Postseason hopeful Mariners tested vs. one of baseball's best

SEATTLE -- In less than 24 hours, the Mariners went from the hottest team in baseball to being solemnly reminded that the AL West still runs through Houston. Just as stark was the reminder of how remarkable Astros ace Justin Verlander has been in what’s shaping up to be a Cy Young Award-worthy season.

For the second straight game, Seattle had a late rally brewing against the Astros only to see it quashed, this time in a 3-1 loss at T-Mobile Park. Saturday’s situation was far higher-leverage, but Verlander -- in one of the most impressive pitching moments of the year -- worked his way out of a bases-loaded jam by blowing his fastest pitches in years by Cal Raleigh and Sam Haggerty en route to game-sealing strikeouts.

In those fateful at-bats, Verlander dialed it up to 99 mph four times, a feat he hadn’t achieved since 2013. Doing so at 39 years old and in a return from Tommy John surgery makes his feats all the more remarkable.

“It just doesn't get any more difficult in our league to hit than what he was throwing up there today,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “The ability to locate the ball, the fastball, at the top of the zone, one after another -- he did not miss all day."

No one was warming in Houston’s bullpen until Haggerty stepped in as the inning’s seventh batter, underscoring how much trust Astros manager Dusty Baker had in Verlander to escape. It also highlighted how challenging the road ahead could be, even though these teams wrap their season series next weekend in Houston.

The Mariners will likely have to face Verlander again on Friday, and if they snap their 21-year playoff drought, quite possibly also in October. Even including Verlander’s May 27 outing at T-Mobile Park, when he surrendered six runs, four homers and 10 hits -- all season highs -- he has a 2.59 ERA in five starts against the Mariners while holding them to a .215/.255/.362 (.617 OPS) slash line. Houston has won Verlander’s other four starts against Seattle.

“He's a Hall of Famer,” Servais said. “He's made adjustments, there's no question about it. And that was early in the year, coming off a situation [in which] he didn't pitch much. So we jumped on him early. He certainly has dialed it up, not just against us. ... He's done this to a lot of different clubs.”

After dropping the weekend’s three-game series -- their first series loss since June 19 against the Angels -- the Mariners fell to the third AL Wild Card spot, or the sixth seed. Houston, meanwhile, is now two games behind the Yankees for the AL’s best record. The top two seeds receive a first-round bye. If the Mariners secured the No. 6 seed, then won in a best-of-three Wild Card Series (which would be played exclusively on the road), they’d play the top seed in the AL Division Series. It’s not unrealistic to think that it could be a matchup with the Astros, who they’ve mostly played close but are now 6-8 against.

Verlander, or any of Houston’s starting pitchers, would be a huge challenge in the playoffs. But Seattle has shown for two months now that it also has a rotation that would be formidable in a shorter series. Logan Gilbert was a prime example again Saturday by going mostly toe-to-toe with Verlander.

Gilbert came one strikeout shy of tying Seattle’s franchise record by striking out each of his first four to begin the game, flashing an electric fastball while dropping in more curveballs than in any start this season, another weapon for the youngster.

Gilbert was bit by a one-out walk to Yordan Alvarez in the fourth, which was followed by consecutive doubles from Kyle Tucker and Yuli Gurriel, leading to the only two runs he surrendered. Other than that, he gave up just three hits. And even Gilbert appreciated what his counterpart was doing.

“It's incredible,” Gilbert said. “His whole season so far, it's been fun to watch. And it's a fun matchup knowing that I was going against him today. I mean, what he did in the seventh was pretty incredible, bumping it up to 99 like that.”

Saturday had the type of dominant pitching effort from both sides that had the makings of a postseason recipe. There’s still a long way to go for Seattle to play deep into October, and the seventh-inning shortcoming against one of the game’s all-time greats showed that the eventual opponent could be one both familiar and daunting.