Compensation package
In star trio’s absence, Gonzalez, Marisnick, Stassi total 4 homers
SEATTLE — August is full of battles between the reigning American League West champions and the upstart bunch looking to dethrone them. The Astros and Mariners will play seven more times before this new month concludes, opportunities for separation within a tighter-than-anticipated division.
When they do, Houston’s lineup will bear little resemblance to what it deployed this week. For nine innings on Wednesday and eight more on Tuesday, the Astros played without Carlos Correa, George Springer and Jose Altuve, the bedrock upon which this team constructs its offense.
Correa will begin a rehab assignment Thursday. Springer so badly wanted to play on Wednesday that he feverishly did shirtless jumping jacks in manager A.J. Hinch’s office, proof that his injured left shoulder retained a full range of motion. Hinch erred on the side of caution, leaving his gregarious power hitter idle for a day.
The last game without these three men occurred on Aug. 4, 2017. Still, the Astros scored 16 times during a ninerun win over Toronto.
Wednesday replicated that carnage. A provisional lineup bludgeoned Mariners starter Wade LeBlanc and the bullpen cavalry that followed, win-
ning 8-3 to augment Houston’s American League West lead and secure a series despite being so steeply shorthanded.
The Astros have won six of nine games against the Mariners, who fell into a tie with the A’s for second place. Both sit five games back.
“It’s just now August 1,” starter Dallas Keuchel said. “We know the season goes in spurts, and we’re without three of our top guys. For us to get a series win here was big, but it’s not make or break. We know we’re good enough to win this division and play well. It’s about getting guys healthy and not letting them get momentum, especially at their home ballpark.”
Without Springer, Hinch penciled Tony Kemp — normally the nine-hole hitter — atop the order. Evan Gattis hit third for the first time all season. He responded with three of the team’s 15 hits.
In their last 16 innings, all without their titanic trio, the Astros have 30 hits. Wednesday, the bottom four of their order had two hits apiece.
They hit four home runs in the first five innings. Marwin Gonzalez struck two. Jake Marisnick, recalled overnight from Class AAA Fresno, hit another — a two-run shot in the second that sailed to the right of the batter’s eye.
Max Stassi launched one to the same location in a four-run fifth inning that decided the game. The three-run blast rudely greeted Seattle reliever Nick Vincent, who could not salvage Wade LeBlanc’s miserable start.
“When you look at our team when we’re at our best, it’s guys like Marwin and (Josh) Reddick earlier in the series, there’s Yuli (Gurriel), there’s our catching group,” Hinch said. “This is a very deep team, and (when) you go through some stretches where you don’t play your best, you can kind of forget this team is built pretty well, built to withstand injuries or poor performance.”
LeBlanc (6-2) threw 79 pitches in 4 1 ⁄3 innings. The Astros struck 10 hits against him and placed a man aboard in all but one inning he threw. They wasted Gattis’ two-out double in the first.
With two outs in the second, Gonzalez started a torrent.
From the right side, Gonzalez had mustered seven extra-base hits in 123 previous plate appearances. This season, the last before Houston’s versatile switch hitter enters free agency, has been forgettable. Playing him is required given the injuries overtaking the infield.
Gonzalez carried a .660 OPS into his 100th game. His 92 strikeouts leave him on pace to establish a career high.
Not since May 2, 2017, had he hit multiple home runs in a game. Never in his major league career had he hit two home runs in a game as a righthanded hitter. By the fourth inning, both benchmarks were achieved.
In the second, Gonzalez massacred LeBlanc’s first-pitch fastball into the left-field seats — his first home run since June 27. J.D. Davis then singled past a shifted infield before Marisnick, in his first major league at-bat since July 13, cranked a changeup 413 feet away to center field.
“We’re kind of down in the dumps a little bit, haven’t scored many runs, and guys have been getting injured,” Keuchel said. “That’s the morale boost you kind of needed: a high-energy guy who fit in as he always does. (Marisnick) did a heck of a job today.”
Keuchel, too. He spun seven innings of three-run ball, the victim only of some second-inning misfortune and Nelson Cruz’s mammoth sixth-inning home run.
Five consecutive Mariners reached against Keuchel in the second. Cameron Maybin, the former Astro playing his first game as a Mariner, coaxed a oneout walk. Four singles followed. One was a seeing-eye slow roller through the six hole. Another blooped into no-man’s land just inside the right-field foul line, loading the bases with one out.
Keuchel (9-9) yielded only two runs in the inning. His luck turned as he wiggled away without allowing more. Dee Gordon smacked a line drive at Gonzalez, who doubled off Andrew Romine and allowed the offense back to the field.
“We haven’t been doing a good job from the offensive part,” Gonzalez said. “That’s not what we are as a team. But we showed today and yesterday that’s who we are, the team that is capable to score runs. It feels good every time you’re able to do that for the pitchers that we have.”