SEATTLE — No more streaks.
For the Houston Astros’ Gerrit Cole, he was trying to become the first pitcher in major league history to start a season with at least 10 strikeouts in four consecutive starts.
He had already joined Nolan Ryan as the only pitchers to have at least 11 strikeouts in their first three starts to a season.
Cole struck out five, but that didn’t much matter.
Not with the Seattle Mariners’ Mike Leake’s run of eight consecutive starts with at least five innings pitched and no more than three earned runs ending.
Leake was tossing one of his best starts to date since he joined the Mariners last season — then the wheels fell off in the seventh inning in their 7-1 loss to the Astros on Wednesday at Safeco Field.
It was tied 1-1 entering that frame.
“I thought that was the best stuff from Mike Leake all year,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “I thought he was really on top of his game.
“Tight ball game. We’ve been in a few of these here recently — certainly against the Astros.”
But the Astros have owned the Mariners’ number. The reigning World Series champions shut down the Mariners’ potent offense the past three games and in that seventh inning got their bats rolling to their eighth win against Seattle in their past nine meetings with each other.
The only other team with a better winning percentage at Safeco Field than the Astros (33-19) is the Yankees (52-29).
“They got extra-base hit power up and down their lineup,” Servais said. “When you do get the ball up or make mistakes they do take advantage of it. When you’re playing those one-run tight games as you go along your margin for error is so small. A walk here, a misplay there, a bad pitch in the wrong spot and you look up and you’re down a couple of runs. That’s what happened tonight.”
Yet Leake was dealing through six innings he had seven strikeouts, two starts after having no Ks.
Then what seemed like a fairly harmless leadoff walk to the Astros’ Josh Reddick was much more harrowing. Yuli Gurriel followed with a ground-rule double and Marwin Gonzales drove them both home on an RBI single to center for a 3-1 Astros lead.
“That one, that one daggered me in the back of the head a little bit,” Leake said of the leadoff walk. “You don’t want leadoff walks in that situation.”
Brian McCann, who hit the two-run go-ahead home run in the Astros’ 4-1 win on Tuesday, followed with a double off of hard-charging Dee Gordon’s glove in the gap in right-center.
That ended Mike Leake’s day and Nick Vincent entered.
Another run scored when some confusion between Robinson Cano and Mitch Haniger led to Haniger’s error on a soft pop fly off Evan Gattis’ bat.
“I should have had it,” Haniger said. “I hesitated and I should have come in hard and made the catch.”
What ensued was George Springer, Jose Altuve (the reigning American League MVP) and Carlos Correa rocking three consecutive hits to make it 7-1.
Some of the Mariners who have struggled the past four games?
Nelson Cruz is 1-for-14, and still appearing hampered by his ankle and quad injuries. Kyle Seager is 1-for-13 and Mitch Haniger is 1-for-13.
“Those guys are good over there, but I like our lineup,” Haniger said. “I like our team. Hitting is always up and down. Just got to get it going tomorrow and come out swinging.”
