The Seattle Mariners have a chance to clinch a spot in the American League Championship Series with a victory in this afternoon’s tilt against the Detroit Tigers. They come into the game on the heels of
what counts for a blowout victory in the context of this series, with an 8-4 win last night that wasn’t as close a game as an 8-4 score sounds. The Mariners won behind a great start from Logan Gilbert and an offensive explosion, including home runs from the recently cold Eugenio Suárez and J.P. Crawford as well as, who else, Cal Raleigh. Read all about it in Kate’s recap.
While the Mariners will hope to keep their momentum, today is a clean slate. The offense beat out the conditions last night, but will once again have to put up a fight to put runs on the board. Comerica Park plays more neutrally than the cavernous dimensions might make you think, but weather reports indicate roughly 60-degree weather today. That should make the ball travel a bit less, which is probably a bigger deal for the Mariners offense since they rely more on home runs to score their runs than the Tigers do.
Pitching Matchup
With Bryan Woo’s pec injury lingering enough to keep him off the ALDS roster, the Mariners will hand the ball to Bryce Miller. After an excellent 2024, Miller has battled elbow issues all season, including two trips to the Injured List. The result has largely manifested in a lack of command, with a career high walk rate and a career low first-pitch-strike rate. Hitters have also amped up their damage as he’s let too many pitches float into the middle of the strike zone.
The good news is that, possibly due to the nature of his injury, his command and stuff have often gotten worse as the game has dragged on—the first couple innings have usually looked like the Old Bryce. If he’s able to repeat that today, the Mariners might sneak through a few innings before turning things over to Emerson Hancock for bulk relief in the middle innings. Hancock has been better in short spurts, particularly when he gets a little extra juice on his fastball knowing he doesn’t have to pace himself. And he’s about twice as good the first time through the order as after that. The dream is probably six innings between the two of them, but I’d be pretty happy with five.
Miller’s counterpart will be Casey Mize, a former first-overall pick who struggled and battled injury in his first few seasons but has turned himself into a perfectly capable starting pitcher. He’s kind of a junkballer-plus, without a particularly great pitch but with good enough stuff and command of five pitches that the variety makes it work and deserve better than to be called a junkballer. He pretty well manhandled the Mariners when he came to Seattle in the season’s first homestand, but got rocked to the tune of six runs over three innings when the Mariners closed out the first half in Detroit.
Lineups
Both teams will run out the same lineups they did last night. Read more about them in our series preview.
How to Watch
First pitch: 12:08 PT
TV: FS1 with Adam Amin, Adam Wainwright, A.J. Pierzysnki and Tom Verducci
Radio: Seattle Sports (710 AM) with Rick Rizzs, Aaron Goldsmith and Gary Hill Jr.
For those without cable, YouTube TV offers a free trial for new subscribers. Fox One is also offering a seven-day free trial. A day pass for Sling TV is $4.99.
Today in Mariners History
Let’s see, let’s see. What happened in Mariners history on October 8th? Let me dig around a little.
- 1995: The Double
- 2022: The Mariners stage one of the greatest comebacks in playoff history, trailing 8-1 with two outs in the sixth but ultimately winning 10-9, to advance to the next round of the playoffs.
