Mariners outlasted the Detroit Tigers<\/a> in 15 exhausting, exhilarating innings, 3-2, when Jorge Polanco singled home J.P. Crawford in the 298th minute of the game of their lives.<\/p>\n\u201cMy experience feels like the ground was shaking every inning,\u201d said Leo Rivas, whose seismic single tied Game 5 in the seventh. \u201cIt just feels amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The crowd of 47,025 erupted for the 5-foot-8 Rivas, a switch-hitting everyman celebrating his 28th birthday in style. It would take 337 more pitches, each pulsating with possibility, to reach the finish.<\/p>\n
When Polanco lashed the game-winner, through the right side off a Tommy Kahnle changeup, Crawford shimmied off third with a spin. It was over. Crawford, the longest-tenured Mariner, all but tiptoed his way to the plate, savoring a 90-foot yellow brick road to Toronto, where the ALCS begins on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s party,\u201d Crawford said later, in the sudsy clubhouse. \u201cThat\u2019s all that was on my mind \u2014 let\u2019s go bust some bottles!\u201d<\/p>\n
They deserved to let loose. The Mariners took both games started by Tarik Skubal, the Tigers\u2019 growling ace who lost twice to Seattle in the regular season, too. Skubal bullied his way through two no-decisions in this series, allowing three runs in 13 innings, with one walk and 22 strikeouts. Yet somehow, Seattle prevailed, the kind of feat that makes a team feel invincible.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing out there and winning games that Skubal starts is pretty hard to do \u2014 and our team did it four times,\u201d said Jerry Dipoto, the Mariners\u2019 president of baseball operations. \u201cIt\u2019s a tribute to every guy in that clubhouse, to the pitchers for keeping it close. We knew this was not going to be a football score, that it was going to be a tight pitchers\u2019 duel, and our general take was: Keep it close until Skubal\u2019s out of there and we\u2019ve got a chance to win this game.\u201d<\/p>\n
They scratched a lead off Skubal in the second when Josh Naylor, the stocky, savvy first baseman acquired at the trading deadline, doubled, swiped third and scored on a Mitch Garver sacrifice fly. From there, Seattle must have felt like a basketball team leading late, Skubal\u2019s pitch count ticking up like seconds coming off a clock.<\/p>\n
As it turned out, of course, it wasn\u2019t late at all. Mariners starter George Kirby had left with a shutout in the sixth, only to watch it disappear when his nemesis, Kerry Carpenter, smoked a two-run homer off Gabe Speier. Skubal was spent by the end of that inning with 99 pitches \u2014 and the bullpen could not contain Rivas, who sent the game deep into the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat guy prepares like no one I\u2019ve ever seen before,\u201d Crawford said. \u201cWhatever you throw at him, he\u2019s gonna be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the seventh, though, Rivas was ready to run for Polanco, who was on second with two outs. A coach, Manny Acta, told him he was hitting instead because Detroit had just brought in a lefty, Tyler Holton.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, Pap\u00e1, come here,\u201d Acta told Rivas. \u201cGo get this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right,\u201d Rivas replied. \u201cI\u2019ve got him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rivas had studied the lefties, he said, and knew that Holton threw cutters and changeups. He took a cutter, then drilled a changeup to bring home Polanco. New ballgame.<\/p>\n
Seattle pitchers had a 3.28 ERA at home this season, the best in the AL playoff field, and they were done allowing runs for the night. But to make it through, they all had to give more than usual. That\u2019s a risk of pulling starters early, as managers tend to do in October, but it worked this time because five relievers flawlessly followed Speier.<\/p>\n
Matt Brash got six outs for the first time in two years. Closer Andr\u00e9s Mu\u00f1oz walked two \u2014 the Mariners\u2019 only non-intentional walks of the game \u2014 but escaped the self-made jam and then worked a 1-2-3 ninth.<\/p>\n
Up next was Logan Gilbert, on two days\u2019 rest, making his first relief appearance since 2017 for Stetson University. He fired two scoreless innings. Eduard Bazardo got eight outs, a career high. Luis Castillo, relieving for the first time since 2016 with the Low-A Jupiter Hammerheads, retired all four hitters he faced.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s October. Everyone\u2019s tired. Everyone\u2019s ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was adrenaline,\u201d Gilbert said. \u201cRed-Hot on the arm, coffee in the pre-workout. The fans are going crazy, 50,000. At that point, you don\u2019t feel anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both lineups kept demanding more from their pitchers, almost daring one to break. The Tigers stranded six runners in extra innings. Twice, the Mariners started an extra inning with first and second and no outs, but couldn\u2019t score. It almost felt like the ghost-runner rule \u2014 mothballed for October \u2014 was still in play.<\/p>\n
The pitchers were just that good. Seattle hit .207 in the ALDS, with six homers and 58 strikeouts. Detroit hit .201, with five homers and 55 strikeouts. It was a full series, and then some, of the Spider-Man Pointing meme<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cHaving experienced the Tigers for five days, they play our game,\u201d Dipoto said. \u201cThey (throw) strike one, they win the 1-1 (counts), they fill it up, and that made it an incredibly close five-game series. I don\u2019t know how you can play a closer series, and I\u2019m proud of our guys.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still feel like we have the deepest roster in the league. We really tapped our pitching. I may need to pitch on Sunday, which is not good for anybody. But we\u2019ll figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dipoto, a former reliever, said he expects Bryan Woo, an All-Star starter who has missed three weeks with pectoral inflammation, to pitch in the ALCS. But he does not know when that would be, which means that Seattle could still be scrambling for a fresh arm to start the ALCS opener in Toronto on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Thirty years ago, that duty fell to Bob Wolcott, a rookie known best for tackling Ken Griffey Jr. at home plate after Edgar Mart\u00ednez doubled to topple the New York Yankees. Wolcott beat Cleveland in Game 1 of the ALCS, but Seattle lost in six games.<\/p>\n
The Mariners played for the pennant again in 2000 and 2001, both seasons ending in the Bronx. Now they are back \u2014 after two fallow decades, a wrenching sweep by the Houston Astros in a 2022 division series and two follow-up seasons of missing the field by one game.<\/p>\n
All of it hardened the Mariners, preparing them for survival.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes this that much sweeter,\u201d said Cal Raleigh, the slugging catcher who could be the league\u2019s MVP. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working hard, and that sting from the past couple of years, you remember that. I love these guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dan Wilson, the Mariners\u2019 manager, was the last catcher to guide this franchise to the ALCS. The players clustered near him in the clubhouse after Game 5, goggles strapped around commemorative ALCS caps. Wilson\u2019s message was simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you guys keep doing is special, it\u2019s powerful,\u201d he shouted. \u201cYou\u2019ve changed this team, you\u2019ve changed this organization \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Then Wilson pointed upwards, to his right, toward the shimmering field in the only major-league town that has never hosted the World Series.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you\u2019ve changed that city. Let\u2019s keep going!\u201d<\/p>\n
The party was on. They had earned it. It just continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 The suite where the architects sit, on the club level of this jewelbox by Elliott Bay,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,481,99],"class_list":["post-217928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}