Recapping the Mariners’ 6-4 win over Houston as if the games had been played in a different order

A little thought experiment for your vibe

After fighting his way back from multiple injuries and derailments, Bryan Woo led Seattle to a 6-4 victory over Houston today, completing a stunning month of play in which Seattle stalked and finally caught the Astros in the standings. Just six weeks ago, the Mariners sat ten games behind the Astros, but after a 26-17 tear coincided with the Astros’ 14-25 collapse, the rivals are now tied atop the AL West.

Despite being the Astros’ best pitcher during their tumble, Ronel Blanco was beat up by the Mariners today. Seattle’s bats, continuing the recent signs of life, routinely made good contact off what has counted as Houston’s ace, with nine hard-hit balls and just five strikeouts. As it was when Seattle faced Blanco earlier this year, back when this was looking like it might be a lost season, Dylan Moore and Jorge Polanco did the bulk of the damage today. Polanco homered off him for the second time this season, and though DMo had to settle for a triple this time instead of a dinger, it was at least a two-run triple that gave the Mariners the lead in the second inning. They’d never surrender that lead.

That’s largely thanks to an excellent performance by Bryan Woo, relying on 77% fastballs to mostly tear through Houston’s flagging lineup. The highlight was striking out the side in the third inning.

Through five innings, Woo had struck out five, while walking none and allowing just two hits. Both those hits came from Yordan Álvarez, one of which was a majestic moonshot that just barely missed the third deck of the right field bleachers. Yordan may have accrued a mere 118 wRC+ over the Astros’ slide, but he’s still Yordan freaking Álvarez after all.

In the sixth, a weak grounder snuck just fair and an exploded bat on a swinging bunt unjustly gave the Astros runners on the corners with nobody out, a reversal of the amazing batted ball luck that the Mariners have been having lately. But J.P. Crawford cleaned it up by doing a masterful job selling his attempt to catch a line drive that came out of his glove to set up a double play.

With Yordan due up and Woo having stretched himself to 73 pitches, Woo was pulled for Tayler Saucedo. Sauce left a sinker in the middle of the plate that Yordan scalded to the left-center wall. Somehow, some way, because he’s an amazing athlete, Julio Rodríguez managed to get there. But he crashed into the wall at full speed, appearing to hyperflex his ankle. He dropped the ball and lay on the ground for an excruciatingly long time.

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He eventually returned to the dugout under his own power, and the X-Rays were negative. He’ll have an MRI and for the moment, the Mariners are calling it a “sprained ankle” and giving him “day-to-day” status. We’ll see how long that lasts. Kate reports seeing him in the locker room walking around with what she described as “only a slightly noticeable limp,” and no boot or air cast. With the winds finally at their backs, this couldn’t possibly be a worse time to lose Julio, but it seems like they might just have avoided a worst case scenario. We’ll obviously update you as the situation develops.

In any event, the official scorer decided to award Yordan a triple for that. And while an error feels wrong too, this is a good example of my proposed rule change that some bases be awarded on a “no fault” basis, where there is no error but the batter is not credited with a hit. The earlier shattered bat swinging bunt would be another example. (Yordan would eventually get the double to complete the second cycle in T-Mobile Park history, but we’ll remember this one as a technicality rather than an achievement.)

Things could have quickly gotten out of hand, but everything is going the Mariners way lately and they managed to escape the inning still up 3-2. Polanco continued his hot hitting against Blanco, chasing him out of the game after another single. It’s hard not to enjoy the skid that Houston’s rotation is on right now, with Blanco’s bad outing today jumping their ERA up to 5.44 since this stretch began.

The Astros’ bullpen then continued their terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month with Seth Martinez allowing a Luke-lear blast that put the game out of reach.

By the time the ninth rolled around, the game felt firmly in hand. And yet it brought us Andrés Muñoz’s first appearance since being so rudely denied the opportunity to pitch in the All-Star Game. And all he did was prove exactly why he earned his selection to the Midsummer Classic, striking out all three batters he faced with six whiffs on seven swings. That gets him today’s Sun Hat Award, though in a close win over Victor Robles, who had another couple hits and a stolen base today. It’s hard not to credit all this success to Robles’s arrival, having provided just the spark the Mariners needed to climb into a tie for first place and bring their FanGraphs’ playoff odds over 50% for the first time since early April.

Now, not to be a downer given what the Mariners have just achieved, but it’s important to remember that the tides can turn at any time. The Astros could regain the mojo, and the Mariners could lose theirs. There’s more than one route to being five games over .500, and the situation looking forward cares not for the recent run of good times.

Obviously this is a moment to savor, not that anybody seems to be having much trouble with that. But it’s a long season. So I’m trying to keep an even keel over both the good stretches and bad ones. FanGraphs’ computer says the Mariners are more likely to make the playoffs than not, and that’s good whether we got here this way or any other.