HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610)- Astros manager Dusty Baker always viewed the Seattle Mariners as a threat his team's championship chase, even after a slow start the season.
"When they were under. 500 earlier, everybody was concerned, and I told them that they were going to be here because I know they got talent, and it's a long race," Baker said Monday.
FanGraphs gave the Mariners just a six percent chance of making the playoffs after they dropped to 29-39 with a loss to the Angels on June 19, but the recovered to win five straight and finished the season 61-33, ending a two-decades old playoff drought.
"They're a really good team," Astros pitcher Justin Verlander said. "They present a lot of difficulties. Their pitching staff is really good. Their lineup is really good. They never give in, as you saw in the series against Toronto. They grind out at-bats. They don't make it easy."
The Astros won 12-of-19 regular season meetings, but the two teams haven't met since July 31. The Astros did not face Luis Castillo and Mitch Haniger only appeared in one game between the two clubs. Verlander, who will get the ball for the series opener, won five-of-six regular season starts, compiling a 2.34 ERA. Tuesday will be his 32nd playoff appearance and the first against a divisional opponent.
"Having seen them a lot, it's interesting," Verlander said. "I don't know how that really plays out, but an in-division rival at this point in the year, we know each other so intimately, it makes it interesting."
The Astros have won 62 percent of their games against the Mariners since joining the American League in 2013, and that number has climbed to almost 68 percent since the Mariners finished ahead of the Astros in the AL West standings in 2016, but Jose Altuve, the longest tenured player for either team says the Astros are facing a different club than in the past.
"This year's team is the best I ever played against," he said. I think what I see is a lot of unity, a lot of chemistry going on there. I think they're playing kind of like our same game, not be the heros, just play to win, and when you play to win good things happen."
The Mariners will arrive at Minute Maid Park with some momentum after sweeping the Wild Card Series against the heavily favored Blue Jays over the weekend. Baker kept a close eye on those two games and it only confirmed what he has said about them all season.
"They're the same, good, well-motivated team they were before. They know us pretty well and we know them pretty well, so, hey, it's going to be a great series."
