SEATTLE – For a moment it all seemed so certain.
There might be eight innings left to play, but as Julio Rodriguez pranced around the base paths following his two-run blast, you can forgive Mariners fans from looking ahead a little. To the magnificent start George Kirby already seemed to be putting together. To a second-straight shelling of the visiting Blue Jays.
To being up 3-0. To the precipice. Maybe, just for a second, to the World Series?
If only.
It turns out the No. 1 run-scoring team in baseball can score some runs.
After a silent first two innings, Toronto brought a dose of reality to this previously charmed series for Seattle: Only good teams make it this far, the World Series does not come easy, and the No. 1 seed in the American League was never going to go down without a fight.
Wednesday’s 13-4 Blue Jays win in Seattle was a strong rebuttal to Seattle’s 10-3 win two days before.
To be clear, the Mariners still have homefield advantage thanks to their two wins in Toronto. The margin for error is there. Any Seattle fan who says they would not have been happy up 2-1 in the series after three games is either ridiculous, lying, or both.
They are certainly not students of their own history. After all, it was the Mariners who came alive for a 14-3 win over the Yankees after dropping the first two games of the 2001 ALCS. In fact, MLB’s Sarah Langs pointed out during Wednesday’s game that was the only time in MLB postseason history a team had won a game by 10 or more runs after going trailing by multiple runs at the end of the first inning.
Whatever. Individual game scoring margins do not matter and that year the Yankees won in five.
Still, it would have been nice. George Kirby struck out to Blue Jays in the first inning, while Shane Bieber labored, giving up a walk, double, and Rodriguez’s home run. Then it was like the pitchers switched jerseys.
Kirby, whose sinker hit 98-miles per hour in the first inning, lost velocity and control in the third inning. Ernie Clement’s double to lead the inning off signaled trouble, and was immediately followed by Andres Gimenez’s first home run of the postseason.
Toronto scored five runs in the inning, and the Mariners pitchers did not manage a clean frame until the seventh. By that point Dan Wilson had long decided to wear this one, leaving Kirby in for four frames and managing to get out of the game without using any of his premium relievers.
Instead he trotted out the lesser hurlers, Vargas, Ferguson, and Jackson, who gave up two, two, and one more run, respectively. The decision was a wise one from the first-time playoff manager, some of whose pitching decisions have been questioned earlier in the postseason.
Bieber, a Cy Young Award winner who has not been the same since Tommy John surgery in 2024, regained his old form immediately following Jorge Polanco’s second-inning double. He retired the next seven batters he faced, and 12 of the next 13, pitching six full innings for the visitors.
The Mariners are still in a more favorable position than they were when Detroit erupted for nine runs in Game 4 of the American League Division Series. This is a team that has overcome bigger setbacks to get here. Even a return to Toronto would not be reason to write them off, considering how the first two went.
But the Blue Jays were the best offense in the playoffs as measured by batting average, slugging percentage, and runs scored. They could turn this thing around in a hurry and World Series dreams can slip away as easily as first-inning leads.