{"id":216614,"date":"2025-10-16T05:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T05:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/216614\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T05:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T05:56:08","slug":"mariners-give-up-18-hits-including-5-homers-as-blue-jays-swing-early-in-count-to-close-in-alcs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/216614\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners give up 18 hits, including 5 homers, as Blue Jays swing early in count to close in ALCS"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 George Kirby<\/a> was in the strike zone \u2014 perhaps too much.<\/p>\n

The Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> had 18 hits, including five home runs, all within the first three pitches of an at-bat in a 13-4 rout of the Seattle Mariners<\/a> on Wednesday night that pulled them to 2-1 in the AL Championship Series.<\/p>\n

Eight of those hits came off Kirby, who hadn’t yielded that many hits in a start since Sept. 3. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m never going to stray away from what I do well, and that\u2019s get ahead and be in the zone,\u201d Kirby said. \u201cAnd they had a lot of comfortable at-bats tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirby gave up a tying, two-run homer to Andres Gimenez<\/a> in a five-run third on an inside fastball and two-run double to Daulton Varsho<\/a> on an up fastball.<\/p>\n

George Springer<\/a> homered on a sinker in the fourth and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on a slider in the fifth.<\/p>\n

Alejandro Kirk<\/a> added an opposite-field, three-run homer to right off a fastball from left-hander Caleb Ferguson<\/a> in the sixth as the Blue Jays joined Tampa Bay in Game 4 of the 2020 World Series as the only teams to homer in four straight postseason innings, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.<\/p>\n

Addison Barger<\/a> connected in the ninth on a Luke Jackson<\/a> fastball. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a lineup starts combining hits together like they were, it gets contagious,” Ferguson said. “Guys go up there and just get the best swings off. So, a lot of times it goes your way, and tonight it went theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toronto had four runs and eight hits as Seattle swept the first two games in Canada. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t really executing when they got the guys on base,” Kirby said. \u201cThey\u2019re really aggressive when that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seattle’s pitchers were sixth in the AL with a 3.87 ERA and had a 3.29 ERA in the Division Series against Detroit. Ferguson expressed confidence they quickly will return to form. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s one thing we\u2019ve done since I\u2019ve been here,” Ferguson said, “we bounce back together well as a team and we respond well when we kind of get smacked in the face a little bit.\u201d ___<\/p>\n

AP MLB<\/a>: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 George Kirby was in the strike zone \u2014 perhaps too much. The Toronto Blue Jays…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-216614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}