HOUSTON — The hitting failures of the 13th inning — where they actually took a one-run lead — came back to haunt the Seattle Mariners.
George Springer’s three-run walk-off homer off rookie Chase De Jong into the first row of the Crawford Boxes in left field kept the Mariners winless, this time with a discouraging 5-3 loss.
Having used seven relievers on the night, they were forced to call on De Jong to try and close out the win. De Jong was only with the team because left-handed reliever Dillon Overton was on the paternity list for the birth of his first child.
De Jong came into the game having pitched all of one game at the Class AA level and nothing higher.
But the youngster, who was ticketed to go back to Class AAA Tacoma the following day, couldn’t do it. A one-out walk and a two-out single from Norichika Aoki allowed Springer to get to the plate. He hit a towering fly ball to the edge of the boxes in left field.
That De Jong only had a one-run lead to work with was a product of the failures of the top of the 13th when Seattle drew four straight walks to take a 3-2 lead, but then added no more insurance with Danny Valencia popping up to shallow center and Mike Zunino and Jarrod Dyson striking out.
The Mariners went 0 for 13 with runners in scoring position and struck out 14 times on the night. They are now 1 for 27 with runners in scoring position in the first three games of the season.
Mariners manager Scott Servais handed a 2-0 lead to his bullpen to start the bottom of the seventh and watched it given away.
The problems started when right-hander Evan Scribner gave up back-to-back singles to start the inning. Servais went situational and brought in lefty Marc Rzepczynski to face left-handed hitting Josh Reddick. The move worked as Reddick flied out to shallow center field.
With the Astros bringing switch-hitter Marwin Gonzalez to the plate as a pinch-hitter, Servais turned to his eighth-inning man Dan Altavilla a little earlier than planned. The move didn’t achieve the desired results. Altavilla gave up a single to Gonzalez to load the bases. Springer followed with a double down the third-base line just out of the reach of a diving Kyle Seager for a two-run double to tie the game.
The Mariners’ season-starting slump on offense continued to haunt them for a third straight game. They mustered just two runs, which unfortunately is an improvement from the first two games. Still, Seattle has played 31 innings of baseball and scored just 4 runs.
Jean Segura provided all of the offense on the night with one swing in the fifth inning.
Segura stayed on a 1-1 curveball from Astros starter Charlie Morton and drove the ball into right field. It had just enough carry to get over the wall and out of the reach of Springer. The two-run homer was the first for the Mariners of the season and it also gave them their first lead of any sort in the three games played.
The bullpen failure squandered an outstanding outing from Paxton, who pitched six scoreless innings, allowing just two hits with one walk and five strikeouts.
With the exception of the third inning, Paxton looked dominant, showing a fastball that sat consistently at 97 mph and a biting curveball.
Paxton found himself in serious trouble with one out in the third inning. He appeared to have Springer struck out swinging on a nasty curveball in the dirt. But the ball skipped away from Zunino for a wild pitch and Springer was able to sprint to first safely. Alex Bregman followed with a double into the left field corner giving the Astros runners on second and third with their No. 3 and 4 hitters coming to the plate.
But Paxton didn’t give in. He won a nine-pitch battle with Mariners’ nemeses Jose Altuve, striking out the diminutive hitting machine with a curveball in the dirt. Paxton then got Carlos Correa to fly out to center to end the inning.
From there Paxton would retire 11 of the next 12 batters he faced. The one exception was with a swinging strike three on Altuve that also got by Zunino for another wild pitch.
