Christian Walker drilled his second career walk-off home run and the Houston Astros secured a four-game series victory over the visiting Seattle Mariners with a 5-3 win on Sunday.
Walker followed a ninth-inning leadoff single from Jose Altuve with a line drive into the left-field Crawford Boxes for his sixth homer of the season and third career walk-off hit. Altuve and Walker struck against Seattle reliever Casey Legumina (4-2), the Mariners’ fifth pitcher of the game.
Bryan King (3-0) earned the win in relief with 1? scoreless innings.
The Mariners strung together three consecutive two-out hits against Astros rookie left-hander Colton Gordon in the top of the first, with Mitch Garver providing Seattle a 2-0 lead with a two-run double that scored Julio Rodriguez and Randy Arozarena, both of whom hit singles.
Gordon worked around a pair of one-out singles in the second and appeared poised to strand Rodriguez on third base in the third after recording consecutive strikeouts of Arozarena and Garver. But Donovan Solano delivered an RBI single that lifted the Mariners to a 3-0 lead.
After recording nine hits, all singles, over six innings against Mariners starter Bryan Woo on Saturday, the Astros produced nine hits off Seattle right-hander Luis Castillo in the series finale.
The Astros finished 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position on Saturday and weren’t much better against Castillo, going 1-for-7 in that scenario. But that one hit was significant: Walker singled home Isaac Paredes with one out in the bottom of the third to slice the deficit to 3-1. Victor Caratini followed with a sacrifice fly to right field that capped the Astros’ two-run uprising.
Castillo, who stranded two baserunners in the first inning and induced a timely double play to erase Yainer Diaz and complete the second, surrendered just two extra-base hits. Mauricio Dubon doubled with two outs in the fourth, but Castillo rallied with a strikeout of Jeremy Pena.
But with Jake Meyers on first and two outs in the sixth, Cam Smith smoked a double to right that scored Meyers and tied the score at 3. Castillo completed the sixth with a strikeout of Dubon, but he threw 114 pitches, tied with the Reds’ Hunter Greene for the most in the majors this season.
