Slumping Mariners return home to oppose Astros

After a disastrous ending to an already disappointing road trip, Safeco Field will be a welcome sight for the Seattle Mariners on Monday.

James Paxton will take the mound for Seattle in the home opener against the Houston Astros.

"It's exciting," Paxton told the Seattle Times. "I've done it once before and it's a lot of fun, the energy in the building and being in front of our home fans for the first time, it's a special thing."

Seattle (1-6) blew a six-run lead in the ninth inning of a 10-9 loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday.

"That's a rough one," Mariners manager Scott Servais said. "That's about as rough as it gets.

"We'll bounce back. We will. I believe in our guys. We've had some tough losses in the past. I don't know if they were quite this tough, especially with how the road trip was going. We needed to end it here on a positive note."

Mariners second baseman Robinson Cano hit a three-run double and a two-run double Sunday, but it wasn't enough.

"It's a really tough one," Cano told the Seattle Times. "The thing is, nothing is going our way. We've just got to keep fighting. The last thing you want is to hang your head and start thinking about what happened the first seven games. You can't blame any one person. You win as a team. You lose as a team."

One Seattle bright spot over the weekend: the offense. The Mariners scored a combined 13 runs on Saturday and Sunday after managing just nine in their first five games.

Houston (4-3) took three of four from Seattle to start the season.

On Sunday, catcher Evan Gattis drew a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the 12th inning to lift the Astros to a 5-4 win over Kansas City at Minute Maid Park.

"I knew that a walk would win it, a base hit would win it. I was trying to wait for something in the middle of the plate," Gattis said.

The win halted a three-game skid for Houston.

The series' first two games with be pitching rematches: Paxton vs. the Astros' Charlie Morton in the opener and Seattle's Ariel Miranda against Houston's Joe Musgrove on Tuesday.

None of the four figured in the decisions last week.

"It's unusual, but it's not the end of the world," Astros manager A.J. Hinch told the Houston Chronicle about the scheduling. "We won the first series, and we want to continue that. It's unique, but we're going to play them 19 times. We're just getting seven of them out of the way early."

In his first start, Paxton held the Astros scoreless and gave up two hits in six innings. Morton allowed two runs on two hits in six innings of the game that Houston won 5-3 in 13 innings.

"His stuff has always been great and now he's able to put it in play with quality secondary pitches," Servais said of Paxton. "I think you see when he takes the field that guys behind are like, 'we got a guy that really go out and shut people down.' The amazing thing about Pax is his ability to maintain his stuff throughout the game. You look up at 100 pitches and it's 96-97 mph. It's not easy to do."