Mariners hold off Astros in heart-pounding finish to secure series win

Ryan Divish, The Seattle Times on Sep 20, 2025

Published in Baseball

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HOUSTON — The magic number to win the American League West is six.

This is not a drill.

When Victor Robles made a ridiculous diving catch in shallow right-center to rob Carlos Correa of an RBI single and then fired the ball to second to double off Jake Meyers at second, it secured a dramatic 6-4 victory over the Astros.

With the win, the Mariners secured a series win over their division rival while pushing their lead over Houston to two games with seven games remaining in the season.

The combination of the Mariners’ 86th win and the Astros’ 71st loss in the 162-game season sets the number to clinch the division title.

A Seattle win or a Houston loss trims the number down by one. But if the Mariners were to complete the three-game sweep of Houston on Sunday night in front of national TV audience for ESPN’s Sunday night baseball, well, the magic number drops to four.

If you listen closely, you can faintly hear Dave Niehaus cackling and screaming, “It just continues!”

While the goal of winning the division has been mentioned often over the past two decades by teams that should’ve been contenders, and others that were nothing more than pretenders, the 2025 Mariners are the first team since 2001 that has a legitimate chance to do it.

Meanwhile, the Astros, who have been the bullies of the division since 2017, are now on the outside looking in at the postseason. Houston’s loss, combined with the Guardians’ doubleheader sweep of the Twins, moved Cleveland into the spot for third wild card with the Astros a half-game back. Cleveland also holds the tiebreaker over Houston by winning the season series.

After relying on four solo homers to provide all their offense in Friday’s opening win, the Mariners got only one homer — a solo blast that changed franchise history — and showed some offensive versatility against Houston starter Framber Valdez, picking up run a run in the first, a run in the second and two more in the fifth.

Making what might be his last start in front of the Houston fans, Valdez, who will be a free agent after the season, couldn’t get through five innings.

That homer came from Cal Raleigh, who continued his campaign for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award. With Seattle already leading 2-0 after Eugenio Suárez’s RBI double in the first inning and Victor Robles' sac fly in the second, Raleigh smashed his 57th homer of the season with one out in the second inning.

Valdez left an 0-2 sinker up in the strike zone and Raleigh turned it into a line drive over the wall in right-center and a 2-0 lead. Raleigh’s 57th homer is the most ever hit by a Mariners player in a single season. Ken Griffey Jr. set the previous record of 56, accomplishing that feat in the 1997 and 1998 seasons.

The Mariners tacked on two more runs in the fifth. Seattle loaded the bases against Valdez with one two outs. Josh Naylor worked a seven-pitch walk to force in the fourth run of the game and end Valdez’s outing. Pinch-hitter Dom Canzone greeted Valdez’s replacement, Jayden Murray, with a sharp single to right to make it 5-0.

That seemed like plenty of run support for George Kirby, who tossed six scoreless innings.

The Mariners even pushed the lead to 6-0 on Jorge Polanco’s RBI double in the top of the seventh.

All that run support was needed.

Asked to not turn the game into a catastrophe with a six-run lead, Carlos Vargas couldn’t do it.

He gave up back-to-back singles with one out to start his problems. After getting Jake Meyers to ground out, Vargas lost control of a fastball that ran up and in, hitting Cam Smith in the hand and fortunately not his face.

The bases didn’t stay loaded for long. Jeremy Pena hit a 1-0 sinker from Vargas into the Crawford Boxes for a grand slam.