Watchpoints: Paxton moving closer to rediscovering early-season form

How close is James Paxton to returning to his dominant early season form? The Houston Astros should let him know in Wednesday’s series finale at Minute Maid Park.

Paxton has quality starts in his last four outings and kicked off the Mariners’ post-break surge by limiting the White Sox to two runs in six innings July 14 in a 4-2 victory in Chicago.

Not bad, but Paxton opened his season by pitching six scoreless innings against the Astros on April 5 in Houston. Five days later, he pitched seven scoreless innings against them at Safeco Field.

Paxton had a 1.43 ERA through six starts before a strained forearm muscle forced him to the disabled list after a May 2 outing against the Angels. So…how close is he to that form?

"Pretty close," manager Scott Servais said. "The one pitch that hasn’t been there as consistently as it was in April is his cutter, the hard slider down and in."

Paxton seemed to find that pitch in the final few innings against the White Sox — somewhat out of necessity. His curveball lacked its usual bite.

"If he gets that pitch going," Servais said, "that’s the wipeout pitch. With the fastball and the curveball, that’s the in-between pitch. A late, hard breaker, especially on the back foot of the right-handed hitter, it’s really effective."

For his part, Paxton, who is 8-3 with a 3.19 ERA, is looking for a quicker route to maximum intensity. He didn’t find his top form in recent starts until the middle innings.

"I need to find a way to get to that earlier in the game," he said, "so that I can ride that out longer."

Other watchpoints:

***The series finale starts at 11:10 p.m. Pacific time. Houston is starting right-hander Charlie Morton (7-3 with a 4.06 ERA). The game can be seen on Root Sports Northwest.

***Paxton is 2-2 with a 3.16 ERA in six career starts against the Astros, including 1-0 and 2.50 in three starts at Minute Maid Park. He got a no-decision here earlier this year despite pitching six shutout innings.

***Morton is 0-1 with a 4.09 ERA in two career starts against the Mariners, each of which came earlier this season in April.

***Paxton has generally handled Houston’s top hitters. Jose Altuve is 3-for-14, while George Springer is 3-for-18, although Springer has two home runs. Carlos Beltran and Evan Gattis are each 4-for-15.

***Jean Segura saw a lot of Morton while both were in the National League but had just five hits in 27 career at-bats. Nelson Cruz is 3-for-9. No other current Mariner has more than seven career plate appearances against Morton.

***Outfielder Mitch Haniger wasn’t in the starting lineup for a fourth straight game because of a bruised right index finger. He suffered the injury Saturday on an attempted bunt in Chicago.

***Altuve enters the game as the American League’s leading hitter at .351. Segura is second at .344. Mariners outfielder Ben Gamel is tied for fourth at .320.

***Cruz leads the majors with 74 RBIs and is the only player with at least 20 homers in each of the last nine seasons.

***Robinson Cano has just one hit in his last 16 at-bats but has 31 RBIs in his last 31 games against Houston.

***Gamel is hitting .444 (59-for-133) this season on fastballs. That leads the majors by a wide margin. Baltimore outfielder Trey Mancini and Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner rank second at .403.

TIME CAPSULE

It was 23 years ago Wednesday — July 19, 1994 — that four ceiling tiles fell from the Kingdome prior to a game against Baltimore and cause the first postponement in the building’s history.

The incident forced the Mariners onto the road for 20 games in 21 days until a labor stoppage ended the 1994 season. The Mariners didn’t play again at the Kingdome until May 1, 1995.

The cause for the falling tiles was later attributed to a decision by King County to power-wash the roof of the dome, which resulted in the wood-and-cement tiles becoming waterlogged.

Nobody was hurt when the tiles fell, but two repair workers were killed on Aug. 17 from a crane accident inside the dome. Final cost for the repairs: $51 million.

Bob Dutton: @TNT_Mariners

This story was originally published July 19, 2017 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Watchpoints: Paxton moving closer to rediscovering early-season form."