There’s only one playoff game to divert your attention tonight, with the National League teams off while traveling from Milwaukee to Los Angeles. The Mariners and Blue Jays made their own journey west
on an off day yesterday and now they’re set up in Seattle with the Mariners leading the best-of-seven series by a 2-0 margin.
Orioles fans have some unfortunate familiarity with being in the ALCS with the home field advantage and you lost the two games. That’s the most recent experience with the O’s making it that far in the postseason, which was eleven years ago now. It’s a long time to go between postseason wins. I would like them to win one so I can stop thinking about this fact as often as I do.
Toronto fans are probably feeling gobsmacked about it. The teams matched up reasonably well. The Mariners players have come through and the Blue Jays haven’t. That’s the way it goes in any postseason series. Narratives of inevitable triumph (or failure) are grafted onto more or less random events. It’s not satisfying for fans of the losing team to view it this way, as well we know from the previous two seasons before this.
If the Blue Jays are going to crack the door open to potentially get back into the series, they’re going to have to do it against Seattle’s George Kirby. The 27-year-old righty starter had a disappointing regular season but has made up for it with a couple of good postseason starts so far, contributing the first five innings in both Game 1 and Game 5, each of which Seattle won in extra innings. Jays starter Shane Bieber made all of seven regular season starts after returning from Tommy John surgery. They went decently well, with a 3.57 ERA. His lone postseason outing was not great.
This game has an 8:08 Eastern start time and its only TV broadcast will be on FS1.
Mariners lineup
- Randy Arozarena – LF
- Cal Raleigh – C
- Julio Rodríguez – CF
- Jorge Polanco – 2B
- Josh Naylor – 1B
- Eugenio Suárez – 3B
- Dominic Canzone – DH
- Victor Robles – RF
- J.P, Crawford – SS
Blue Jays lineup
- George Springer – DH
- Nathan Lukes – LF
- Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – 1B
- Anthony Santander – RF
- Alejandro Kirk – C
- Daulton Varsho – CF
- Addison Barger – 3B
- Ernie Clement – 2B
- Andres Giménez – SS
With how the regular season went for Tony Taters, I don’t know that it’s great for the Toronto lineup that he’s the guy they have in the cleanup spot in this crucial game. You can’t even call it a case for “dance with them what brung ya” because Santander at -1.0 bWAR for the season absolutely did not bring them.
