HOUSTON -- The season is reaching the stage where the Mariners will need to start stacking wins in ways they haven’t all year if they have any hopes of playing into October.
Yet conversely, they’re trying to take a more insular approach in order to manifest that objective.
“It's more just the time of year where we're at right now,” manager Dan Wilson said at the outset of this huge showdown against the Astros. “And people start talking about what's left and looking at series, and you can kind of get lost in that instead of focusing on what's right in front of you. Baseball is a game of ‘What have you done for me lately?’ And right now, that's tonight's game.”
The one-day-at-a-time mantra is one of the most common clichés in this game, but that’s where Seattle sits. And after one of their more stinging losses in this summer-long spiral the night prior, the Mariners rebounded in a big way on Saturday at Daikin Park -- cruising to a commanding 10-5 win.
It was equally well-rounded, too.
At the plate, they worked counts, strung together multihit rallies and were aggressive on the basepaths.
They were on the cusp of winning without a homer, too, until Cole Young went yard in the ninth for a punctuating three-run shot. The night’s highlight, however, was Victor Robles' second-inning triple that scored Josh Naylor and Young, who was on the slugger’s heels and slid between his legs upon crossing the plate.
On the mound, Emerson Hancock escaped a bases-loaded jam in the first inning that put Houston on the board, but wound up clearing the seventh, at one point retiring 12 straight. It turned the rotation-wide road woes, as that group carried a 6.83 ERA since the All-Star break away from T-Mobile Park.
In the field, a few nifty plays bailed them out of brewing jams, headlined by Hancock’s pickoff to shortstop Brock Rodden to cap the right-hander’s outing.
Rodden also ignited a double play in the third, made an 86.8 mph putout on a tough second-chance grounder in the fourth and retired Yordan Alvarez on a late-hopping chopper to the right of second base in the eighth.
Nights like these have been rare for the Mariners, who, when they have excelled, have done so in just one or maybe two categories but not in the complete.