Mariners find themselves in ALCS
driver’s seat against Blue Jays, eyeing first World Series berth
[October 15, 2025]
By ANDREW DESTIN A
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.”
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Seattle Mariners' Josh Naylor, left, watches his home run during the
seventh inning of Game 2 of baseball's American Jays League Division
Series against the Toronto Blue in Toronto, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025.
(Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)
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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