With Two Homers in Game 5, Eugenio Suárez Slams Mariners to 3-2 ALCS Lead

The Mariners and Blue Jays came into Game 5 of the American League Championship Series knowing a five-hour flight lay in their future. What they didn’t know was which team would have a happy flight from Seattle to Toronto and which team would spend the time in the air stewing. It took a long while to figure it out. It wasn’t until the eighth inning that Seattle third baseman Eugenio Suárez finally decided to take matters into his own hands. With a two-homer, five-RBI performance, including a go-ahead grand slam in that decisive frame, Suárez powered the Mariners to a 6-2 win. They now have a 3-2 lead in the series, leaving them one win from the first World Series appearance in franchise history. They will no doubt slumber peacefully as they wing their way to Toronto for Game 6 on Sunday.

Both managers were looking to mix things up on Friday. Toronto’s John Schneider mentioned in both the pregame and postgame press conferences that he wanted to avoid the familiarity penalty by making sure his relievers didn’t face the same batters over and over again. On the other side, Dan Wilson rejiggered his lineup with the goal of “just kind of jumbling it up and creating a different look.” He moved Julio Rodríguez into the leadoff spot, dropped the struggling Randy Arozarena to fifth, kept Cal Raleigh in the two-hole, and pushed Jorge Polanco and Josh Naylor up to third and fourth. Suárez, struggling just as badly as Arozarena with a .162 batting average in the postseason, stayed in the sixth spot.

Friday’s contest featured a pitching rematch of Game 1 between Kevin Gausman and Bryce Miller, when the two starters combined for just three earned runs over a combined 11 2/3 innings. They allowed even fewer runs on Friday. Their two approaches couldn’t have been different. Gausman avoided the top half of the zone at all costs, looking to induce chases on splitters that dived below the zone and earn called strikes on four-seamers that held their plane. Miller threw some splitters of his own, but he attacked with fastballs at and above the top of the zone. He also pitched with abandon. With ace Bryan Woo in the bullpen ready to pitch for the first time since September 19 due to pectoral inflammation, Miller emptied the tank. Both his fastballs averaged roughly 2 mph above their regular season marks. The starters picked up right where they left off in Game 1, facing four hitters apiece in the first inning and pitching around doubles to the opposing lineup’s big star. Miller touched 98 mph, struck out two and gave up a double to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., while Gausman rode his trademark splitter and allowed his own double to Raleigh.

Suárez made his first contribution in the second inning, when Gausman’s game plan faltered and he started missing high. With one out, Gausman started the third baseman off with a four-seamer right down the middle. It was the highest pitch he had thrown to that point in the game, and Suárez didn’t miss it, turning and launching it 396 feet into the bullpen in left center. The no-doubter gave the Mariners a 1-0 lead.

Gausman then settled down, allowing just one hit and one walk over the next three innings. On the other side, Miller was constantly in and out of trouble. The Blue Jays led off the third with two balls hit just under 100 mph and ended up with nothing to show for it. Isiah Kiner-Falefa ripped a double down the line, but got doubled off when Andrés Giménez sent his own line drive right at the first baseman Naylor, who quickly fired to second before Kiner-Falefa could get back.

Miller got even luckier in the fourth. Nathan Lukes began with a double down the first base line, and the Mariners intentionally walked the red-hot Guerrero. As seems to have happened so many times during these playoffs, the batter who came up after the intentional walk earned his own unintentional walk, loading the bases with no outs. After Miller struck out Daulton Varsho, the Blue Jays had the right guy coming to the plate. Most balls in play would score a run, and contact maven Ernie Clement was up next.

Clement found himself way ahead of a first-pitch splitter, but true to form, he managed to hold himself back for long enough to make contact. He reached out and just got the top of the ball with the very end of his bat. The ball glanced straight down into the dirt, leaving a huge impact crater and picking up a huge amount of dirt. It stayed right there, just a few inches in front of home plate. Raleigh pounced on it, and since his knee was already on the plate for the force out, he just stood up and fired to first to complete an inning-ending double play.

With Woo waiting in the bullpen, the fifth likely would have been Miller’s last inning no matter what. But it ended early when, for the third time in a row, the leadoff batter reached. After Addison Barger dumped a single into center, Wilson walked out to the mound and handed the ball to Matt Brash. The move didn’t work out. Brash induced a fly out from Kiner-Falefa, then a swinging bunt from Giménez that moved Barger to second. With two outs, George Springer jumped on a slider on the outer half, sending a ringing double into left-center to tie the game. The run belonged to Miller, who finished his night with a line of four innings, one earned run, four hits, two walks, and four strikeouts. Brash issued another walk before striking out Guerrero to end the threat. The Blue Jays had tied the score, 1-1.

The crowd roared as flames shot into the sky from either side of the bullpen door and Woo jogged in to pitch the sixth inning. The greeting the Blue Jays gave him was much colder. Alejandro Kirk jumped on Woo’s first pitch, lining it into the right field gap for a double. It was the fourth inning in a row that the Blue Jays had led off with a hit. With one out, Clement singled into right field, and Kirk – the 11th-slowest baserunner in the game, who hadn’t scored from second on a single all season – showed no hesitation whatsoever. It was a risky send, but third base coach Carlos Febles had clearly done his homework. A good throw would have had Kirk, but Dominic Canzone’s heave came in a solid 20 feet up the third baseline. Kirk barrelled past Raleigh at the same moment that ball came in. He scored easily, and Febles ran down the baseline with him. The Blue Jays had a 2-1 lead.

Schneider pulled Gausman after a two-out walk in the sixth, making it his third consecutive start of exactly 5 2/3 innings. He ended his night with one earned run, three hits, three walks, and four strikeouts. He now has a 2.12 ERA over three postseason starts.

For a while, it looked like the one-run lead would hold up and the Blue Jays would sneak by with their third straight win in Seattle. A couple close calls came just short of changing the score. Canzone sliced a fly ball just one foot outside the left field foul pole off Louis Varland in the bottom of the seventh. Gabe Speier threw a scoreless eighth inning thanks to a leaping catch from Arozarena on a Clement fly ball that just might have sneaked over the left field fence.

Suárez finally busted things open in the eighth. Raleigh led off, and true to his word, Schneider kept him on his toes with a new look, bringing in lefty Brendon Little and turning the switch-hitter around to bat right-handed for the first time in the series. It didn’t matter. Nobody wants to face Raleigh from either side of the plate. Little fell behind, 2-0. “I was just looking for something in the middle of the plate,” said Raleigh after the game. Little obliged him, throwing a fastball over the middle and watching as Raleigh launched it 108.6 mph nearly straight up. The moonshot had a 43-degree launch angle that just allowed it to clear the left field fence and the outstretched glove of Myles Straw. The game was tied, 2-2.

Little unraveled further, walking both Polanco and Naylor to give the Mariners runners on first and second with no outs. With the game in the balance, Schneider didn’t wait to find out whether the fourth batter Little faced would be the first he’d retire. The manager brought in Seranthony Domínguez. “Randy! Randy!” boomed the crowd. Domínguez fell behind, 2-0, and Arozarena whiffed mightily on a fastball for strike one. The crowd chanted louder, and Domínguez came too far inside, hitting Arozarena on the elbow with a fastball. The Mariners had the bases loaded with no outs. It was a rough spot for the pitcher with the seventh-highest walk rate in baseball.

Suárez had homered earlier in the game and hit 49 long balls during the regular season. All the Mariners needed was a fly ball. Said Suárez after the game, “I told myself, don’t let the fastball beat you.” He did not. He went with a 2-2 fastball on the outer third, smacking it into the right field stands for a grand slam and a 6-2 Mariners lead. When Domínguez mercifully got the third out, the Fox broadcast finally used the Pearl Jam bumper music it’d been saving all series.

Closer Andrés Muñoz made quick work of the Blue Jays in the top of the ninth, and the series is headed back to Toronto, where the Blue Jays will play in front of the hometown faithful with their backs against the wall. In addition to losing the game, the Blue Jays may have also lost Springer, who suffered a scary injury in the seventh inning. A sinker from Woo absolutely took off, tailing in on Springer horribly and smashing him directly in the kneecap. The sound was sickening, and the broadcast later relayed that Statcast initially read the carom as a 55-mph batted ball. After the game, Schneider reported that X-rays were negative. “George is about as tough as they come,” he said. “I think he’ll have to really, really be hurting to not be in the lineup on Sunday.”

Game 6 will feature each team’s Game 2 starters, Logan Gilbert for the Mariners and rookie Trey Yesavage for the Blue Jays. With a 3-2 lead and two of those three wins coming in Toronto, the Mariners have the obvious advantage, but the truth is that the series has been remarkably even. The Blue Jays lead the run differential battle, 27-25, and they’ve outhit, but not out-homered, the Mariners, and with home field advantage, they’re certainly not out of it. Publicly, at least, both Schneider and his players have made it clear that they’re content to have taken two of three in Seattle. “I’d say we’re in a great spot,” said Clement. “We’ve got a chance. That’s all we need.”