J-Rod's homer breaks scoreless streak, but Mariners continue to scuffle

SEATTLE -- For a flash of a moment, the fans at T-Mobile Park thought things might be starting to flip.

When Julio Rodríguez launched a two-run home run to break a 17-inning scoreless streak dating back to the first half, Seattle had the one swing it thought it would need.

It turns out that the Mariners needed a second big hit, and that proved to be too much in a 4-2 loss to the Astros that slid Seattle a full game back of Houston in the AL West standings.

“This club is going through a lot of things,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “It happens through the course of a season. We’ve got guys that are struggling right now to try to get some traction and get it going, and they know it, they feel it.”

The Astros certainly did their part on defense, particularly in the bottom of the eighth inning when Trey Cabbage reached over the wall in right field to take a second home run away from Rodríguez, and Joey Loperfido laid out for an inning-ending catch in left that took an RBI double away from Mitch Garver.

“It happens; it’s the Major Leagues, those plays get made once in a while,” Servais said. "We’ve made plays like that against other teams as well. You have to give them credit there.

“But we have to do more than that. You can’t just look back and focus on those big eighth-inning, seventh-inning, ninth-inning at-bats. We’ve got to do more earlier in the game to create more opportunities for ourselves.”

That was the issue for the Mariners, who drew six walks but only had one other hit leave the infield all night.

Seattle got a runner on third with two outs in the first inning thanks to a single and a pair of steals by Victor Robles, and put a runner on second in the fourth on a walk and a Jorge Polanco bunt single. Both times, though, the Mariners struck out to end the threat. And outside of those two frames and the sixth – when Rodríguez hit his home run -- Seattle managed just three baserunners.

In the bottom of the seventh, Mitch Haniger drew a one-out walk and was pinch-run for by Jonatan Clase, who was promptly picked off at first. In the eighth, Cal Raleigh took a curveball off his leg, but Loperfido’s diving play in left stranded him. And in the ninth, Clase drew a two-out walk thanks to a pitch-timer violation by Josh Hader on a 3-1 count, but Luke Raley struck out swinging to end the game.

“You’ve got to put constant pressure, you’ve got to do it every inning,” Servais said. “There are gaps in the game where we’ll go through two or three innings and we don’t get anything going, just soft contact.”

On the other side of things, the Astros didn’t get much more going against Seattle starter George Kirby. The right-hander put down his fifth straight quality start against the Astros, logging six innings on 99 pitches, striking out six and allowing one run on four hits. The four knocks against him averaged an exit velocity of 88.9 mph; two went the other way, one barely made it past the mound and the fourth tipped off an infielder’s glove on the way to the outfield.

For the second consecutive outing -- and just the fourth time all year -- Kirby threw more sliders than any other pitch, and got 12 of his 15 whiffs on secondary pitches.

“I can’t say enough about the job he continues to do and the season he’s putting together,” Servais said.

But for the fourth straight game on Seattle’s five-game skid, the Mariners couldn’t back up a quality start enough to earn a win. After Rodríguez’s homer, Ryne Stanek came in for his first appearance of the second half, walked the first batter he faced in the seventh and gave up a two-run home run to Jake Meyers on a 1-2 fastball that was off the outside corner.

The Astros added an insurance run in the top of the eighth on a Yainer Diaz laser of a home run off Trent Thornton that skipped off the top of the wall in left.

“It’s the little things when you’re playing good teams … teams that you’re evenly matched against,” Servais said. “You’ve got to execute, you’ve got to get the big outs, you’ve got to make the big pitches in the right spots and we haven’t been able to do that.”