HOUSTON — Two things that shouldn’t happen did and the Mariners suffered a loss that should’ve been a victory and a series win.
Instead, they will try and grab a series win Sunday in the finale of the four-game series and go into the All-Star break on a positive note.
The Mariners loaded the bases loaded with no outs in the top of the eighth inning and failed to push across a run.
And in the bottom of the eighth, Martin Maldonado, an offensive liability in the Astros lineup with a .167 batting average, smacked a solo homer into the Crawford Boxes in left field off Andres Munoz to break 2-2 tie and send the Astros to a 3-2 victory.
Reliever Hector Neris hit Ty France with a pitch and walked Teoscar Hernandez and Eugenio Suarez to start the eighth. But he came back to strike out pinch-hitter Cal Raleigh, got pinch-hitter Mike Ford to pop out to first and froze Jose Caballero for a called strike three to end the inning.
It was frustrating defeat for the Mariners, who squandered an outstanding outing from rookie Bryan Woo.
Woo pitched six innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on three hits with a walk and four strikeouts.
Both runs came in the first inning as Woo tried to settle into his outing, pitching in yet another new stadium and environment.
With one out Jeremy Pena singled to center. Kyle Tucker followed with a double down the right-field line to score Pana. Dylan Moore’s throw in from right field didn’t reach its intended destination. France couldn’t grab it and it rolled toward the third-base dugout, forcing catcher Tom Murphy to chase it down and allowing Tucker to move up 90 feet. That loomed large when Tucker scored on Alex Bregman’s hard line drive that hit off the top of Eugenio Suarez’s glove and into left field.
From there Woo allowed just one base runner, retiring 16 in a row after the Bregman single.
The Mariners picked up two runs off Astros starter Framber Valdez. J.P. Crawford had an RBI single in the third inning and run-scoring single from Jose Caballero in the fourth inning.
