AL West rivals will continue a huge three-game series on Saturday afternoon at T-Mobile Park with the Houston Astros visiting the Seattle Mariners. These teams will meet in the series opener late on Friday night after the time of publishing. Houston is comfortably atop the division at 61-32, while the Mariners are in second place at 51-42.
This competitive season series is deadlocked at six wins apiece thus far.
The Astros couldn't have gotten off to a better start in the second half, as they swept a doubleheader from the New York Yankees including a 7-5 win in Thursday's nightcap in a showdown between the two best teams in the AL. Yordan Alvarez and Alex Bregman went deep back-to-back in the bottom of the first before each providing a run-scoring hit the next inning, and Chas McCormick's two-run homer in the sixth was important insurance.
Luis Garcia earned the win, allowing two runs on three hits and two walks while striking out six across five innings. Rafael Montero earned his seventh save, shutting down a Yankees rally in the ninth by getting the final two outs. Jeremy Pena doubled and scored on the RBI two-bagger from Alvarez, who returned from the IL after recovering from a hand issue.
“We were trying to chase a team and wanted to really win this first game, and that put us in a position that if we end up tied, we won the tiebreaker,” manager Dusty Baker said to MLB.com, referencing that Houston clinched the season series tiebreaker over the Yankees. “We really didn’t want to take that into the second game. We went through our bullpen in the first game and that’s why it was important for us to win it.”
Houston is one of baseball's most profitable teams on the money line while going 48-43 on the run line. Overs are just 33-53-3 for the Astros after the second leg of Thursday's doubleheader snapped a run of three straight unders.
The Astros are only a middling scoring team at 4.44 runs per game despite posting a strong .740 OPS that ranks sixth-best. This is baseball's best pitching staff with a 2.99 collective ERA including a mark of 2.71 from an elite bullpen, also atop the Majors.
Alvarez is having a monster campaign, batting .3 09/.408/.665 with 27 homers and 63 driven in even while spending time on the IL. Jose Altuve is also turning in another strong season with an .867 OPS with 17 homers, eight steals and 50 runs scored.
Ace Justin Verlander will make his 18th start of the season, hoping to continue a Cy Young worthy campaign as he's gone an impressive 12-3 with a 1.89 ERA and 108:19 K:BB ratio over 109.1 innings. The 39-year-old future Hall of Famer went six shutout innings against the Oakland Athletics last Saturday, allowing six hits and no walks while piling up 10 strikeouts.
Outfielder Michael Brantley (shoulder discomfort) and catcher Jason Castro (knee discomfort) are on the IL. Starting pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. (flexor tendon strain) is just beginning a rehab assignment. Relievers Josh James (strained lat) and Blake Taylor (elbow discomfort) are injured, while closer Ryan Pressly is on the paternity list.