Wild Card standings for 2016 have the Seattle Mariners passing the New York Yankees. It helped the Astros (77-70) remain four games behind co-wild-card leaders Baltimore and Toronto in the American League.
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“We needed that on a lot of levels”.
“I missed a lot of spots today”, Hernandez said. Seattle’s only other hit off McHugh was Kyle Seager’s single with two outs in the seventh.
Collin McHugh hopes to continue his success in Seattle, he’s 3-0 with a 1.50 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 18 innings in three starts against the Mariners.
McHugh (11-10) has now beaten Seattle nine times in 12 career decisions against the Mariners, and Friday’s win might have been his biggest. Paxton turned in his best outing of the season on August 7, when he looked to be on his way to a complete-game win over the Angels before taking a line drive off his left elbow one out into the ninth.
Seattle was shutout for just the second time since July 24 and sixth time this season. McHugh also allowed just two hits in his last start against the White Sox, but managed just five innings in that outing. The 27-year-old Canadian has not won since August 7, when he limited the Los Angeles Angels to one unearned run and five hits in 8 1/3 frames. Astros teammate Marwin Gonzalez added a solo shot two batters later, ending Hernandez’s night after just 4.1 innings.
Stats: Trout is hitting.317 (159 for 502) with 27 home runs, 110 runs and 89 RBIs in 144 games. Gonzalez now has 37 career home runs, 11 of those against Seattle. Seattle has not allowed more than three runs during its winning streak and sends ace Felix Hernandez to the mound in the series opener. Jake Marisnick’s two-run double in the second inning gave Houston the lead and the Astros added on with Carlos Correa’s RBI double in the third after Jose Altuve reached on an error and Yuli Gurriel added an RBI single in the fourth.
“We are playing really good ball and to come in here and kind of throw a clunker out there, not exactly what we were looking for tonight, but it does happen”, Seattle manager Scott Servais said. “We knew going into (Friday) it was going to be a challenge for us, but he certainly was on top of his game”.
Hinch praised the patience of his hitters laying off pitches just outside of the zone and making Hernandez throw strikes.
“We just don’t see the ball well off of him”, Servais said. The 2010 Cy Young Award victor could be facing a watered-down lineup after Jose Altuve, who is batting an American League-leading.341, and standout rookie Alex Bregman exited Wednesday’s 8-4 victory over Texas. He scored his 100th run of the season and collected his 40th double. The hottest team in baseball finished a three-game sweep of the Los Angeles Angels and a road trip where they finished undefeated. Seattle 1B Adam Lind has been kept out of the starting lineup by a sprained index finger for the last four games but may return Saturday.3. Although Hernandez is 7-1 over his last 10 outings, he was rocked for six runs by Texas in back-to-back starts before shutting down the Athletics. McHugh has now beaten Seattle in all four of his starts against the Mariners this season.
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Mariners: LHP James Paxton (4-6) will make his fifth start since coming off the disabled list on August 25 but does not have a win since August 7.
