Logan Gilbert worked seven strong innings and the Seattle Mariners closed the first half with a 3-1 win over the host Houston Astros on Sunday that clinched the four-game series.
Gilbert (7-5) followed his first career shutout on Tuesday at San Francisco by limiting the Astros to one run on three hits and no walks with six strikeouts over seven innings. He tossed 94 pitches while increasing the Mariners' total of quality starts to a major league-leading 47, including all four games of their series in Houston.
Gilbert needed only nine pitches to retire the side in order in the bottom of the first. After inducing an inning-ending double-play grounder from Jeremy Pena to sidestep a pair of baserunners in the second inning, Gilbert tore through the Astros on eight pitches in the fourth.
It wasn't until the sixth that Houston finally reached Gilbert. Martin Maldonado homered for the second time in as many games, sending his seventh dinger of the season the opposite way into the first row of seats in right field. That 363-foot blast pulled the Astros to within two runs, but Gilbert replied by retiring the next three batters, including strikeouts of Mauricio Dubon and Kyle Tucker.
Gilbert capped his outing with strikeouts of Yainer Diaz and Chas McCormick in the seventh.
Astros right-hander Brandon Bielak (4-5) never found the form from his previous start, when he tossed a career-best seven shutout innings at the Colorado Rockies on Independence Day.
Bielak worked around Mike Ford's one-out double in the third inning but endured a rocky 24-pitch fourth ignited by a Pena error at short that enabled Julio Rodriguez to reach to open the frame.
Rodriguez was the first of three consecutive batters to reach base against Bielak in the fourth, and he scored from second base when Teoscar Hernandez roped a double to center field for a 1-0 lead. Two batters later, Jarred Kelenic lined a two-run double to the right-center gap, plating Ty France and Hernandez and extending the lead to 3-0.
Bielak departed after the first two batters in the sixth reached on a hit batter and a walk. He allowed three runs (two earned) on four hits and one walk with five strikeouts over five innings.
Seattle capped its seven-game road trip 5-2 and improved to 5-2 against Houston this season. The Astros squandered a chance to close to within one game of the Texas Rangers in the American League West after Texas fell at Washington earlier Sunday.
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