Mariners' huge series win in Kansas City feels small ahead of Astros showdown

The Seattle Mariners badly needed to leave Kansas City with a series win, and they got it. They clinched it by taking the rubber game on Thursday, courtesy of dominant pitching and one of the craftiest challenges of the season.

And all it got them was back to square one in the American League West, which will come to a head when the Mariners meet the Astros in Houston this weekend.

Blame it on Texas, both generally and specifically. This week's three-game set between the Astros and Rangers at Daikin Park could have bought the Mariners some breathing room after they claimed first place over the weekend, but it was not to be. The Astros silver-booted the Rangers back to Arlington with a series sweep.

For the Mariners, what was a 1.0-game lead over the Astros is now a first-place tie. Given the history here, Mariners fans can say "It could be worse" and absolutely mean it. Even still, it would be nice if the stakes for a Mariners-Astros series could be low for a change.

The Mariners missed their chance to maintain their AL West edge on Houston

To be clear, nobody is in a bad mood following Thursday's finale against the Royals. The outcome was a 2-0 win for the Mariners, and the road to it was satisfying.

Six scoreless innings from Luis Castillo? You take that. Three scoreless innings from the bullpen? You take those, too. Yet another RBI double by Jorge Polanco? Every day. An RBI double by J.P. Crawford that was set up by Dan Wilson's successful challenge on an illegal shift by the Royals? Heck yes.

The Mariners nonetheless needed a sweep to keep pace with the Astros. And to this end, the second game of the Kansas City series looms as a missed opportunity. The Mariners took a 4-3 lead over the Royals into the bottom of the eighth inning, only to lose it by way of Matt Brash's misadventures.

That the Mariners bounced back from that on Thursday is obviously far from the worst outcome. But even when the game started, it was already too late to avoid a scenario that would have been best avoided: The Astros series as a must-have, as opposed to a nice-to-have.

The Mariners and Astros don't just have identical 84-69 records. They have also each won five games apiece in the season series, meaning that whoever emerges victorious from this coming weekend will claim the tiebreaker between the two clubs.

That may well be what determines not just the AL West title, but the No. 2 seed in the AL playoff field. Both the Mariners and Astros are just 1.0 game behind the Detroit Tigers, who are barely holding off the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central.

The Mariners have played the Astros tougher than most in the last couple years, winning the season series in 2023 and 2024 before giving themselves a shot to do so again in 2025. They even won 10 out of 13 at Daikin Park in the last two seasons.

Daikin Park is still a real threat as a house of horrors, however. The less said about what happened there in the 2022 playoffs, the better. And even this year, the Mariners dropped three out of four in the only series they've played in Houston.

We can be real that there was never any possibility of any Mariners fans looking ahead to this weekend's series with a sense of calm. But with the way things have shaken out, there's now enough nervous energy in Seattle to power that sphere thingamajig in Las Vegas.

Kudos to the Mariners for earning a happy flight to Houston. But for the rest of us, some sleepless nights are in order.