McHugh’s gem stops Mariners’ winning ways

Collin McHugh allowed SEATTLE just two hits in seven stellar innings, Evan Gattis and Marwin Gonzalez both hit solo home runs and the Houston Astros beat Seattle 6-0 on Friday night to end the Mariners’ eight-game win streak.

McHugh was outstanding in baffling the surging Mariners all night, not allowing a baserunner until Nori Aoki’s leadoff single in the fourth inning. Seattle’s only other hit off McHugh was Kyle Seager’s single with two outs in the seventh.

McHugh (11-10) improved to 9-3 in his career against Seattle and 4-0 this season while allowing just three runs in 25 innings.

Meanwhile, Seattle starter Felix Hernandez (11-6) stumbled in his biggest start of the season. With the Mariners three games back in the AL wild-card race, Hernandez failed to get through five innings, giving up five earned runs and eight hits.

The solo homers by Gattis and Gonzalez in the fifth were the capper to Hernandez’s miserable night. Gattis led off the inning with his 27th home run and Gonzalez followed with his 13th that knocked Hernandez from the game. Gonzalez now has 37 career home runs, 11 of those against Seattle. Hernandez was in trouble long before the two home runs. Jake Marisnick’s tworun double in the second inning gave Houston the lead and the Astros added on with Carlos Correa’s RBI double in the third after Jose Altuve reached on an error and Yuli Gurriel added an RBI single in the fourth.

For Seattle fans it was a similarly disappointing outing by Hernandez to the 2014 season when Seattle was in the wild-card race, but lasted only 42/3 innings in a 10-2 loss at Toronto in the final week of the season. Fortunately, these Mariners still have 15 games remaining.

McHugh won his fourth straight decision with one of his strongest outings of the season. He completed seven innings for just the second time in his previous 14 starts.