The Seattle Mariners are halfway to an American League Championship Series victory, and they haven’t even played a home game yet.
Seattle seized a 2-0 series lead over the Toronto Blue Jays with a 10-3 victory in Monday’s Game 2 at Rogers Centre. It is now just two wins away from its first World Series appearance in franchise history.
Power was the name of the game for the visitors in their latest triumph, as Julio RodrÃguez launched a three-run homer in the first inning, Jorge Polanco sent one over the wall for another three-run long ball in the fifth and Josh Naylor added insurance with a two-run homer in the seventh.
Polanco’s blast broke a tie and put the Mariners ahead for good and helped provide plenty of run support for a strong bullpen that went the final six innings.
The home runs and overall performance also caught the attention of social media:
Neither team wasted any time offensively with immediate fireworks. While RodrÃguez’s home run was the first blow, Toronto answered right back with two runs of its own against Mariners starter Logan Gilbert in the first inning.Â
George Springer doubled and scored on an error after Nathan Lukes’ single, and Lukes then scored on Alejandro Kirk’s single. Lukes was far from done, as he tied it up in the second with an RBI single.
Toronto was dialed in against Gilbert across the starter’s brief three innings of work, but the same could not be said against the bullpen. Eduard Bazardo got the ball first out of the Seattle bullpen and was brilliant with two shutout innings.
The Blue Jays were unable to counter with their own bullpen, as Louis Varland came in for starter Trey Yesavage with runners on first and second and nobody out in the fifth only to give up Polanco’s monster homer two batters later. Yesavage was charged with five earned runs in the four innings, but the Mariners continued to add to the lead with an RBI single from J.P Crawford in the sixth.
By the time Naylor hit his homer, the result was hardly in doubt.
Carlos Vargas and Emerson Hancock shut the door the rest of the way for Seattle’s bullpen against a strong Toronto offense that just overwhelmed the New York Yankees in the last series.Â
The formula of timely long balls on offense and shutdown pitching in the late innings from the bullpen is a dominant one in the playoffs, and the Mariners will look to unleash it again when the series shifts to Seattle for Wednesday’s Game 3.
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