SEATTLE _ One pitcher had dominant, perfect-game level stuff for five innings, and the other had winning-level shutout stuff for seven innings.
It was the latter of the two pitchers, the guy who seems to think that a mustache makes him look a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, won the duel of power arms.
Pitching for the first time since a spasm in his lower back forced him out of the first inning July 12 in Anaheim, Seattle left-hander James Paxton erased any doubts about his back becoming a lingering probable and provided a serious reminder about his place in the Mariners' rotation hierarchy, which is at the top.
Using breaking pitches that seemed far too sharp after a 19-day layoff and his typical high-90s fastball, Paxton delivered an outstanding performance on a comfortable evening at Safeco Field, tossing seven shutout innings and leading the Mariners to a 2-0 victory Monday over the World Series champion Houston Astros.
Seattle's bullpen did the rest. Alex Colome worked a scoreless, but drama-filled eighth inning and closer Edwin Diaz notched save No. 40 with a 1-2-3 ninth.
The Mariners improved to 63-43 while handing Houston (67-41) its fifth consecutive defeat. Seattle moved to three games back in the American League West standings.
Paxton allowed just three hits _ two in the first inning and then one in the fourth _ while striking out eight and walking none.
The outing didn't start out dominant. While Paxton's velocity was up, so were his pitches in the first inning. He allowed back-to-back one-out singles to Alex Bregman and Yuli Gurriel. But after watching Evan Gattis just miss a mammoth three-run homer, sending a blast just to the left of the left-field foul pole, Paxton came back to strike out the hulking lumberjack. Tyler White ended the inning with a deep fly ball to center. There was plenty of hard contact, but no runs scored.
Paxton found his groove in the second and it continued through the seventh, retiring 16 of the 19 batters with Gattis' fourth-inning single breaking up the run of consecutive outs recorded.
Paxton out-dueled Astros' All-Star starter Gerrit Cole, who was absolutely dominant early in the game. The flame-throwing right-hander carried a perfect game into the fifth inning and a no-hitter into the sixth. Cole retired the first 12 Mariners hitters with ease, racking up six strikeouts. He hit Nelson Cruz with a wayward breaking ball to start the fifth to allow his first baserunner. But got through the inning without allowing a hit.
There was no indication that Cole would give up a hit, let alone the game, when he viciously struck out Andrew Romine and Dee Gordon to start the sixth inning. But Jean Segura hit a hard groundball up the middle, second baseman Yuli Gurriel, who was starting in place of injured American League MVP Jose Altuve, made a diving stop, but couldn't get his throw to first in time to get a hustling Segura. Does Altuve make that play? Probably, but Denard Span made it a moot point, following with a single to center.
With runners on first and second and two outs, Nelson Cruz continued his torrid stretch of hitting, yanking a first pitch slider down the third base line for a double that would score Segura with ease. The ball banged off the wall in foul territory and rolled away from left fielder Marwin Gonzalez. That allowed third base coach Scott Brosius to be aggressive and send Span home on the play. The veteran outfielder made a nice slide into home to just beat the throw from Gonzalez and the tag from catcher Max Stassi for a 2-0 lead.
