SEATTLE -- The Astros didn’t just get a win Tuesday night. They got back in the driver’s seat.
Houston rolled past the Mariners 7-0 at T-Mobile Park, snapping a three-game skid and sliding into a first-place tie with the Rangers atop the American League West. Both clubs are 78-79, but the Astros hold the tiebreaker, which means they control their own fate with five games left in the regular season.
Yordan Alvarez set the tone in a big way. After speaking up in a team meeting following Sunday’s Braves sweep, he backed it up with the kind of night that changes the mood in a clubhouse. Alvarez launched his 41st homer of the season, drove in three runs, and finished with 102 RBIs after opening the game with an RBI single that put him at 100 for the year.
Houston wasted no time on Logan Gilbert. The Astros opened with four straight singles, and Alvarez delivered the first RBI knock in that sequence. They kept pressing in the third inning, when Jose Altuve and Yainer Diaz singled ahead of Christian Walker’s three-run homer to left, stretching the lead to 4-0.
The damage kept coming. Isaac Paredes added a solo shot in the sixth, his 23rd homer of the season, off José A.
Ferrer to make it 5-0. Then Alvarez came back for more in the eighth, crushing a two-run homer to right field to put the game fully out of reach.
Houston’s pitching plan got tested early when Cristian Javier exited after two scoreless innings because of right groin tightness. The bullpen took it from there and covered the final seven innings. Rookie Miguel Ullola worked the third and fourth, and left-hander Bennett Sousa handled the fifth and sixth as the Astros finished the shutout.
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