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The Grand Slam: Mariners miss opportunity to gain ground in wild-card

The setup was perfect for the Seattle Mariners. Earlier in the day, both the Oakland A's and Kansas City Royals lost, opening the door for Seattle to move into a tie for the wild-card lead with a win over Houston. That door slammed shut quickly though. Starting pitcher Chris Young didn't have his best, and the Mariners offense offered little help against Dallas Keuchel as the Astros exploded to a 10-1 win.

The game was essentially decided in the first inning as Houston's offense hit two of its five home runs. Strangely enough, the first inning output was one home run more than they'd hit as a team in their previous 12 games. Chris Carter smacked his 37th, a two-run shot, to end the drought and start the scoring. Alex Presley quickly followed with a two-run shot of his own making it 4-0. Matt Dominguez, Carlos Corporan and Jake Marisneck would all add home runs later, but by that point they were merely piling on.

Though he didn't hit a home run, Jose Altuve made a little more history of his own. With his 218th hit, he tied Rod Carew for the most hits by a second baseman since 1937. On the hill, Keuchel was never threatened for Houston. He allowed one run over eight innings to notch his team-best 12th victory.

DODGERS BLOW BIG LEAD AT WRIGLEY: After scoring six first-inning runs in support of Clayton Kershaw on Friday, the Los Angeles Dodgers came out swinging again at Wrigley Field on Saturday. More specifically, Adrian Gonzalez came out swinging, connecting for a two-run homer in the first and a three-run homer in the third to open up a five-run lead.

However, unlike Friday, it wouldn't last.

The Cubs started chipping away and then struck for a four-run seventh against J.P. Howell.  Then, in the eighth, Chris Coghlan gave them their first lead with a two-run homer off Brian Wilson. That would hold up as the difference in an 8-7 win.

With the loss, LA's magic number to clinch the NL West remained at six. That was, until the San Diego Padres played the role of spoiler again, knocking off San Francisco 3-2 at Petco.

OLIVER PEREZ RECORDS ARIZONA'S FIRST FOUR-STRIKEOUT INNING: The Diamondbacks and Rockies were among the first teams eliminated from playoff contention, but they're still required to show up to work everyday and provide some background noise for the games with playoff implications.On Saturday, left-handed reliever did more than make some noise, he made franchise history by becoming the first Arizona pitcher to strikeout four batters in one inning.

It happened in the seventh. Perez struck out the second leading hitter in the National League, Justin Morneau, to start the inning. However, Morneau ended up reaching on a third strike wild pitch that set the wheels in motion. Perez then struck out Corey Dickerson, who had already tripled and homered in the game, followed by Michael McKenry and pinch-hitter Matt McBride.

Four batters up, four batters down on strikeouts. Something not even Randy Johnson or Curt Schilling could do in an inning for Arizona. Though those guys didn't often throw wild pitches.

Colorado would go on to win the game 5-1, giving them a 1 1/2 game advantage over Arizona for fourth place in the NL West.

JETER PASSES A-ROD ON ALL-TIME RUNS LIST: Derek Jeter only has eight games left in his stellar career, but there's still plenty of time to move up a few more lists. On Saturday, Jeter officially passed former teammate Alex Rodriguez on the all-time runs scored list with No. 1,920.

After singling in the third inning for career hit No. 3,456, Jeter scored the milestone run on Brian McCann's single to temporarily tie the game for New York. They would go on to lose 6-3, but Jeter added an RBI double to give him three consecutive multi-hit games on the homestand.

It's shaping up to be a fast and furious finish for the Yankees captain, but that should come as no surprise to those who have had the pleasure of watching him.

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Mark Townsend

is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!