Mariners advance to ALCS after wild 15-inning marathon win over Tigers
By Ryan DivishSeattle Times staff reporter
How do you get back to a place in the Major League Baseball playoffs where you haven’t been in more than two decades?
You get contributions from nearly every single person on your roster — expected or unexpected, star player or bench player, starting pitcher or leverage reliever — to fight your way through 15 grueling innings of ulcer-inducing baseball where the largest lead by either team was one run — in the longest elimination game in MLB postseason history.
How do you outlast a worthy opponent in the Detroit Tigers over “15 rounds” as Mariners manager Dan Wilson aptly called them to earn a 3-2 walkoff victory to advance to the American League Championship Series?
You refuse to lose.
Remember that?
“Part of what makes them great is they don’t want to leave the ballpark until they win,” Wilson said. “And tonight was that. They didn’t want to leave the ballpark until they won, and they made it happen.”
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How do you overcome an unbelievable pitching performance from Tarik Skubal, perhaps the best left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball?
You acquire a slow-footed first baseman named Josh Naylor, who had already been traded four times in his career, at the trade deadline to inject some intensity and savvy to the lineup and clubhouse. And then watch as he doubles off the best pitcher in baseball, steals his 20th consecutive base and scores a run on a sac fly from designated hitter Mitch Garver, who some fans don’t want on the team, let alone the lineup.
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Skubal has started four games against the Mariners this season and the Tigers have lost them all.
How do you bounce back from a crushing turn of events in the fifth inning when Kerry Carpenter hits a game-changing two-run homer, making every fan from Seattle to Sultan to Selah to Spokane, wonder if this Mariners’ misery will ever end?
You have a journeyman utility player named Leo Rivas, who spent most of his career in the minor leagues, including this season at Triple-A. Never quite a prospect, but too good of a teammate and person to reject, Rivas answered the call with a game-tying single to turn panic into possibility in the seventh.
“I thought I was going to pinch run for Polanco,” he said. “And then Manny Acta came to the cage and told me I was going to pinch hit.”
How do you prevail in an interminable elimination game that torches your pitching plans, where the stakes are win or go home. And going home isn’t an option?
You use every available arm, whether it’s a lanky starting pitcher, who won Game 3. And you find a way to work out of the top of the 12th where your opponent has runners on second and third with one out and bases loaded with two outs with a reliever named Eduard Bazardo that just a season ago only pitched if the Mariners were up four or down four in a game.
How do you turn an already boisterous crowd of 47,025 that spent most of the night standing and battling anxiety and adrenaline, into a hugging mess of unbridled joy and pure ecstasy?
You have Jorge Polanco, who exactly one year ago to the day, underwent knee surgery following an awful season in Seattle, and later decided to eschew free-agent offers from the Astros and Yankees to return to the Mariners, lace the walkoff single to right field, scoring J.P. Crawford with deciding run and turning the night into bedlam.
“I just wanted to be back here,” Polanco said. “There’s a lot of good guys here. This is a special group. I had a tough time last year. This team just kept in touch with me, and I’m glad I’m back here.”
For the first time since 2001 and fourth time in franchise history, the Mariners will play in the ALCS against the Toronto Blue Jays. The seven-game affair starts on Sunday at Rogers Centre.
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Who cares.
The victory was theirs and for those that call themselves Mariners fans, as painful as it can be at times, to enjoy and celebrate. The fans in the stadium, who stood for most of the 15 innings, got a shoutout from the Mariners.
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“I’ve got to say, I don’t know how the fans kept their energy going,” manager Wilson said. “It was unbelievably loud, even in the 15th inning. This is a special place. T-Mobile Park is a special place, and they showed us that tonight.”
Even Tigers manager A.J. Hinch understood.
“Let me start by saying congrats to Seattle,” he said. “Jerry (Dipoto and) I go back a long way and Dan, I’ve just gotten to know. That was an incredible win for them, which means it was an incredible loss for us. But I wish them well in the next round. They earned it, and that was an epic game.”
Naylor made his presence felt in the second inning. Despite falling behind 1-2 after fouling off a hittable slider that left him shaking his head at the missed opportunity, he wouldn’t give in to Skubal. He made a lunging swing to foul off a slider away. Seeing the ugly swing, Skubal tried to rip a sinker away past Naylor at 100 mph. But Naylor made the swing as before with just a little more control, punching a line drive into the left field corner for a double.
As he did in Game 4 in Detroit, but a little less noticeably, Naylor offered hand signals to Mitch Garver at the plate to tip off the type of pitch or location. That strategy from Naylor has been a topic of discussion and something the Tigers wanted to stop. Perhaps that’s why Skubal didn’t notice Naylor take a monster lead, start to steal, hesitate and then finally take off for his 20th stolen base in 20 attempts with the Mariners.
The extra 90 feet loomed large when Garver, whose presence in the lineup was the subject of much consternation among fans, lifted a deep fly ball to center that allowed Naylor to tag up and score with ease.
That run didn’t rattle Skubal, it only seemed to irritate him to the point of dominance. He struck out the next seven batters he faced — a MLB postseason record. Those strikeouts came with a bit of a price. Skubal needed 49 pitches to get those seven outs as the Mariners fouled off plenty of pitches before punching out.
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When Skubal fired a 101-mph fastball past Cal Raleigh for a swinging strike three to end the sixth, he had retired 13 consecutive batters he faced, including 10 strikeouts. Having thrown 99 pitches, he was done for the day. He struck out 13 batters without no walks and only two hits allowed.
Meanwhile, George Kirby rolled through the first five innings, retiring nearly every hitter he faced other than Kerry Carpenter. Carpenter led off the game with a single off Kirby and also singled in his second plate appearance, giving him seven hits in 13 plate appearances off Kirby in his career. The rest of the Tigers mustered one base runner — Colt Keith getting hit by a pitch. Keith’s presence on the bases was brief. He made the unwise attempt to steal second and was retired on a perfect throw from Cal Raleigh to J.P. Crawford.
But when Javier Baez, the first player not named Carpenter, doubled to left-center to lead off the sixth inning. Kirby wouldn’t get the chance to face Carpenter for a third time in the game. He exited the mound shaking his head in disappointment while receiving a well-deserved standing ovation.
It was an eerily similar situation to Game 1 when Wilson left Kirby in the eh game to face Carpenter and a two-run homer followed.
This time, Wilson went to left-hander Gabe Speier, who had struggled in his outing in Game 4, but also had retired Carpenter three times in the series.
Speier missed with a first-pitch slider. Eager to even up the count, he fired a fastball to Carpenter, who was ready for it, smashing it into the seats in deep right-center for a spine-crushing two-run homer and a 2-1 lead.
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This couldn’t be happening again, right?
But all those foul balls off Skubal — 29 of them to be exact — got him out of the game after six innings, instead of seven or eight. Facing someone other than a pitcher who will likely win back-to-back AL Cy Young awards, the Mariners finally put an inning together in the seventh. Jorge Polanco worked a one-out walk off Skubal’s replacement, Kyle Finnegan. With two outs, Naylor singled to right field to put the tying and go-ahead runner on base.
Here’s where it got interesting. Wilson called on left-handed hitting Dom Canzone to pinch hit for Mitch Garver. Expecting the move, Hinch had left-hander Tyler Holton up and ready to enter the game.
When Hinch called on Holton to come out of the bullpen, Wilson had a counter move. He had Leo Rivas replace Canzone as a pinch hitter before a pitch was thrown.
The move proved prescient when Rivas, who was making his first career postseason plate appearance while also celebrating his 28th birthday, lined a single into left field, turning T-Mobile into joyous chaos.
“Best birthday ever,” he said. “I knew when I woke up it was going to be a good day for my birthday.”
Ryan Divish: rdivish@seattletimes .com. Ryan Divish is the Mariners beat reporter at The Seattle Times.