Mariners find themselves in ALCS driver’s seat against Blue Jays, eyeing first World Series berth

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SEATTLE (AP) — With his team holding a 2-0 lead over Toronto in the American League Championship Series after winning twice on the road, Seattle Mariners manager Dan Wilson wasn’t about to belabor the obvious.

“It’s a very advantageous position,” Wilson said Tuesday. “We’re excited about that. But there’s work to do here.”

That starts with Game 3 on Wednesday in Seattle, where the Mariners can clinch their first AL pennant by winning two of three potential home games. Seattle is the only major league team that's never reached the World Series.

Much went right for the Mariners in Toronto: right-hander Bryce Miller was excellent on short rest in Game 1, and Seattle’s bats sprung to life in Game 2. Stellar starting pitching and clutch hitting have been hallmarks of this Mariners squad that became just the fourth in franchise history to win the AL West.

Both characteristics have caused difficulty for the Blue Jays, who initially appeared to have the early advantage going into this series considering the Mariners needed to outlast the Detroit Tigers in 15 innings to win their AL Division Series in a 4-hour, 58-minute Game 5 thriller. Rather than arriving sluggish in Toronto, the Mariners came out firing, which hardly surprised Blue Jays reliever Jeff Hoffman.

“I think when teams are kind of up against it like that,” Hoffman said, “where they have had some things that they can’t control kind of happen and it affects their arrival time and all that, it affects their sleep — you do see teams rise to the occasion.”

Now, it’s the Blue Jays’ turn to go against the grain. They will start 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber on Wednesday, then trot out three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer for Game 4 in an effort to reverse the tide.

The Mariners, meanwhile, will turn to right-handers George Kirby and Luis Castillo in Games 3 and 4, both of whom played prominent roles in closing out the ALDS. Even so, Blue Jays manager John Schneider is confident his AL East champions can bounce back.

“I like our chances really any day, anywhere, against anyone,” Schneider said. “I think (the) off day was good for us today to kind of reset. I think the guys are going to come out knowing exactly what they have to do.”

What the Blue Jays have to do, of course, is defy historical precedent. Of the 27 teams that lost the first two games at home in a best-of-seven postseason series with a 2-3-2 format, only three have rallied to win: the 1985 Kansas City Royals, the 1986 New York Mets and the 1996 New York Yankees — all in the World Series.

Hoffman found himself on the wrong side of a comeback in 2023 with the Philadelphia Phillies, as the Arizona Diamondbacks stormed back from an 0-2 deficit to win the NL Championship Series.

“They totally just zeroed out our offense at that time,” Hoffman said. “We were chasing at an unbelievable rate and they used that to their advantage. They didn’t throw us any strikes, and they won those games, and they did what they had to do to get to the World Series.”

The Blue Jays certainly have the disciplined bats to make it a competitive series. Four different Toronto players smacked at least 20 home runs in the regular season. Three of them — Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer and Daulton Varsho — have gone deep twice in the postseason.

“The series is not over until it’s over,” Hoffman said. “We've just got to go out and play our game and focus on the now and execute our game plan, and we’ll be in a pretty good spot.”

Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo, on the ALCS roster after missing the Division Series against Detroit with pectoral tightness, is eager to make his postseason debut — whenever that may be. Even with Seattle closing in on its first World Series appearance, Woo couldn’t help but second Hoffman’s assessment.

“I think everybody knows that we still have a job to do,” Woo said. “This series is long from over.”

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