SEATTLE — For two games and seven innings in the American League Championship Series here, the Seattle Mariners could do almost nothing right against the Toronto Blue Jays. Then their hitters did what they do best — and now the Mariners are closer to the World Series than they’ve ever been.
Cal Raleigh tied the score in Game 5 with a leadoff homer off Brendon Little in the bottom of the eighth, and after two walks and a hit batter, Eugenio Suárez followed with a go-ahead, opposite-field grand slam off Seranthony Domínguez. It was Suárez’s second homer of the game and lifted the Mariners to a stirring 6-2 victory over the Blue Jays at rollicking T-Mobile Park.
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The Mariners — the only MLB team to never win a pennant — can erase that distinction in Game 6 on Sunday in Toronto.
Dumper delivers for Mariners in the eighthRaleigh hit left-handed in his first three at-bats of Game 5. John Schneider, the Blue Jays’ manager, turned him around in the eighth inning by putting lefty Little into the game. As it turns out, Raleigh the righty can handle a 2-0 pitch down the middle just fine.
Raleigh — who slugged .681 against lefty pitchers this season, compared with .547 against righties — lifted Little’s 93-mph sinker just over the left field wall, tying the score, 2-2. It jolted T-Mobile Park awake after seven mostly empty innings by Seattle’s hitters and set up the flurry that followed.
Walk, walk, pitching change to Domínguez, hit batter … grand slam by Suárez.
Canzone replaces Robles in right again, but can’t catch Kirk at the plateDan Wilson benched right fielder Victor Robles for the second game in a row Friday, with Robles 3-for-26 (.115) in the postseason. Without Robles, the Mariners he shifted Jorge Polanco from second base to DH and moved Dominic Canzone from DH to right field.
In the sixth inning of Game 5, the ball found Canzone in right. With 5-foot-8, 245-pound catcher Alejandro Kirk on second base, Ernie Clement singled to Canzone. Toronto third-base coach Carlos Febles made an aggressive send, but the play wasn’t close at all. Canzone’s throw was well up the line and Kirk scored standing up.
Statcast grades Canzone’s throwing arm in the 91st percentile for erage velocity, but just the 14th percentile for “arm value.” Robles throws harder but has roughly the same arm value. In any case, Canzone’s bat has been no better than Robles’. After going 0-for-4, Canzone is hitting .087 this postseason, though he narrowly missed a game-tying homer in the seventh inning of Game 5.
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Wilson waits on Woo, whose “clean inning” lasts one pitchThe Mariners did not use Bryan Woo in the first four games of the ALCS, and Wilson was clearly reluctant to put him into a tense situation in Game 5. And it doesn’t get much more tense than Vladimir Guerrero Jr. coming up with the score tied, two on and two out.
Rather than bring in Woo for his first action since Sept. 19, when he left a start with pectoral inflammation, Wilson stuck with high-leverage righty Matt Brash, who had already allowed a tying double to George Springer. This time, though, Brash rewarded Wilson’s faith. He fell behind 3-1, then threw a slider and sinker past a swinging Guerrero to keep the score tied.
It ge Woo a chance to start fresh in the top of the sixth. So what happened then? The leadoff man, Kirk, smoked a first-pitch fastball 111 mph for a double. Woo’s “clean inning” lasted one pitch, and Kirk rumbled home from second on a single by Clement and a horrible throw from right field by Canzone.
Guerrero Jr. is authoring a run to rememberThe ball just kept soaring in Friday’s first inning. It was a classic Vladimir Guerrero Jr. line drive, one seemingly destined for the outfield-gap grass that carried all the way to the wall. When Guerrero is locked in, he peppers those powerful drives. Right now, he’s as locked in as he’s ever been.
With his first-inning double, Guerrero raised his postseason OPS to 1.513. His five October homers are the most by a Blue Jay in a postseason. Friday’s early double pushed him two extra-base hits away from tying Paul Molitor for most by a Jay in a playoff run. With an AL Division Series grand slam, endless hard hits and just two postseason strikeouts, this is the playoff Guerrero the organization and fans waited for — the one they didn’t get in 2020, 2022 or 2023.
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Like José Bautista before him, Guerrero is authoring a moment-filled postseason run that will be remembered for years. But Guerrero wants to be remembered for even more. It’s a goal that will take at least one more big hit to achieve.
“I’d say I’d want to be like (Joe) Carter,” Guerrero said before the postseason.
Kirk bolts home, embodying Blue Jays’ base-running aggressionThe Blue Jays aren’t a fast team, ranking as one of the slowest by erage sprint speed. They don’t steal bases or strike fear into opposing catchers. But, a month into the 2025 season, Toronto’s staff decided the base running was unacceptable. Improvement took “direct conversations,” Schneider said, as coaches highlighted the team’s running struggles and the runs it cost them.
“What we can control,” Schneider said, “is effort, anticipation and aggressiveness.”
By the end of the year, Toronto ranked 10th in advancing extra bases, per Statcast. That aggression was on full display in Friday’s sixth inning, as Kirk soared off second and around the bases. Blue Jays third-base coach Febles paused for a moment, wing Kirk home as Canzone, who ranks in the 14th percentile for fielding arm value, collected the ball in right field. As the outfielder’s throw tailed up the line, Kirk crossed the plate for the Jays’ leading run. It was the first time all season Kirk scored from second base on a single.
Blue Jays’ bullpen weakness flashes in the biggest spotT-Mobile Park shook. Each leaping fan contributed to the quaking ballpark in Friday’s eighth inning. Just six outs from victory, the Blue Jays’ bullpen ge it all back.
Little allowed a tying homer to Raleigh and walked his next two batters. Domínguez entered, hitting a batter before allowing a game-flipping grand slam.
The Jays entered Game 5 with a 5.71 bullpen ERA this postseason, the worst mark of any team still alive. They’re the only bullpen left with more meltdowns than shutdowns, and on Friday, they added another big blowup.
The relief corps was always going to be Toronto’s soft underbelly this postseason. It’s not a horrific group, but it was inconsistent in the season’s second half. The Jays finished 15th in bullpen ERA during the regular season (3.98). But when facing better lineups on bigger stages, it’s a group that struggles in October. The Jays must find late outs if they want to push to the World Series.