With focus shifted to wild card, Mariners take on 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.
