Polanco delivers clutch hit in 8th, Mariners rally past Astros 4-3

SEATTLE – With one swing, Jorge Polanco made every other part of a strange eighth inning seem mostly meaningless.

Final score: Mariners 4, Astros 3.

Polanco’s two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the eighth rallied the M’s for a needed victory following the miserable weekend sweep in San Francisco that was punctuated by seeing right fielder Victor Robles leave the field on a cart after suffering a dislocated left shoulder in the ninth inning of Sunday’s loss.

The Mariners received a brilliant start from Logan Gilbert and saw Ryan Bliss hit his first home run of the season. But Polanco’s shot off Houston reliever Bryan Abreu that trickled into center field scored Dylan Moore and Miles Mastrobuoni with the tying and go-ahead runs after the pair walked to open the bottom of the eighth.

Andres Munoz pitched the ninth for his fourth save, helped by a spectacular diving stop and throw from J.P. Crawford to get Victor Caratini to open the inning.

And it all added up to help overshadow what was a chaotic top of the eighth inning that was shaky on the mound, included a two-run error in the field and included a questionable decision from manager Dan Wilson.

Seattle led 2-1 going to the eighth when Wilson called upon Gregory Santos to take over and he almost immediately surrendered the lead. Jake Meyers led off with a single, was sacrificed to second base – yes a successful bunt – and moved to third when Santos yanked a fastball to the backstop facing Altuve.

Issac Paredes hit a liner to center field that Julio Rodríguez ran down and made a perfect throw to home plate keeping Meyers planted at third.

Then the confusion began.

Wilson went to the mound and instead of bringing in lefty specialist Gabe Speier to face Yordan Alvarez, the slugger was intentionally walked. Speier even departed the bullpen and was in left field believing he’d been summoned only to turn around and head back to the bullpen.

For his part, Santos (1-1) got a result that should have ended the inning. Christian Walker’s 106 mph ground ball was hit to Moore at third base, but Moore misplayed the bounce and the grounder ended up in left field for a two-run error and a 3-2 Houston lead.

The rally in the bottom of the inning at least gave the Mariners a win on a night Gilbert deserved that kind of result.

Gilbert pitched his way through the Astros lineup with almost flawless precision and was at his best facing the batters he needed to pitch through. There was a 10-pitch at-bat against Altuve to end the third inning where Gilbert went with this sequence: slider, splitter, curveball, splitter, curveball, splitter, fastball, fastball, slider and finally got the perpetual pain in the Mariners backside to pop out on a 3-2 curveball.

The next inning, Paredes reached after a spinning cue shot ate up Rowdy Tellez at first base for an error. But Gilbert methodically struck out the side getting Alvarez, Walker and Jeremy Peña all waving helplessly at splitters.

Gilbert finally made a mistake and surrendered his first hit with one out in the sixth inning. Altuve didn’t miss a hanging curveball at the top of the strike zone and Gilbert knew the moment it connected with the bat, cringing as the ball sailed into the left-field bullpens to pull the Astros within 2-1.

He struck out Paredes on a 3-2 slider, but a four-pitch walk to Alvarez ended his night after 5 2/3 innings and 99 pitches.

Trent Thornton finished the inning getting Walker to ground out then worked a perfect seventh with strikeouts of Caratini and Yainer Diaz.

Houston starter Hayden Wesneski was the equal of Gilbert the entire night with the exception of a two-pitch sequence with two outs in the fifth inning. After giving up a two-out single to Randy Arozarena in the first inning, Wesneski retired the next 12 batters. He was nearly through the fifth inning before Moore lashed a single through the left side at nearly 109 mph, the hardest hit ball of the game.

The next pitch thrown, left the yard. Bliss was all over the fastball on the inner half of the plate and cleared the fence in left for his third career homer. He homered twice last season, the first of his career coming on June 7.

Like Gilbert, the homer was the only mistake Wesneski made. Acquired as part of the trade that sent Kyle Tucker to the Cubs, the righty needed just 82 pitches to complete seven innings, struck out five and walked none.