Seattle Mariners at Houston Astros

Given the stakes of where they sit in both the standings and calendar, as well as the opponent and venue, it wouldn’t be a stretch to call this the Mariners’ most monumental game of the season. And the tense atmosphere within this Sunday Night Baseball environment lived up to it -- headlined by a “here we go again” scare at the very end. With everyone at Daikin Park on the edge of their seats, the Mariners held on to a 3-2 win over the Astros to take this three-game series. And it nearly came completely undone in a bases-loaded jam in the eighth inning that had House of Horrors written all over it. “Only in Houston would something like that happen,” said Cal Raleigh, as Seattle (59-66) pulled to within four games of Houston (63-62) for first place in the American League West. Seranthony Domínguez struck out Daulton Varsho to silence a hostile crowd, just after Varsho hooked one narrowly foul that could’ve been a dagger. But anxiety reached a peak level in the at-bat prior, when Domínguez was summoned to face Jose Altuve but tripped going back on what would’ve been a routine popup to Cole Young. That’s when things got extremely dicey, in a venue where the Mariners have suffered some of their most stinging losses of this era -- and as recently as Friday’s walk-off loss. “We always play the craziest games here,” Raleigh said. “But give \[Domínguez\