WATCH: Harry Ford’s walk-off sacrifice fly moves Mariners into first-place tie with Astros

The AL West race is officially on. Thursday night the Seattle Mariners moved into a first-place tie with the Houston Astros following their walk-off win over the Los Angeles Angels (SEA 7, LAA 6 in 12 innings). The Astros were shut out by Kevin Gausman and the Toronto Blue Jays earlier in the day (TOR 6, HOU 0). The Mariners and Astros have identical 79-68 records with 15 games to play.

Here are the AL West standings with two weeks and three days to go in the regular season:

1. Seattle Mariners: 79-68
2. Houston Astros: 79-68
3. Texas Rangers: 77-70 (2 GB)
4. Los Angeles Angels: 69-77 (9 1/2 GB)
5. (Sacramento) Athletics: 67-80 (12 GB)

The Mariners jumped out to an early 4-0 lead on Thursday, though the Angels chipped away and tied the game, 4-4. The two teams traded runs in the 11th inning. In the bottom of the 12th, rookie Harry Ford provided the walk-off sacrifice fly to give the Mariners their sixth consecutive win, moving them into that first-place tie with the Astros. Here is Ford’s game-winner:

As for the Astros, they lost for the eighth time in their last 12 games on Thursday afternoon. Houston mustered only two singles and one walk against Gausman, who struck out nine in his complete game shutout. Their offense has sputtered lately, having scored eight runs total in their last four games.

“We need to find more consistency in our at-bats game-to-game,” Astros manager Joe Espada said after Thursday’s loss (via MLB.com). “We saw some really good at-bats yesterday, the day before I thought we were grinding some at-bats and getting people on base. And then it’s just becoming really hard for us to do it three, four games in a row. We need more of our offense to contribute.”

The Mariners have at least a share of first place for the first time since Aug. 12. They have not been in first place outright since June 2, which was the last date the Astros did not have at least a share of first place. The 147 games is the latest into a season the Mariners have been at least tied for first place in the AL West since the final day of their 116-win season in 2021.

Not only do the Astros and Mariners have identical records, the season series is tied 5-5 as well. They will play three games at what is now called Daikin Park from Sept. 19-21. The winner of that series will clinch the season series and thus the tiebreaker. Those three games in Houston could very well be the single biggest series of the 2025 season.

The Astros and Mariners are tied atop the AL West and also for the third wild card spot, only two games up on Texas. Depending how things shake out in the AL Central, it is possible the AL West will send only one team to the postseason this year. It is not certain both the Astros and Mariners will make the playoffs. It could be one or the other.

The Mariners are one game into their four-game series with the Angels at T-Mobile Park. They have one of the easiest remaining schedules in baseball. The Astros are done with the Blue Jays and will open a three-game series with the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park on Friday.