Seattle, WA-Marco Gonzales pumped his fist and yelled after striking out Michael Brantley on a full-count pitch closing out eight shutout innings.
Gonzales allowed seven hits and struck out six. He’s won five straight decisions.
”To be honest, I just went out and attacked them, put them on their heels. And when you do that to anybody I think it takes the wind out of their sails,” Gonzales said. ”I just came in to win today. That’s it.”
Gonzales had great stuff on the hill, Evan White broke open a tight game with a three-run homer in the seventh and the Seattle Mariners beat the Houston Astros 6-1 Monday night.
With the Mariners win they clinched the AL West title for Oakland, ending Houston’s three-year reign and making the A’s the first team in the league to lock up a division crown in this covid-19 shortened season.
Houston starter Lance McCullers Jr. didn’t allow a hit until Tim Lopes’ one-out double in the sixth inning — but he got in trouble in the seventh. Ty France had an RBI double and McCullers’ night ended when Evan White smashed 2-2 curveball and lined it over the left-field wall for his seventh home run and a 4-0 lead.
It was McCullers’ third start against the Mariners this year, and White guessed the home run was his first time putting the ball in play.
Gonzales (7-2) didn’t have great stuff but was able to keep the Astros’ batters off balance. Gonzales stranded runners at second in the second, fourth and sixth, coming up with good pitches to induce weak ground outs.
Gonzales allowed seven hits and struck out six. He’s won five straight decisions, and beat the Astros for the first time in eight career starts.
”Players know who they’ve been successful against, maybe who they’ve had some struggles against,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. ”Marco, he likes the challenge. He likes when people think they got his number. And he is a fighter. We saw that tonight.”
Seattle’s rally against McCullers (3-3) started with Kyle Lewis walking on four pitches and Seager reaching on an error by Altuve at second base. France jumped on the first pitch and got in it fair just inside third and past Bregman’s diving attempt, driving in Lewis and putting runners at second and third.
McCullers struck out Jose Marmolejos and Luis Torrens, but couldn’t get White out.
McCullers allowed three hits and struck out seven, but none of the four runs were earned. Houston have not scored in either of his past two starts when McCullers has been on the hill.
”It’s just a rough patch,” he said. ”The guys have been here for me many times when I haven’t been throwing the ball well or whatever the case is. I wouldn’t take anybody else over these guys we got.”
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