WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Around the same time Josh Naylor authored another signature moment for the Seattle Mariners, one of his fellow trade deadline acquisitions appeared at Sutter Health Park, where the Houston Astros’ season hung in the balance.

Jesús Sánchez sat for the first six innings. On the surface, that is no surprise. A’s starter Jeffrey Springs is left-handed and Sánchez is a liability against southpaws. The Astros knew this upon acquiring him from the Miami Marlins, but coveted him anyway for the balance he could bring to an almost all-right-handed lineup.

Sánchez’s expected production against right-handed pitching should’ve outweighed his inability to hit when a southpaw starts. Sánchez slugged .466 with a .348 on-base percentage against right-handed pitching this season in Miami. That manager Joe Espada hit Sánchez third during his first game as an Astro exemplified how high Houston believed his ceiling could be.

That Sánchez responded by slashing .198/.271/.331 in 121 subsequent at-bats against righties revealed how misguided that thinking may have been. Starting him against some right-handed pitchers even became problematic, offering Sánchez no chance of ever cracking the lineup against a left-hander.

Tuesday evening, there sat Sánchez. He saw Springs surrender three singles across five scoreless innings against Houston’s impotent lineup, which included a left-handed hitting outfielder named Zach Cole playing in his 10th major-league game.

Starting Cole over Sánchez is rooted in logic. Cole slashed .236/.372/.434 in 106 minor-league at-bats against left-handed pitching this season. Since arriving on Sept. 12 as a last-ditch effort to spark Houston’s sputtering offense, Cole has homered three times. Sánchez has three of his own — across all of his 146 plate appearances in a Houston uniform.

These circumstances must be cited when conducting the autopsy on this collapse and Tuesday’s 5-1 loss against the A’s inched it closer to completion. Houston sits one game behind both the Cleveland Guardians and Detroit Tigers for the third AL wild-card spot. The Astros do not have the tiebreaker over either team, so the deficit is effectively two games. Five regular-season games remain.

“I’m not going to say we’ve been here before, but we just have to keep going and win,” utilityman Mauricio Dubón said. “We have to wake up. There’s no way around it. Go play with guts and heart. That’s all.”

Carlos Correa and Cristian Javier collide as Javier commits an error in the first inning against the Athletics. (Sergio Estrada / Imagn Images)

Dubón started Tuesday’s game at shortstop in place of All-Star Jeremy Peña, whose left oblique remained sore after some batting practice swings. Slugger Yordan Alvarez isn’t with the team in California while recovering from a sprained left ankle.

Both absences loom larger than any decision about who starts against a left-handed pitcher. Sánchez does not deserve to be singled out for this spiral, but his acquisition is part of a trade deadline that failed to meet its stated objective.

General manager Dana Brown obtained Sánchez, Ramón Urías and Carlos Correa in hopes of bolstering a lineup that, at the time, ranked 17th in runs scored and 12th in OPS. Correa has been one of the club’s most consistent bats since returning to Houston, but Urías hasn’t taken an at-bat since Sept. 13.

Sánchez’s struggles have been so pronounced that his future with the club could be in jeopardy this winter — especially if the Astros plan to play Jose Altuve in left field and entrench Cam Smith as its everyday right fielder. Sánchez has two more years of arbitration eligibility remaining and will be due a raise from the $4.5 million salary he made this season.

Sánchez has a .607 OPS since the Astros acquired him on July 31. Houston has scored three or fewer runs in 22 of the 47 games since the trade deadline, a stretch in which it has a .686 OPS. Of the five teams that have a lower one, four sold during the trade deadline.

Among American League lineups, only the Los Angeles Angels and Baltimore Orioles have scored fewer runs since the trade deadline than the 187 produced by the Astros. Seattle, which added Naylor and slugger Eugenio Suárez from the Arizona Diamondbacks, has scored 253.

Naylor drove in three with a go-ahead double during the eighth inning of Tuesday’s 4-3 win against the Colorado Rockies. The Mariners now have a magic number of one to win their first American League West title since 2001.

That Naylor delivered the dagger, one of many in his Mariners’ tenure, underscores the disparity between the two division rivals’ deadline approach. Seattle does have a far more fertile farm system than Houston’s, but the Astros still felt comfortable parting with three prospects in exchange for Sánchez.

“We have to get our bats going here,” Espada said. “We’re running out of days, running out of games. We just need more consistent quality at-bats.”

Consider that the chorus of this collapse, one even a favorable matchup could not stall. Houston’s broken offense also lacks balance, a fact known since the team left spring training.

Opponents seized the advantage and have avoided throwing left-handed pitchers against a lineup littered with righties. Houston faced a southpaw starter in just 35 of its first 156 games. For the 157th, Houston saw Springs, a lefty who has yielded 28 home runs this season. Twenty-five of them have been hit by right-handed hitters.

According to Statcast, the Astros’ lineup of eight right-handed hitters and Cole had a .136 expected batting average on the 15 balls it put in play against Springs. Two batted balls carried an xBA of .700 or higher — Correa’s fifth-inning flyout and a comebacker from Christian Walker that struck Springs’ glove.

“Sometimes you go on a cold streak and, sucks for us, it’s happening right now toward the end of the year, when we need it the most,” Dubón said. “It’s baseball. We have to wake up.”

Causes for the offense’s swoon are hard to pinpoint. Walker pondered the question on Tuesday and could not formulate a direct answer, only acknowledging, “I have not been as consistent as I should have been this year.”

“We’re missing some bats and missing some players, but yeah, we do have enough talent in that room to overcome those challenges,” Espada said.

Springs struck Cole out on three pitches in the second inning before popping him out in the fourth. Neither outcome deserves outsized outrage. This is, after all, a rookie playing amid a pennant race.

After Springs finished his outing, he handed the baseball to Tyler Ferguson. He is right-handed, which finally allowed Sánchez to get into this seismic game. Espada summoned him to pinch hit in the seventh inning, with Houston already down by four runs and Naylor’s double just landing somewhere in Seattle.

Sánchez flied out in the forgettable at-bat, apt for a tenure and trade deadline that has not delivered.

(Top photo of Jake Meyers: Sergio Estrada / Imagn Images)