{"id":24063,"date":"2022-07-24T11:28:59","date_gmt":"2022-07-24T11:28:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mariners-get-upstaged-by-houston-lose-3-1\/"},"modified":"2022-07-24T11:28:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-24T11:28:59","slug":"mariners-get-upstaged-by-houston-lose-3-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mariners-get-upstaged-by-houston-lose-3-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners get upstaged by Houston, lose 3-1"},"content":{"rendered":"
The 14-game win streak and its attendant bouancy are decidedly in the rear view mirror now. It calls to mind a cliche about good things and endings. But you know what? The inverse of that cliche holds too. All bad things must come to an end. Ask the Red Sox or the White Sox or the Cubs or the Royals. Even after an unfortanate start to the second half, the Mariners still have a 1.5-game lead on the Guardians in the Wild Card race. Seattle’s just begun a tough 20-game stretch, where they need only hold serve to stay in the playoff picture. Losing two games to the Astros doesn’t change that one bit. And yet it still stings to leverage a historic win streak into a weekend of sell-out(ish) crowds and then get rained on by what might be the best team in baseball.<\/p>\n
In that way, this game reminded me of Mack Robinson. If you’re not familiar with Mack Robinson, he was an Olympic sprinter. At the 1936 Games in Berlin, her ran the 200-meter dash in 21.1 seconds, breaking Eddie Tolan’s Olympic record. But it was only good enough for a silver medal because in the next lane was Jesse Owens. That’d make anyone feel overshadowed, but Robinson was n’t even the best athlete in his own family since his younger brother’s number now hangs in every stadium in MLB.<\/p>\n
The Mariners are having a terrific season, back from the dead and rejuvenating the spirit of baseball in Seattle. But they still play in the same division as those damned Astros.<\/p>\n
It was particularly brutal given that Logan Gilbert put on one of the best performances of his young career. He started the game by dotting 95 mph on the outside corner, but didn’t get the call. He came back on the inside corner for a foul ball. At 2-1, Gilbert threw two perfect knuckle curves for swinging strikes from the guy with the 16th-best swinging-strike rate among active players.<\/p>\n
You’d think Altuve of all people would have an easier time with a pitch so close to the ground.<\/p>\n
Unsatisfied with striking out Altuve, Gilbert let Walter come out, and got his next two batters\u2014more than worthy opponents, Jeremy Pe\u00f1a and Yordan \u00c1lvarez\u2014to strike out swinging too. Still unsatisfied, Gilbert came back out for the second inning and immeidately got Alex Bregman 0-2 on a fastball and a curve. After failing to put him away with the slider, Gilbert froze Bregman with a fastball on the black for his fourth strikeout in four batters.<\/p>\n