The wrong-way slider went the wrong way Friday night.
Tatsuya Imai, whose physics-defying breaking ball had generated buzz across baseball heading into his start at T-Mobile Park, couldn’t get out of the first inning. Two walks, a wild pitch, a hit batsman, and three runs later, Steven Okert was already warming up, and the Astros were in a hole they would never fully escape. Seattle handed Houston its fifth straight loss, 9-6, in the opener of a four-game series.
Imai recorded just one out before Espada pulled him. Okert and Ryan Weiss steadied things briefly, and the Astros showed some life in the second when Christian Vázquez laced a bases-clearing double to tie the game at three. But Randy Arozarena’s two-run homer off Weiss in the fifth pushed Seattle back ahead.
The seventh inning was the backbreaker. J.P. France, recalled from Triple-A earlier Friday, hit Luke Raley to start the frame, Cole Young singled, and Dominic Canzone’s two-run double made it 7-3. J.P. Crawford singled in another run, Leo Rivas walked, and a France wild pitch scored Young to push it to 9-3.
Yordan Alvarez provided the only real highlight of the late innings, crushing a three-run homer in the eighth—his fifth of the season—to make it 9-6. But Andrés Muñoz worked around two walks in the ninth for the save.
The Astros went 3 for 8 with runners in scoring position and grounded into two double plays. Houston, now 6-8, has dropped five straight and heads into Saturday’s game with Lance McCullers on the mound and a rotation that needs answers quickly.
On a lighter note: Friday night’s pregame ceremony honoring Ichiro Suzuki got off to a chaotic start when the bat snapped off his statue as the tarp was pulled away. Ichiro himself appeared to take it in stride, laughing alongside Ken Griffey Jr. as the mishap unfolded. The Mariners leaned into it, updating their replica statue giveaway graphic on social media to include the broken bat. It was, at least, the kind of thing everyone could laugh about, which is more than can be said for the game that followed.
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