The National League side of the postseason bracket is set, with the Dodgers making easy work of the Brewers in the NLCS, leaving only the ALCS to decide who else heads to the 2025 Fall Classic. The two
championship series could not be any more different, as in the American League the Blue Jays and Mariners have been exchanging blows all the way up to Sunday’s Game 6.
Toronto took control of this one early, and now force a decisive Game 7 to find the Junior Circuit’s representative in the World Series.
American League Championship Series Game 6
Toronto Blue Jays 6, Seattle Mariners 2
(Series Tied, 3-3)
Game 6 pitted Trey Yesavage for the Blue Jays against Seattle’s Logan Gilbert, and it was ultimately the 22-year-old for Toronto who had the upper hand all night. After a scoreless first inning, the Jays got right to work supporting their young righty, opening up the scoring with back-to-back RBI singles from Addison Barger and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. An inning later, Barger got to Gilbert once again, when he doubled the Toronto lead with a two-run blast into the seats in right-center. After three innings, the Jays had a commanding 4-0 advantage.
While the offense was operating like a well-oiled machine, Yesavage was doing everything he could on the mound. The first five frames of his outing were scoreless, as the right-hander cruised through the Mariners lineup that tagged him for five runs in his start in Game 2 of this series — Game 6 was a completely different story. He ran into his only trouble in the sixth inning, when Josh Naylor dinged him with a solo homer, and Eugenio Suárez scratched another across with his bloop single later in the inning. Though this came after Vlad Guerrero Jr.’s solo homer had already extended the Toronto lead.
That was all the damage Yesavage would take in his 5.2 strong innings, during which he struck out seven. Toronto entrusted the biggest game of the year with the 22-year-old, and he delivered.
The Jays added on some insurance in the seventh inning, this time manufacturing a run against Matt Brash out of the Seattle ‘pen. After Guerrero was hit by a pitch and was advanced by the next hitter, Brash yanked a wild pitch into the dirt, which Cal Raleigh chased down in front of the plate, before his errant throw to third base skipped into left field, allowing Vladdy to trot home and put his guys up 6-2. That was one of the themes of this rough Game 6 for the Mariners, one of three key errors they made in the field.
With the Jays wanting to ensure a Game 7 in this ALCS, they sent out Jeff Hoffman to lock things down for the final two innings of this one. He started strong in the eighth, tallying strikeouts against Raleigh and Jorge Polanco to begin his scoreless inning. He picked up where he left off in the ninth, striking out a pair before putting a lid on Game 6 when he induced a pop out from Dominic Canzone.
After going down 2-0 in this year’s ALCS, the Jays have completely flipped the momentum, and have now forced a Game 7 to decide the pennant. It will take place Monday in Toronto at 8:08pm. The stakes can’t get much higher, as the M’s are desperately trying to make their first World Series, while the Jays try to make it back for the first time since their win in 1993.
