​Aug 14, 2026; Houston, Texas, USA; Seattle Mariners shortstop Brock Rodden (90) hits a RBI double against the Houston Astros in the eighth inning at Daikin Park. Mandatory Credit: Thomas Shea-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect After the faceplant against the Rays and the slide through the Bronx this week – where even the lone win felt lackadaisical – I had convinced myself I was beyond caring about the 2026 Mariners. There have been so many bad losses, and bad series, and overall bad baseball that it’s tough to get worked up about any one game. But tonight’s crushing extra-inning loss to the Astros seemed designed in a lab by an evil baseball god scientist to find that one last neuron in my fan-brain capable of feeling pain, and then went ahead and dragged a white-hot knife right down the middle. A recipe for a cocktail of pain: an unheralded prospect making his debut; a meltdown from my favorite Mariner Andrés Muñoz; and the Houston Astros, shaken and spread out over nine innings. Congratulations, evil baseball scientist. You got me.The image of Ralph Wiggum, heart rended, is a slide that plays on a rotating carousel on the projection screen in my brain. To be Ralph – to dare to hope to love, to be brave in love, and then to be made foolish by that love – is to be embarrassed, with his round face and too-tight suit and cheap paintbrush hairline. Why bother loving anything at all, ever? It’s easier when the Mariners make themselves unlovable, efficiently, efficaciously unlovable, which they’d been doing a pretty good job of for the past week or so.Once again the Mariners got off to a quick start in this one, starting with a one-out double from Randy Arozarena; Randy would then be knocked in on an RBI single from Dominic Canzone, and then a Julio Rodríguez double and a sac fly from Josh Naylor made it 2-0 as the Mariners put early pressure on Astros starter Peter Lambert.But this is a story we’ve seen before, and George Kirby wound up giving up one of those runs right back in the most predictable fashion, hanging a changeup that Yordan Álvarez predictably knocked over the fence. But it was in the second inning where things went sideways, with the Astros tying it up and then pulling ahead. Kirby got two quick outs but then couldn’t find the third, falling behind Christian Walker 3-0 before allowing a single, and then giving up an unlucky triple to Cam Smith that got past a diving Brendan Donovan at third base, allowing the slow-footed Walker to score all the way from first and tying the game. That was unlucky. But Kirby continued to struggle, going to a full count against nine-hole hitter Christian Vázquez before walking him on the eighth pitch of the at-bat and turning the lineup over for Jeremy Peña, who yanked a little weak-contact single right past Josh Naylor for the go-ahead run and bringing up the ever-dangerous Álvarez. In a 3-1 count, Kirby balked, moving the runners over and triggering an automatic