​Josh Hader walked in the tying run before giving up a walk-off single to cap the Astros’ 10-inning loss to the Mariners on Wednesday in Seattle. (Jack Compton/Getty Images)
SEATTLE – Wednesday presented the Houston Astros a ripe chance to augment their position in the waning American League playoff race. They could not seize it and will enter their final regular-season series with the slimmest of division advantages as a result.Josh Naylor delivered a walk-off single in the 10th inning against closer Josh Hader to send the Astros to a 6-5 loss to the Mariners at T-Mobile Park. Seattle scored twice in the inning against Hader, who had returned for a second inning of work trying to protect a one-run lead.Earlier in the night, the Rangers fell to the Mets in Arlington. Had they won, the Astros would essentially have taken a two-game lead over Texas with four to play, given the tiebreaker. Instead, the teams will go into their final four games with identical 78-80 records, with the tiebreaker Houston’s only edge.”Anytime we can get ahead of the game, that’s what you want,” Hader said. “We came into this road trip trying to win them all. And it sucks that we lost this one and how we did. But we’ve still got to play four more games. We’ve still got to play good baseball and finish out strong.”Obviously, we’ve still got the tiebreaker, so that’s fortunate for us. But we can’t bank on that. We’ve got to win out. And hopefully we’ll look up and we’re in the playoffs.”Yainer Diaz’s triple against Cooper Criswell in the top of the 10th inning drove in Yordan Alvarez for the Astros’ first run since the third. Neither Nelson Velázquez nor Taylor Trammell could drive in Diaz from third base, leaving the Astros with a one-run lead.Hader, who had thrown 19 pitches in a scoreless ninth, and had not pitched in the previous five days, returned for the 10th. It marked the left-hander’s third multi-inning appearance since returning from separate injured list stints for shoulder and biceps ailments. He entered with a 0.83 ERA.Randy Arozarena worked a leadoff seven-pitch walk and Dominic Canzone’s ground out moved runners to second and third with one out. Cal Raleigh walked to load the bases. Nobody appeared to warm in the Astros bullpen behind Hader, who started the next at-bat at 35 pitches.Julio Rodríguez fell behind 1-2 but worked an eight-pitch walk, taking a slider off the plate. Naylor then lined the 44th pitch of the night from Hader into center field to end the game. Hader had not thrown as many pitches in a regular-season game since 2019.”Tough one,” manager Joe Espada said. “Tough one, yeah. We used our entire arsenal there trying to get through that one. Tough loss. Tough loss, yeah. But we’ve got another one tomorrow. But that was a tough one there.”Houston mounted a four-run third inning against Mariners starter George Kirby, capped by Diaz’s two-run home run. Kirby allowed nothing more across five innings. Seattle clawed back to forge a tie by the