HOUSTON _ To close out a near-perfect road trip and win a series against the team with the best record and best offense in the American League, the Mariners turned to their best pitcher and budding ace, James Paxton.
It wasn't by accident that Paxton was pitching in the series finale against the Astros on Wednesday. The starting rotation was slotted that way coming out of the All-Star break.
That plan was rewarded. Paxton pitched like a No. 1 starter, and the Mariners provided enough offense for a 4-1 victory and a series win.
"Paxton was outstanding today," Mariners manager Scott Servais said. "It's exactly what the doctor ordered. He was on top of his game."
Seattle closed the road trip with a 5-1 record and returned to .500 at 48-48 on the season. In terms of expectations coming out of the break, the Mariners couldn't have done much better.
"Really good road trip by our ballclub," Servais said. "We talked about some things out of the break where we needed to get to and how we were going to get there, and the guys have responded."
Seattle returns to Safeco Field to open a three-team, 10-game, 11-day homestand Thursday night, starting with a four-game series against the New York Yankees, a team they are competing with for one of the two AL wild-card spots.
"We are recharged and all in on this push for the second half to make a run at this thing," catcher Mike Zunino said. "We've got a lot of games against teams in front of us in the wild card. Obviously, we are trying to look it at as one game at a time, but we know how important they are. I think guys are doing that and putting everything on the line for each game, and I think that will help us get through these stretches."
Few pitchers have stymied Astros hitters this season quite like Paxton.
He delivered another outstanding outing against an offense that came in averaging a major-league-best 5.96 runs per game. Paxton tossed seven innings and allowed just one run with a walk and seven strikeouts. Of his 108 pitches, 79 were strikes.
"I just felt really good," he said. "I was throwing the curveball for strikes, moving the fastball around, mixing in some cutters, too, a few changeups. Everything was just feeling really good and Z (Zunino) did a great job of calling the game back there."
The re-emergence of the cutter in Paxton's past two starts has been vital. Facing teams with plenty of good right-handed hitters, it's a premium pitch to miss bats and get in on their hands.
"It's a big pitch, because it's the one that looks like the fastball," Paxton said. "So they see fastball when it's coming in and swing over the top or ground it to (Kyle) Seager at third."
There have been only 10 games this season in which an opposing starting pitcher has gone seven or more innings and allowed one run or fewer against the mighty Astros. Paxton has done it twice. On April 10 in Seattle he tossed seven shutout innings, allowing four hits with two walks and eight strikeouts in a 6-0 win.
In three starts vs. Houston this season, Paxton has pitched 20 innings, allowing one run on seven hits with three walks and 20 strikeouts.
"It's the best his curveball and cutter has been combined in one outing," Zunino said. "I thought his fastball command was great, and he was able to throw a little bit of a two- seam (fastball) to keep guys off the barrel. It's not an easy lineup to throw to. For him to do that was huge. He's obviously got swing-and-miss stuff, and they are a free-swinging team."
Paxton's lone run allowed came in the third inning when the Astros went old school and played small ball. Alex Bregman led off with a single, was sacrificed to second, stole third and scored on a sacrifice fly by George Springer.
The Mariners answered in the top of the fourth against Astros starter Charlie Morton. Jean Segura dumped a single into left-center for the Mariners' first hit of the game. The next batter, Ben Gamel, turned on a 1-1 cutter, sending a line drive over the wall in right field for his fifth homer of the season and a 2-1 lead.
Seattle picked up run in the sixth on Robinson Cano's bases loaded fielder's choice to make it 3-1.
An inning later, Zunino roped an RBI double into the left-field corner, pushing the lead to 4-1.
The Mariners' bullpen closed out the game with two scoreless innings.
