The Seattle Mariners entered Sunday’s series finale against the Houston Astros with a golden opportunity: sweep a division rival, pull within two games in the AL West, and beat an injury-depleted opponent starting a pitcher they’d already gotten to this year. Instead, everything unraveled — fast.
Despite a 3-0 lead and All-Star Bryan Woo on the mound, the Mariners were outscored 11-0 over the final five innings and walked off their home field with an 11-3 loss. Asked to explain what went wrong, Woo didn’t mince words: “It sucks,” he said. “Frustrating, to say the least, especially because I just feel like a lot of it’s on me.”
The 24-year-old righty cruised through four scoreless innings on just 51 pitches, looking every bit the ace Mariners fans have come to expect. But a leadoff walk in the fifth — always dangerous — kickstarted a meltdown. Woo gave up three runs in that inning, punctuated by a wall-scraping two-run double from Cam Smith. The following frame brought more damage: solo home runs from Christian Walker and former Mariner Taylor Trammell flipped the score in Houston’s favor for good.
“That can’t happen,” Woo admitted postgame. “Especially with the way we started.”
Mariners lose the lead, drop the series finale to Astros
Manager Dan Wilson downplayed the notion that the loss was a blown opportunity. “I wouldn’t say that,” Wilson said. “We got an early lead, but they came back. This is an offense that likes to do that — and they did today.”
Still, it’s hard to overlook the context. The Astros were missing four key position players, including All-Stars Jeremy Peña and Isaac Paredes, and five rotation arms. Their starter, Hunter Brown, was chased after just four innings — the shortest outing of his All-Star campaign. But after Julio Rodríguez and Jorge Polanco delivered early RBI hits, Seattle’s bats went quiet.
Even when J.P. Crawford doubled late to ignite a rally, poor baserunning ended the inning and any hopes of a comeback. “That one stung,” Wilson said of the out at the plate. “You can’t waste opportunities like that against a team like Houston.”
Seattle’s bullpen didn’t help, surrendering six more runs after Woo exited. The result snapped the Mariners’ five-game winning streak and dropped them to 53-46 — four games back in the division and in a tie with Boston for the second Wild Card spot.
In the big picture, the Mariners are still playing well, having taken five of six from playoff-caliber teams. But Sunday’s collapse may loom large in the playoff race — especially for a team that missed the postseason by one game in each of the past two seasons.
“Sweeps are hard,” Woo said. “But this one hurts a little more. We had it right there.”
Now the Mariners turn their attention to the red-hot Brewers, hoping to shake off the sting of a day that felt like it should’ve gone differently.
