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Gisborne: Planned outages Tue-WedMariners open championship series in winning style over Blue Jays
Ian Harrison • October 13th, 2025 5:20 pm
Seattle's Cal Raleigh hit a home run to set up victory in their AL Championship Series opener | Photo: AP
Cal Raleigh homered and Jorge Polanco drove in the go-ahead run with a sixth-inning single as the Seattle Mariners beat the Toronto Blue Jays 3-1 in their AL Championship Series opener.
The match on Sunday night (Monday NZ time) marked the Mariners' return to the AL Championship Series after a 24-year absence.
Toronto's George Springer homered on the first pitch from Bryce Miller, who then escaped a two-on jam in a 27-pitch first inning.
Anthony Santander singled in the second for Toronto's only other hit, as Seattle pitchers retired 23 of the Blue Jays' final 24 batters.
Miller, Gabe Speier, Matt Brash and Andres Munoz combined to throw just 100 pitches, less than 48 hours after the Mariners needed 209 pitches to outlast Detroit over 15 innings.
Raleigh, who led the major leagues with 60 homers, tied the score in the sixth with his ninth homer in 14 games at Rogers Centre.
Polanco hit a go-ahead single later in the inning and added an RBI single in the eighth.
"We're a tough team, you know, one through nine," Raleigh said. "Pitchers came out today, really, really impressed us. They did awesome, especially (after a) short rest and how many pitches they threw the other day."
AL West champions Seattle travelled to AL East winners Toronto on Saturday after a 3-2 home victory over the Tigers to win the Division Series in the longest winner-take-all game in Major League Baseball history.
Seattle, the only MLB team to never host a World Series game, held Toronto to two hits after the Blue Jays had 50 hits and 34 runs in their four-game Division Series against the New York Yankees.
Miller struck out three and walked three in six innings, throwing 72 pitches. The three relievers each had 1-2-3 innings, with Munoz getting the save.
Toronto's Vladimir Guerrero Jr went 9-for-17 with three homers and nine RBIs against the Yankees, but finished 0-for-4 on Sunday with three ground-outs.
"This is going to be a hard-fought series, man," Toronto manager John Schneider said. "These guys will be ready for it."
Springer's 21st post-season home run broke a tie with the Yankees' Derek Jeter, moving him into sole possession of fifth place on the career list.
Toronto's George Springer connects for a solo home run against the Mariners | Photo: AP
Polanco, who had the game-ending single on Friday, singled against Brendon Little to drive in Julio Rodriguez, who was walked by Kevin Gausman.
Polanco added another RBI single against Seranthony Dominguez.
In more bad news for the home side, Toronto outfielder Nathan Lukes left in the fourth inning after bruising his right knee when he fouled a pitch off it in the first inning.
- AP
