Mariners fans can only hope Framber Valdez drama unravels Astros in September

The last thing Seattle Mariners fans have on Houston Astros fans is bragging rights. There is the whole trash can thing, but even that feels like old news at this point. What matters is that the Astros have been the dominant power in the AL West for about a decade.

Unlike Astros fans, however, at least Mariners fans aren't subjecting themselves to a team that seems in danger of tearing itself apart.

What happened during the fifth inning in the Astros' 7-1 loss to the New York Yankees on Tuesday is still hard to believe. Framber Valdez gave up a grand slam after brushing off a signal to step off from catcher César Salazar. And then, with an unavoidable sense of intentionality, Valdez "got crossed up" and drilled his own catcher with a 93 mph sinker.

"100% intentional," said Dallas Braden, the former Athletics pitcher turned broadcaster, in a post on X. "Absolute trash behavior."

The Astros are in damage control mode with Mariners in pursuit in AL West

Did Valdez actually throw that fastball at Salazar with intent? Only he knows the answer, and it could be as much of an emphatic "no" as everyone in his orbit would like everyone else to believe.

"The idea that he's intentionally trying to injure one of his teammates is preposterous," Valdez's agent, Ulises Cabrera, told Matt Kawahara of the Houston Chronicle. "It's a complete lack of respect for who he is as a person and who he is as a player. And his body of work demonstrates that. Anything to the contrary is just completely misguided and it's not right."

The company line for the Astros is largely the same. General manager Dana Brown framed the infamous fastball as one of those moments where "you get so angry you can't see straight." And for his part, manager Joe Espada brushed off the outside noise by saying: "People tell me what’s going on and I don’t like it."

Still, "consider the source" is inappropriate here only because there are multiple sources that deserve skepticism. Of course Valdez's agent is going to go to bat for him. And of course the Astros are not going to fan the flames of a controversy they didn't ask for.

At the end of the day, we all saw what happened.

Valdez didn't look like a guy who had made an honest mistake after he threw the offending pitch, and Salazar sure looked offended. We also know that both Valdez and Salazar were called into the principal's office (i.e., Espada's office) after the game, and Astros writer Michael Schwab wrote on X that "tensions rose" and that other Astros "confronted Valdez" over what happened.

Another thing we know is that Astros fans are not rallying to Valdez's cause. Why would they? They also saw what happened, and this is not the left-hander's first offense. He also displayed bad teamsmanship in July when he threw his defenders under the bus for a play he didn't like.

The Astros didn't need the Valdez incident to come off as a team on the brink of self-destruction. Their 77-64 record is the worst of the six division leaders in MLB, and they are only 21-24 in the second half. With their roster decimated by injuries, maintaining clubhouse cohesion figured to be a challenge for Espada even without his ace showing his backside.

For the Mariners, the bad news is that the self-destruction that could come of all this is strictly theoretical. The Astros have won eight out of 14 and are 3.5 games up in the AL West. It's indeed the Mariners who are imploding, as they have now lost 14 out of their last 20.

For Mariners fans, on the other hand, the comfort to take in all this is simple: At least the team they're pulling for is easy to root for.

The Mariners of 2025 have been hard to watch at times, and there are genuine gripes to air about the way they're built, especially with a lack of positional depth having reared its head in recent weeks. This is nonetheless a genuinely likeable group of guys, with a perfect blend of humble superstars, enjoyable personalities, and that one guy you're glad is on their side. And whatever failings Dan Wilson has as a manager, maintaining clubhouse harmony clearly isn't one of them.

On this front, at least, Astros fans might actually envy Mariners fans right now. And the latter can only hope that the former's envy grows as the tables turn in the AL West race.