Mariners' tough loss: 'Just didn't go our way'

HOUSTON -- Paul Sewald has been a swing-and-miss machine across the American League all season, but his biggest moments of the entire season have come against the Astros -- and specifically over the past two weeks

That’s what made Tuesday’s 5-4 defeat all the more difficult for Sewald and the Mariners to stomach.

Staked with a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth inning, Sewald walked Jose Altuve to lead off the frame then gave up a towering, game-tying homer to Alex Bregman that eclipsed the Crawford Boxes and forced the game to go to extras, where Carlos Correa lined a walk-off double off Yohan Ramirez.

Just as tough for the Mariners (75-64), they lost on a night where they could’ve moved to within two games of the second American League Wild Card, after both the Red Sox and Yankees lost. Instead, they are three games back of a postseason spot, with Toronto one game ahead in between.

“Everybody at this time of year, the teams that are still in it and fighting in that playoff hunt. Those guys in the bullpen, they're all going to have their days where maybe they don't feel 100 percent,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “Paul has been great all year long. He takes the ball, he takes care of himself. He just got behind in the count.”

Put simply, Sewald looked mortal for the first time all season against the Astros, which is perhaps no coincidence, having faced them three times in a 17-day stretch dating back to Aug. 22, when he anchored one of Seattle’s biggest wins of the season by stranding the bases loaded in the 10th inning with three straight strikeouts.

Up next was a 1-2-3 eighth inning last week that set up Abraham Toro’s epic grand slam off Kendall Graveman. Then there was the door-slamming called strikeout that stranded Bregman and Yuli Gurriel to cap a gritty, 1-0 victory last Wednesday.

But the book, so to speak, appeared to be out on the righty. That, and he lacked the crispness on his elite slider and quality location on his fastball, the latter of which led to the Altuve walk and Bregman’s big bomb.

“He’s been one of the best ... at just attacking and going after it,” Servais said. “Tonight, he fell behind in the count, a lot of deep counts. And again, they're shrinking the zone on them. They're making him get the ball into the heart of the zone. They're not chasing at all because they've seen him so much, and it just didn't go our way.”

Sewald was looking to walk the last of the tightrope the bullpen had walked on Tuesday, which Ramirez also couldn’t see to the finish line. Before Correa’s game-winner, the Astros were 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position and had stranded a runner on second base in each of the third through eighth innings.

Against a lineup that is statistically -- by wRC+ and WAR -- the best in the Majors, that seemed like a tall task.

“Our guys [have been] doing it all year,” Servais said. “These guys, really, they're tough nuts. They really don't crack. And even tonight, I know Paul wasn't as sharp as he normally is. But it's not like we walked them all in or anything like that. He made a bad pitch and Bregman got him.”

Before the ninth, Tuesday was shaping up to be a trademark win by the Seattle formula, a methodology that rides a strong effort from its starting pitcher, just enough offense and a shutdown from multiple relievers.

J.P. Crawford delivered as clutch a double as he’s had all year, beating Jake Odorizzi in a seven-pitch, full-count battle that scored Luis Torrens and Jarred Kelenic with two outs to tie the game in the fifth. Then, Kyle Seager pushed Seattle ahead with a 409-foot solo shot in the sixth, his 34th of the season, which ranks sixth in the Majors this season. Abraham Toro even added some insurance against his former team with a ninth-inning double that allowed him to score on a Torrens single that followed.

And Logan Gilbert put together a serviceable outing that was cut short after an error by Kelenic and a single by Brantley put two on with one out.

But that was no matter to Anthony Misiewicz, who worked out of the two-on, one-out jam in the fifth. Casey Sadler and Drew Steckenrider each followed by creating and escaping traffic to extend their scoreless streaks to 16 2/3 and 16 1/3 innings, respectively, which rank among the longest active in the AL. Diego Castillo overcame a lack of movement on his slider to work his way out of the eighth.

That set up Sewald -- just how Servais drew it up. But Tuesday just didn’t go their way.