M’s rally past Astros, 6-4

SEATTLE_In one swing of the bat, Shawn O’Malley led his current team to a win and helped his former team move a step closer to the playoffs. tmpplchld O’Malley’s two-run single in the bottom of the eighth off Houston Astros reliever Pat Neshek broke a 4-4 tie and provided the difference in the Seattle Mariners’ 6-4 win over Houston on Tuesday night at Safeco Field. tmpplchld The win snapped Seattle’s six-game losing streak. It was also a gut-punch loss to the Astros, who lost their lead in the second-wild card. And the team that drafted, developed and dumped O’Malley _ the Los Angeles Angels_reaped the benefit. With their 8-1 win in Oakland, the Angels took over the lead in the second wild card by a half game. tmpplchld With old and now new general manager Jerry Dipoto watching, O’Malley sat on a 2-2 slider and dumped a line drive into shallow left-center to score Seth Smith and Mark Trumbo. tmpplchld To add to the Mariners’ frustration, all of the runners and runs came with two outs. Astros manager A.J. Hinch used Will Harris to get the first out of the inning on a ground ball from Nelson Cruz. Hinch brought in lefty Oliver Perez, who retired Robinson Cano, but couldn’t put away Smith. The veteran outfielder blooped a single into right field on a one-handed swing to start the rally. Trumbo followed with a single and Franklin Gutierrez a walk to load the bases for O’Malley. tmpplchld Making a spot start on three days’ rest, Nuno gave the Mariners as much as they could hope for, pitching five innings and allowing three runs on six hits with no walks and five strikeouts. tmpplchld It was a serviceable outing given the circumstances. tmpplchld The Mariners even provided some offense, scoring two runs in the first inning against Astros’ starter Mike Fiers on sac flies from Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz.tmpplchld Later in the game with the Mariners trailing 4-2, Robinson Cano crushed his 20th homer of the season_a line drive over the wall in right-center. The two-run blast tied the game at 4. tmpplchld By reaching the 20-homer plateau, Cano became just the eighth major-league second baseman to hit 20 or more home runs in at least six big league seasons. Jeff Kent has the most with 12. tmpplchld _Manager Lloyd McClendon confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that James Paxton will not make another start this season thanks to the fingernail issue on his throwing hand. The Mariners have decided to shut him down and he’ll begin preparing to pitch in the Arizona Fall League, which begins on October 13.tmpplchld “Paxton probably will not pitch anymore the rest of the season,” McClendon said.tmpplchld It was a lost season for the big left-hander. He made just 13 starts for the entire season, going 3-4 with a 3.90 ERA. He pitched a total of 67 innings at the big league level. tmpplchld There was some hope Paxton might be able to start on Wednesday, but he was unable to throw since re-tearing the nail. The Mariners decided to just have him begin preparing for the fall league instead. That includes throwing for the first time on Wednesday. To protect the nail and keep it locked down against the finger to avoid more issues, the Mariners applied a healthy amount of glue to it.tmpplchld Paxton will likely make five or six five-inning starts in the fall league. That will give him close to 100 innings pitched this season. The original goal was to use the fall league and final month of the season to get him to 130. But that’s not happening.tmpplchld Could he go to winter ball in Venezuela or the Dominican Republic to get more innings after the fall league?tmpplchld “We’ll see how he comes out of the fall league,” McClendon said. “Obviously, we would like him to go to winter ball, but we’ll see how the fall league goes and then make a determination from there.”tmpplchld Paxton wasn’t sure about his feelings regarding winter ball.tmpplchld “That’s still to be determined,” he said. “I think fall league I should be able to get to 100 innings-ish. Of course, I’d like to get to more. But once you get into pitching in December, it gets pretty close to pitching in spring training. I want to give myself time to recover and be ready to come into spring training strong, so I can be ready for next season.”tmpplchld As for the future of the nail, it will remain on his finger. As mangled as it looks, it won’t fall off.tmpplchld “I talked to the doctor and it’s going to grow out and be attached,” Paxton said. “But it’s going to take three or four months for it grow out and be normal again.”tmpplchld tmpplchld ___tmpplchld (c)2015 The Seattle Timestmpplchld Visit The Seattle Times at www.seattletimes.comtmpplchld Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.tmpplchld