Finally.
It took the longest winner-take-all postseason game in major league history, 15 innings, for the Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers Friday night. Jorge Polanco’s single that scored J.P. Crawford instantly became one of the most memorable hits in Seattle baseball history. It ended an epic Game 5 of the American League Division Series at pulsating T-Mobile Park.
“They didn’t want to leave the ballpark until they won,” manager Dan Wilson said of his Mariners.
Polanco’s poke sent the Mariners to their first league championship series in 24 years.
How long ago was that? Ichiro Suzuki was a rookie the last time the M’s were here.
Here is Sunday in Toronto for Game 1 of the ALCS against the top-seeded Blue Jays, the AL East champions.
“This is a special group,” Polanco said of his Mariners, in the playoffs for just the second time since 2001.
“We support each other. We take care of each other, and it is a really good chemistry. That’s why we are so special.”
The Mariners’ mindset as they boarded their jet bleary eyed Saturday morning to fly to Toronto?
“Might as well go win the whole f****** thing,” MVP candidate Cal Raleigh boomed, again, in the stadium’s public-address microphone.
He was on the field delighting delirious M’s fans following the ALDS-clinching win Friday.
Raleigh did and said the same thing last month, when the Mariners clinched their first WL West division title since 2001.
To make their 61-homer catcher and stud a prophet, too — to finally reach the World Series as the last MLB team not to — the Mariners have some massive work to do.
Here are The News Tribune’s keys to Seattle’s fourth ALCS in 49 years of the M’s existing (they are 5-12 in championship-series games):
Who’s going to pitch?
It was all-available arms Friday night to win the thrilling series over Detroit. Three starters pitched.
It was, justifiably: We’ll worry about that later, if we have to.
It’s later. They have to.
George Kirby started Game 5 and went five innings. He threw 66 pitches. Logan Gilbert replaced closer Andres Munoz. Gilbert threw 34 pitches going through the 10th and 11th innings Friday night. Luis Castillo entered to get the final out of the 14th and all three in perfect 15th on 15 total pitches, before Polanco won it.
The Mariners used seven pitchers in Game 5 to outlast Detroit.
Bryce Miller wasn’t one of them.
That makes the 27-year-old Texan the obvious candidate to start Game 1 in Toronto Sunday (5:03 p.m. or 4:38 p.m., Fox television, channel 13 locally).
Miller last pitched Wednesday, and well. He started Game 4 in Detroit and went 4 1-3 innings. He allowed four hits and two runs, one charged to him after he departed the game. Miller will be on shorter, three-days’ rest. But he only threw 55 pitches in that last outing against the Tigers. So three days instead of the normal four should be OK.
By the time Game 1 begins the Blue Jays will have had three days off since eliminating the Yankees from their ALDS. They’ve had time to set its pitching rotation however they want. Toronto is likely to choose between ace Kevin Gausman and rookie phenom Trey Yesavage to start Sunday.
Gausman was 10-11 with a 3.59 ERA during the regular season. He started Game 1 of the ALDS, allowing four hits and a run in 5 2-3 innings in a win over New York Oct. 4. The Mariners scored three runs off him with seven hits over 5 1-3 inning May 9 in Seattle; Toronto won 6-3 that night. Gausman was the losing pitcher in the deciding Game 2 of the AL wild-card series the Mariners won over the Blue Jays in 2022 in Toronto.
The 21-year-old Yesavage shut out the Yankees over 5 1-3 innings last week. He allowed one hit and one walk with 11 strikeouts in Game 2 of the ALDS Oct. 5.
The one that doesn’t start between Gausman and Yesavage Sunday will likely start Monday in Game 2 at Toronto (5:08 p.m. or 4:38 p.m. Fox and FS1).
Castillo seems to be in line to start Monday for the Mariners. He would be on two days’ rest coming off his 15-pitch outing.
The biggest addition looming for the Mariners in the league championship is the return of Bryan Woo. Seattle left its ace off the division-series roster as he continued his rehabilitation from pectoral inflammation. He last pitched on Sept. 19 at Houston.
Woo threw a bullpen session before Game 5 Friday. Team president Jerry Dipoto told reporters Friday the M’s expect Woo to be able to return in the middle of the ALCS.
That could mean he starts Game 3 in Seattle Wednesday, or Game 4 at T-Mobile Park Thursday.
The Mariners then would still have Kirby and Gilbert rested to pitch one of those games, or Game 5, if there is one, Friday in Seattle.
Games 6 and 7, if necessary, will be back in Toronto Oct. 19 and 20.
Dance with who brung ya’
That’s Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez.
The franchise cornerstones carried the Mariners through the first two games of the ALDS. They were the only Seattle batters to get a hit on Tarik Skubal plus Tigers relievers in Game 1. Then they won Game 2 in the clutch.
But Rodriguez went 0 for 14 with seven strikeouts over the final three games of the division series.
Raleigh, the M’s MVP candidate if not favorite, had only two extra-base hits in 25 plate appearances in the Detroit series. He struck out three times against Skubal and Detroit’s relievers in Game 5, though he did hit a fly ball deep enough in the 15th inning to advance both runners to third and second base.
The Tigers then intentionally walked Rodriguez to load the bases with one out, before Polanco’s hit won the series.
The Mariners are paying Rodriguez and Raleigh $315 million total in 20 combined seasons of contracts to do what their task is now: Lead them to the World Series.
They are four wins from doing it.
They need to hit for the M’s to beat Toronto four times.
Raleigh keeps saying the key for him, Rodriguez and all the Mariners hot-to-cold hitters is to keep it simple, not get caught up in the enormity of these games.
“I think it’s just, don’t try to do more than what we’re capable of. Stay within ourselves,” Raleigh said. “And, you know, just do your job, really, at the end of the day.
“I know it’s a cliche thing to say, but just be who you are.”
The Blue Jays rake
Toronto is a huge challenge for Seattle’s strength, its pitching.
The Blue Jays led the majors in hits, on-base percentage, batting average this regular season. They were third in on-base percentage plus slugging) OPS, fourth in runs scored. They hit .338 in four games against the Yankees, the highest team batting average in any postseason series so far this month entering Saturday — by 78 points.
First baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the biggest bat, of many. Right fielder/designated hitter George Springer had a monster season, with 32 home runs and an OPS of .959.
The Blue Jays are likely to get recently injured shortstop Bo Bichette (team-leading 94 RBIs) in this series, though he may begin the ALCS as Toronto’s DH.
In the first games of this series, when the Mariners are still battling through the effects of using just about every arm back to Jamie Moyer to outlast Detroit, it’s going to be a task taller than the CN Tower, the Canadian icon that soars next to Rogers Centre, to keep the Blue Jays off the bases in Toronto.
Good thing for the Mariners this is a best-of-seven, first-one-to-win-four series.