Bryan Woo Is Shutting Down Houston and the Mariners' Eight-Game Win Streak Looks Unstoppable

The Seattle Mariners are doing something the Astros haven't seen in franchise history: losing to them over and over again. After a 3-1 road victory on Monday with Bryan Woo anchoring the pitching performance, Seattle has now strung together eight consecutive wins against Houston. That's the longest winning streak between these two American League West rivals ever. And they're not done yet. Tuesday night in Houston, the Mariners will send Woo back to the mound trying to make it nine straight.

This matters because despite a rocky start to the season, Seattle's pitching staff is carrying the team on its shoulders. In Monday's win, five Mariners pitchers combined for 13 strikeouts against just three walks. Through 42 games, the club has struck out 358 batters while issuing only 102 walks, which puts them at the top of the majors in strikeout-to-walk ratio at 3.48. When your pitching is that dominant, you can survive almost anything.

Woo Is Playing a Different Sport Against Houston

Here's the thing about Bryan Woo's track record against the Astros: it's genuinely special. The right-hander is 2-2 with a 2.83 ERA in five career starts against them. In his last appearance against Houston on September 19, 2025, Woo allowed one hit and one walk while striking out seven across five scoreless innings in a 4-0 Mariners win.

Coming off a dominant performance against Atlanta last Wednesday, Woo threw six shutout innings with just one hit, two walks, and a season-high nine strikeouts in a 3-1 victory. That's now his sixth start since the beginning of last season where he's given up one or fewer hits while pitching five-plus innings. Only Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto has matched that mark across all of baseball during that stretch. Woo enters Tuesday with a 4.02 ERA on the season, but the numbers don't tell the whole story when he's facing Houston.

Houston's Got Its Hands Full, and Time Is Running Out

The Astros are sending right-hander Tatsuya Imai to the mound on Tuesday, fresh off the injured list after landing there on April 12 with right arm fatigue. Here's the problem: Imai's last outing was against the Mariners on April 10, and it was a disaster. He recorded one out, allowed three runs on one hit and four walks, and Houston lost 9-6.

Imai did earn his only win of the season against the Athletics on April 4, allowing three hits and three walks with nine strikeouts over 5 2/3 innings in an 11-0 victory. But he's working with a 7.27 ERA and limited experience against AL West competition. This will be his second career appearance against Seattle.

For Houston, the stakes are mounting fast. Four of the five teams in the AL West sit below .500, which means there's still time to climb back into the race. But the Astros opened this seven-game homestand tied for last place in the division with the Los Angeles Angels, and they're getting crushed by Seattle in the process. After this four-game series against the Mariners, Houston hosts the Texas Rangers for three games this weekend. Rangers are 2 and a half games behind first place and 3 and a half games ahead of the Astros.

Astros manager Joe Espada gets it. "If we play well this week, we can try to move up in the standings," he said. "This is a team that we know very, very well. I think our team knows the importance of this series and the next one."

Seattle manager Dan Wilson added perspective on what this matchup means. "There's always a little elevated meaning to playing here," Wilson said. "There's a lot of history that we've had here with these two teams."

The Astros have made the playoffs in eight of the past nine seasons, so they're far from panicking. But eight straight losses to Seattle is a hole that

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.