Seattle Mariners at Houston Astros

The season is reaching the stage where the Mariners will need to start stacking wins in ways they haven’t all year if they have any hopes of playing into October. Yet conversely, they’re trying to take a more insular approach in order to manifest that objective. “It's more just the time of year where we're at right now,” manager Dan Wilson said at the outset of this huge showdown against the Astros. “And people start talking about what's left and looking at series, and you can kind of get lost in that instead of focusing on what's right in front of you. Baseball is a game of ‘What have you done for me lately?’ And right now, that's tonight's game.” The one-day-at-a-time mantra is one of the most common clichés in this game, but that’s where Seattle sits. And after one of their more stinging losses in this summer-long spiral the night prior, the Mariners rebounded in a big way on Saturday at Daikin Park -- cruising to a commanding 10-5 win over the Astros. “It was just like a complete game, from start to finish,” said Brendan Donovan, who had three RBI singles in his return to the leadoff spot. It was equally well-rounded, too, as Seattle (58-66) defeated Houston (63-61) for the eighth time in 10 meetings this season. The Mariners are now five games back in the American League West with 38 to play. At the plate, they worked counts, strung together multihit rallies and were aggressive on the basepaths.