Astros Notes: Mariners Continue to Own Houston, Dusty Baker Speaks on Cheating Scandal

The Houston Astros are not having a fun time at the moment.

Houston Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez. | Erik Williams-Imagn Images

If there was one thing the Houston Astros don’t want to do for the rest of the season, it’s play the Seattle Mariners.

The Astros have now lost nine of their last 10 against the Mariners, a mind-boggling statistic that underscores just how poorly the team is performing at the moment. Sure, the Mariners aren’t necessarily the crème de la crème, but they’re a division foe that Houston would ideally be playing competently against.

Instead, nothing but misery has ensued between the two squads over the last calendar year — at least from the Astros’ perspective.

Part of the reason why the Astros weren’t able to get over the hump versus the Mariners this past week was the poor effort by Yordan Alvarez.

In the four games against Seattle, Alvarez — who’s by far the Astros’ best hitter and needs to be on his A-game at all times if the team wants to have any hope of competing in the American League — collected eight hits and struck out five times. Three of those base knocks came in the series finale, an 8-3 defeat.

This slump has lasted the entire month of May. He’s slashing just .234/.345/.404 since the calendar turned over — yesterday’s three-hit day is doing a lot of the legwork there — a number that’s simply not good enough.

Sure, bad stretches are bound to happen throughout the 162-game marathon that is the MLB schedule, but Alvarez is the type of player who’s supposed to be immune from sustained bad play. Alas, everybody gets struck by the slump bug at some point.

In other news, former Astros manager Dusty Baker had some thoughts on Jose Altuve’s role in the cheating scandal that rocked the baseball world when it was unveiled in 2019.

In an interview on the All The Smoke podcast, Baker spoke at length about a variety of topics — including being mentored by Hank Aaron — with the Astros’ scandal being one of the premier areas of discussion.

“You know the guy who took the brunt of it was really Jose Altuve, and he was really the most innocent dude there,” Baker said. “That really affected me, how he was treated and he didn’t deserve it.”

Altuve was notably the Astros player who received the most vitriol from the public following the revelation of the cheating scandal.

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Astros Tweets of the Day

The Astros lost 8-3. They are 17-28.

Houston loses three of four games against Seattle and is 1-7 against the Mariners this season.

— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) May 14, 2026

Yordan Alvarez crushes his 14th homer of the season to get the Astros on the board pic.twitter.com/S5mdhUlPPx

— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) May 14, 2026

#Astros SP Mike Burrows has pitched well his last few times out, and today lays a complete egg.
He allowed 7 ER in 5.2 IP on 8H, 3 BB with 4K. Allowed 2 HR. ( 3 run shot, 2 run shot)
Houston down 7-1 B6
They have 3 hits,
Yordan solo HR, single
Shewmake single.

— Patrick Creighton (@PCreighton1) May 14, 2026