With focus shifted to wild card, Mariners tackle Astros

The Houston Astros can finally relax, at least for the next few days.

The Seattle Mariners, meanwhile, have no such luxury.

Though the Astros (86-72) have a playoff spot secured, the Mariners (81-77) are still fighting to remain alive in the postseason race entering the teams’ series finale Wednesday in Houston.

The Astros won their fourth straight American League West title with a 4-3 victory over Seattle on Tuesday. The Mariners had postponed the celebration with a 6-1 win in the series opener on Monday.

Houston is locked in as the No. 3 seed and will host a best-of-three wild-card series starting on Oct. 1.

For Seattle, the Tuesday loss dropped the club 2 1/2 games back of the AL’s final wild-card spot with four games remaining.

This year’s division clincher was poetic given the Astros once trailed the Mariners by 10 games for first place in mid-June. Houston pulled even with Seattle atop the West just over a month later and went 53-32 after June 18 to retain its status as the division’s superior club.

“The start to the season wasn’t what we wanted, but we knew how good of a team we are and how many great players we had around us, so it was just a matter of time until we started clicking and turned things around,” Astros right fielder Kyle Tucker said.

As painful as it was watching their rivals celebrate at their expense, the Mariners know they have no time to sulk over fumbling their division lead.

“You just can’t feel sorry for yourself,” Seattle right-hander Logan Gilbert said. “… You can’t think about what could have been, where we were at, all that kind of stuff. Right here, right now. What can we do? We’ve got four games left. We need to win them all.”

The Mariners return home after their game Wednesday to face the Oakland Athletics in their last regular-season series. Seattle must pass two teams in the season’s final five days to slide into a wild-card spot.

“There’s a lot of different scenarios that can still take place here,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. ” … We keep fighting and turn around, see what happens.”

Seattle will send right-hander George Kirby (13-11, 3.60 ERA) to the mound on Wednesday to face a former Mariner, Houston left-hander Yusei Kikuchi (9-9, 4.19).

Both pitchers have logged quality starts in three of their past four outings.

Kirby is 3-1 with a 3.38 ERA in four starts this month. He allowed two runs on six hits and no walks in 13 innings over his past two starts, both against the Texas Rangers.

The third-year veteran is 2-0 with a 1.56 ERA in six career starts against the Astros. He has limited Houston to three runs across 18 innings in three starts this season, earning a decision in none of them.

Kikuchi has gone 3-0 with a 3.12 ERA over his past four outings. He last pitched on Thursday, when he held the visiting Los Angeles Angels to one run over six innings while walking one and striking out nine.

The sixth-year major-leaguer has dominated the Mariners since pitching for them from 2019 to 2021.

Kikuchi holds a 1-0 record with a 0.52 ERA across three career starts against Seattle. He held the Mariners to one run on three hits and struck out nine over six innings in a start for the Toronto Blue Jays on April 10.

–Field Level Media