HOUSTON — The Seattle Mariners left Houston lamenting their missed opportunities.
Their playoff hopes took another hit, as Jake Marisnick had a three-run homer for the second straight game and Alex Presley drove in two runs to lead the Houston Astros to an 8-3 win over the Mariners on Sunday.
Houston took two of three from the Mariners, who dropped to 1 1/2 games back for the second AL wild card with the loss.
“The only thing you can say is we haven’t done our jobs,” Seattle second baseman Robinson Cano said. “The last couple of games we have men in scoring position and we haven’t done our job. We just aren’t very consistent.”
Manager Lloyd McClendon looked on the bright side instead of wallowing in what might have been.
“I choose to be very positive,” he said. “We lost a tough series, but we’re still in this thing, and I guarantee you there’s a lot of teams that wish they were in our position right now.”
Rookie Collin McHugh (11-9) allowed four hits and three runs in six innings to extend his career-best winning streak to seven. He’s the first Astros pitcher to win seven straight since Roy Oswalt reeled off nine in a row from Aug. 23, 2006, to April 17, 2007.
The Astros trailed 3-1 in the fifth inning before an RBI double by Jose Altuve. A two-run single by Presley, who finished with three hits, came with two outs in the inning to make it 4-3 and chase Hisashi Iwakuma (14-9).
Michael Saunders hit a two-run homer for the Mariners, who were outhit 14 to seven.
Iwakuma was trying to bounce back from his last two starts where he was 0-2 with a 12.91 ERA. Instead, he allowed six hits and four runs in 4 1/3 innings for yet another loss.
“I don’t recall being in a stretch like this for so long,” Iwakuma said through a translator. “But this is part of your experience. You want to learn from your failures and hopefully I can turn it around quick.”
Houston was still up by one in the seventh when Marisnick padded the lead with his homer to the Crawford Boxes that made it 7-3. Two of Marisnick’s three homers this season have come in the last two games.
Altuve, who leads the majors with a .345 average, went 2 for 4 to give him 220 hits this season. That’s the most hits by a second baseman since Charlie Gehringer had 227 in 1936 for the Detroit Tigers. He was lifted from the game with two outs in the top of the ninth inning and received a standing ovation from the crowd in Houston’s final home game of the season.
“He’s the catalyst of the ballclub,” interim manager Tom Lawless said. “When he gets on things happen. He’s got … 220 hits and that’s really unheard of.”
Houston rookie first baseman Jon Singleton turned an unassisted double play for the first two outs of the eighth inning. He caught a liner hit by Austin Jackson before tagging Miller at first base for the second out.
UP NEXT
Left-hander James Paxton will pitch the opener of the Mariners’ four-game series at Toronto. Paxton, a Canadian who’ll be making his first career start against the Blue Jays, is 2-2 with a 2.39 ERA in his last four starts.
