Mariners.
A worrying issue for Seattle that ended up being lost in the wind was the late-game infield defense. J.P. Crawford, a former gold glover who can still make highlight reel plays at times but has had notable defensive struggles this year, made an error in the sixth that ended up unpunished. In the eighth, it was Suárez with the mistake, letting a routine leadoff grounder fall out of his glove.
Now, in point of fact, one runner on is not much of a hassle when you have a four-run lead. But the momentum shift of such a mistake can sink any team’s ship late in a game, and for a Mariners clubhouse who surely remembers what happened in game one of the 2022 ALDS, the feeling of powerless dread could have spiraled into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Matt Brash, coming off a rare blowup outing in Kansas City, displayed clear frustration at this. Nothing, it must have seemed, could go right. And yet, he didn’t let the error affect him, moving on to the next batter, one Jesús Sánchez. And as it turned out, the Astros’ chances at a rally lasted exactly five pitches: Sánchez gave Suárez a tailor-made double play.
It wasn’t long after when the Houston faithful witnessed Andrés Muñoz get a two-out strikeout in the ninth to finish Seattle’s 4-0 win.