There was no way the Mariners’ playoff game in over two decades was going to be stressful, but because the Mariners took an early lead, they never gave up and this game was less stressful than it could have been. Here are the top five keys to the Mariners’ 4-0 win over the Blue Jays on Friday:
Take the crowd out early:
There was much talk before the game of what advantage the Blue Jays would have with their home crowd at Rogers Center with the dome closed, and there was noise when Alek Manoah stepped onto the mound at the top of the first. But the Mariners quickly silenced that crowd with a swing from Eugenio Suárez’s bat, then took them out completely with Cal Raleigh’s double slam. Castillo let up with a fast 1-2-3 inning and took control of the momentum of the game for the Mariners, a control they would never relinquish.
Julio is the spark:
It wasn’t until the sixth inning that Julio recorded a hit, but his presence at the front of the lineup unsettled Manoah enough that he missed his location twice and attempted to invite Julio, instead granting the Mariners a free baserunner each time who would come by later to score. When Julio leads innings and gets to base with his speed, it sets up the trio of batsmen behind him – Haniger, Suárez, France – to be able to drive him in, whether by big fly or just a run with a clutch individually .
Limit Baserunners:
Credit here mainly goes to Luis Castillo, who demonstrated why the Mariners sacrificed so much of their farm to acquire him and invested to make him a Mariner for years to come, but credit also goes to Andrés Muñoz. Castillo threw over 70% of his pitches for strikes and worked efficiently; He shot through them and knocked out the side in the seventh, but the work he did with weak contact and ground ball outs was even more impressive. The strong Blue Jays formation hit just two balls from Castillo with a triple-digit exit speed (Springer’s single in the third and Jansen’s flyout in the fifth); They had five balls that hit less than 70 MPH. Castillo, in particular, struggled against HP referee Lance Barrett’s nebulous hitting zone and continued to pound on the edges of the zone until he was granted the same hitting calls Manoah received from the start. Castillo’s efficiency allowed the Mariners to field only Andrés Muñoz from the bullpen, and he was efficient too, throwing 17 of his 22 pitches for strikes to end the game. The Mariners preach Rule the Zone, and Castillo and Muñoz did that today.
Play clean defense:
This goes hand in hand with the above. The Mariners were a little shaky with their defense down the stretch, but today, as they worked Toronto’s fast turf, every infield defender was crisp as hotel sheets. Eugenio Suárez made a great play with a slow-rolling ball in the second to wipe out the Blue Jay’s first baserunner of the game, and started a double play that would prevent the Blue Jays from scoring when Matt Chapman drove a small pop-up into the flat left field. Even though they couldn’t spot any outs on fielded balls, defenders kept the Blue Jays from taking extra bases: Haniger made a nice play in the third, clipping a knight single and holding it first, and JP in the same inning Crawford deftly smothered an infield single from Bichette and failed to attempt a low-probability throw, preventing the runner from taking another 90 feet (and possibly another 90 with an off-target throw). Adam Frazier made a similar play in second place in the fifth inning, stopping a single from Springer and not allowing Merrifield, who had hit a rotten fly-ball single, to advance to third place. Keeping those runners from taking extra bases allowed Castillo to go right after the last hitter of the inning, which he pulled back every time — Vlad in the third with an easy flyout and Bichette in the fifth with a routine groundout.
Stay in your approach:
If you didn’t know, it would never have occurred to you that it was the Mariners making their first post-season appearance in over two decades. The Mariners batsmen stuck to their plan, waited for a shaky Manoah, boosted his pitch count and hung runs against him early. Cal Raleigh’s at-bat in the first game that resulted in a home run was probably the clearest example of this, as he battled Manoah to a full count before getting a meaty two-seamer to punish over the wall. There’s definitely room for improvement – both Cal and Julio proved vulnerable to Manoah’s slider, with Julio chasing three times in a row – but both young hitters also showed their patience off the plate at times. Also, Jarred Kelenic doesn’t have a hit or walk on his column, but his first at-bat was frustrating as he showed good plate discipline and wasn’t rewarded by being hit well by home plate umpire Lance Barrett on a pitch outside the zone.