Brad Miller comes through with three RBI in Mariners' 4
Originally published September 8, 2014 at 11:10 PM | Page modified September 8, 2014 at 11:30 PM
LINDSEY WASSON / The Seattle Times
Felix Hernandez didn't have his best stuff.
The Mariners' starting pitcher bounced pitches in the dirt, momentarily silencing the chants coming out of the King's Court down the third-base line. His pitch count rose quickly, hitting 50 by the end of the third inning.
Hernandez, though, dug in for the outs he needed and fought through six scoreless innings.
The Seattle offense was wasteful with its chances all night, stranding seven runners in the first five innings alone.
But when it was needed the most, Brad Miller ripped a go-ahead triple into the right-center field gap in the bottom of the eighth inning and the Mariners gutted out a 4-1 victory over Houston on Monday night at Safeco Field.
Pitching at home for the first time since allowing a career-high four home runs against Washington on Aug. 29, Hernandez allowed a runner in every frame he pitched Monday.
The fifth inning told the story of his night.
Chris Carter led off with a sharp single to right but Hernandez answered with a pair of strikeouts - the first one was Jason Castro with a sweeping curveball, the second was Marwin Gonzalez on an off-speed pitch. Jon Singleton earned a walk and Matt Dominguez worked a 3-1 count.
With his 99th and final pitch of the night, Hernandez induced a soft ground ball to third baseman Kyle Seager to end the threat. Hernandez struck out eight but allowed five hits and walked four batters.
The Mariners' bats sprinkled some hits across the first couple innings - a Robinson Cano double here, a Michael Saunders single there - before finally breaking through in the sixth.
Miller foreshadowed his later heroics with a two-out single that brought home Logan Morrison and opened the scoring.
Houston answered in the seventh off Seattle reliever Brandon Maurer, when Saunders temporarily held Robbie Grossman to a triple by pulling a would-be home run back over the wall, but later he couldn't throw him out at the plate on Jose Altuve's sacrifice fly.
Then Miller struck again.
Pinch-runner James Jones swiped second and third and Saunders walked to put runners at the corners with one out in the eighth, and Miller brought home both of them with a line drive that rolled all the way to the right-field fence.
Austin Jackson followed with a single to bring home Miller and provide further insurance for Fernando Rodney, who allowed a pair of runners in the top of the ninth but rallied to pick up his American League-best 44th save of the season.
In Chicago, White Sox catcher Tyler Flowers hit a game-tying home run with two outs in the ninth and the game-winning one inning later for a 5-4 victory to drop Oakland to its fifth defeat in six games.
Seattle's victory kept it a half-game ahead of Detroit for the second American League wild card spot and pulled it to a single game of the A's for the first wild-ard spot. Those are the same A's who visit Safeco this weekend for a series that could ultimately decide those final two berths.
However, two more games against the Astros must be attended to first.
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