Astros move into tie for first place in AL West

SEATTLE — It’s one thing to stand up in a team meeting and challenge your teammates to play better. It’s another to be the one showing them the way.

Yordan Alvarez, who spoke up in a clubhouse meeting after the Braves swept the Astros on Sunday, blasted his 41st homer of the season and drove in three runs — giving him 102 RBIs for the season — to lead the Astros to a 7-0 win over the Mariners on Tuesday night at T-Mobile Park.

“Like I said before, there’s no other option,” Alvarez said. “It’s just going out and winning. [Monday] was a day that we were able to reset and just focus on the six games we have left and try to win those six games.”

The Astros (78-79) snapped a three-game losing streak and moved back into a first-place tie atop the American League West with the Rangers (78-79), who lost to the Mets, 6-3, on Tuesday. Houston owns the tiebreaker over Texas and thus controls its own destiny with five games remaining in the regular season. If the teams finish with the same record, the Astros will get the AL West title.

Astros first baseman Christian Walker, who hit a three-run homer in the third inning off Logan Gilbert to make it 4-0, said winning the remaining five games is the goal. If the Astros do that, it doesn’t matter what the Rangers do.

“That’s what we can control,” he said. “Around the league? Who knows. You try to hope it’s going to work out, but at the same time what we’ve got is we got five games ahead of us. Let’s go 5-0.”

Astros starter Cristian Javier left the game after two scoreless innings with right groin tightness, forcing four relievers to cover the final seven innings. Rookie Miguel Ullola, lefty Bennett Sousa and rookie Logan VanWey each threw two innings, with rookie AJ Blubaugh handling the seventh.

“That’s our club right there,” Astros manager Joe Espada said, lauding his team’s resiliency.

Javier, who felt the groin get tight on one of his final pitches of the second, believes he will make his next start.

“I think it’s a matter of giving it some treatment and trying to get it loose,” he said.

The Astros also lost rookie center fielder Brice Matthews to an injury to his left knee, which he banged up while making a sliding catch in the second. He came out of the game in the sixth. Matthews had just returned to action after missing two months with a left knee sprain.

Meanwhile, shortstop Jeremy Peña left the game after being hit by a pitch in the right forearm in the eighth, but X-rays were negative. Starting center fielder Daulton Varsho was unavailable because of a left wrist injury, too.

The Minor League season is over, but the Astros have a taxi squad of players working out at their Triple-A affiliate in Sugar Land if they need to make any moves to get a healthy body to Seattle for the final game of the series Wednesday.

“Obviously, nobody wants for those injuries to happen,” Espada said. “Unfortunately, we lost three of those guys tonight, but hopefully they’ll recover pretty quickly and be able to help us for the final few games.”

The Astros began the game with four consecutive singles off Gilbert, including an RBI single by Alvarez, giving him 100 RBIs. In the third, Jose Altuve and Yainer Diaz singled ahead of Walker’s three-run homer to left off Gilbert, making it 4-0.

“I thought our approach, our at-bats from the get-go were really good,” Espada said. “You know, getting the starter out of the game in the fourth inning, I thought that set the tone for us, [along with] early runs. Pitching did a nice job. A ton of quality at-bats. Some injuries in that game puts us in a tough spot, but I thought we came out today [with] conviction, focus, with a purpose. Good start to our road trip.”

“That guy’s going to hit,” Walker said. “At this point, I keep wondering why guys are pitching to him. He seems to come through at each moment. He’s dangerous at the plate right now.”