Mariners deal with runs, not sleep numbers

Maybe the weariness will kick in, but Miller and Polanco kept the M's wide awake in a Game 1 win.

Jorge Polanco

The first pitch of the American League Championship Series was a strike. It was struck, all right.

George Springer sailed it into the Rogers Centre (Skydome) seats, and Toronto’s fans, accustomed to watching the Blue Jays wear out home plate with their footsteps, got noisy, the way they tend to do when they sense the end of 32 unfulfilled seasons.

Then Matt Lukes walked. With one out, Addison Barger walked. Weighing the unpleasant options, Seattle continued the search for strike one. Toronto didn’t score. The Mariners noticed.

In the end, Bryce Miller went six innings and faced 23 batters. Nineteen of them saw first-pitch strikes. None of them scored, after Springer’s leadoff homer. Only one other Blue Jay got a hit off Miller, who was the starting pitcher because nobody else was left standing after Friday’s 15-inning win over Detroit. The Mariners, proving that athletes need adrenalin more than sleep in the short term, tied it on Cal Raleigh’s homer, and then they basically waited for Jorge Polanco to come up again. Polanco singled home Julio Rodriguez, then singled home Randy Arozarena in the eighth.

And the Mariners took a 1-0 series lead with a 3-1 win and, at various man caves and sports bars, there were Yankee pitchers with mouths agape, wondering how anyone could muffle the Blue Jays so completely. But that’s what happens when you get ahead in counts and put the onus on both the batters and the umpire. Of course, it’s easier to analyze than to execute.

The Blue Jays scored 34 runs in the four games it took to eliminate the Yankees, and they hit .313 with runners in scoring position. But then their RISP average for the season was .292, highest in baseball since 2019 (for a full season). How to combat that? Keep them out of scoring position, of course, The Blue Jays got there four times against Seattle and got no hits, and earwitnesses in Toronto said it was so quiet you could almost hear a puck drop.

Considering the circumstances, it was one of the finest hours in the history of the Mariners, who have never been to a World Series. Their 15-inning win that eliminated the Tigers triggered so much noise that seismographs could measure it. But manager Dan Wilson had to use seven pitchers, and starters Logan Gilbert threw 34 pitches and Luis Castillo 15. Gilbert will start Game 2 on Monday against the Blue Jays’ Trey Yesavage, who no-hit the Yankees and struck out 11 in five-and-a-third innings, eight days ago. Even though Bryan Woo, Seattle’s most consistent starter, has overcome an pectoral injury, he won’t appear until Game 3 at the earliest.

Miller did not pitch Game 5, and not everyone in the Emerald City was thrilled that he would pitch Game 1. He was 4-6 with a 5.68 ERA, starting only 18 games. The year before he was 12-8 and 2.94, and he pitched twice as many innings as he did in 2025. Wilson’s best hope was to get four innings out of Miller, who had pitched four and a-third innings last Wednesday.

Instead, Miller ran through 13 consecutive Blue Jays between the second and the sixth, and didn’t give up a hit after Anthony Santander’s single in the second. We’re all numb to the sight of pitchers getting through six innings and being greeted like Neil Armstrong, but Miller deserved all those attaboys in this one, because it meant Wilson could use Gabe Speier, Matt Brash and closer Andres Munoz for one low-stress inning apiece. Mariners pitchers were efficient enough to get through nine innings with only 100 pitches..

“Getting six innings from Bryce is series-changing,” Brash said.

Polanco is another Mariner who came in from the cold. The Mariners traded four minor leaguers to Minnesota for Polanco, but he had such a painful and futile 2024, with a patellar tendon that needed surgery, that they refused to pick up his option. When no better alternative came along, and when it appeared Polanco might sign with division rival Houston, the Mariners relented and gave him a $7 million contract with a $6 million incentive clause for games played. Polanco responded by fulfilling that clause and slamming 26 home runs with 78 RBI and a .495 slugging percentage.

Although Raleigh is having an outstanding postseason, Polanco has been the source of the biggest hits. He hit two home runs off Tarik Skubal in a Division Series Game 2 win. In the marathon, he was 0-for-5 before he singled home J.P. Crawford with a base hit off Tommy Kahnle. Then came Sunday. He has six hits in the postseason and five RBIs.

Fatigue is undefeated. When will it overtake the Mariners? They played until the wee hours Friday night, then flew three time zones to Toronto and got delayed then. Wilson was encouraged when all the starters volunteered to pitch as long as required in Game 1.

It brings back the 2005 Division Series, when rain forced a Game 4 in New York and a Game 5 in Anaheim the next night. The Angels won and immediately flew to Chicago to begin the LCS the night after that. They won, then had the lead in Game 2 before the White Sox took over. A welcome day off was waiting, and then the fumes took over. Chicago came to Anaheim and pitched three consecutive complete-game wins.

Nobody’s expecting nine innings out of anybody, or even seven. But the Mariners, for one night, showed that a straight line is the shortest distance between two wins.