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Four hundred forty-three times before, J.P. Crawford had crossed home plate as a member of the Seattle Mariners. But never quite like this.

This time, as Crawford approached the plate in the bottom of the 15th inning of ALDS Game 5 against the Detroit Tigers, he paused. Rather than rush across the plate to confirm the run scored as soon as possible, he slowed and looked down at the white pentagon in the dirt that had seemed like an impossible destination for both teams over the previous five hours. He held both arms in the air, helmet in hand, savoring the magical moment he was about to unlock.

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Then, he took a step and scored.

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Driven in by a hard-hit single to right field by Jorge Polanco with the bases loaded, Crawford represented the winning run for Seattle in its jaw-dropping, stomach-churning, hair-pulling, history-making, series-clinching 3-2 victory over Detroit to advance to the American League Championship Series for the first time since 2001. Polancoâ€s walk-off hit was the final act in a contest loaded with unforgettable sequences that combined to produce a postseason clash for the ages.

“We’ve talked about the fight all year long,†Seattle manager Dan Wilson said afterward. “To go 15 innings tonight, 15 rounds, so to speak, and to come out on top — that sure feels good.â€

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It took 4 hours, 58 minutes for the Tigers and Mariners to play 15 innings — the longest winner-take-all game in postseason history. Fifteen pitchers combined to throw 472 pitches, with the highest pitch count belonging to Tigers starter Tarik Skubal, whose 99 pitches produced 26 whiffs and 13 strikeouts in one of the more spectacular playoff pitching performances in recent memory — and one that somehow faded into the background as the ultra-close contest continued deep into the night.

“I feel like I pitched three days ago, if I’m being honest,†Seattle starter George Kirby said postgame.

Skubalâ€s sensational outing was the headlining performance in a game dominated by pitching on both sides; the two teams combined to hit .163 (16-for-98) while striking out 37 times. Before Polancoâ€s hit enabled Crawfordâ€s right cleat to touch home plate, just four runs had been mustered over the first 14 and a half frames, all of which required their own extraordinary sequences to come to be.

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Seattle struck first in the second inning courtesy of Josh Naylor, who reached out and poked a 100.2-mph sinker from Skubal well off the outside corner down the left-field line to put himself into scoring position. And while it was Naylorâ€s strength that enabled an extra-base hit on such a ridiculously uncomfortable-looking swing, it was his speed that shined next — or, perhaps more accurately, his baserunning acumen. Despite ranking as one of the slowest players in baseball, according to Statcastâ€s sprint speed, Naylor has become a basestealing fiend in 2025, frequently taking advantage of opponents who underestimate his willingness and ability to swipe bags.

And knowing that runs would be difficult to come by against Skubal — and recognizing that T-Mobile Park with the roof closed was far too loud for Skubal to hear his teammates alerting him that the runner was getting such a gigantic lead — Naylor took off for third and nabbed it successfully, making him a perfect 20-for-20 on stolen bases as a Mariner. Mitch Garver then drove in Naylor with a sacrifice fly that put the Mariners up 1-0 in the second inning.

Meanwhile, Seattle starter George Kirby was cruising in the early going, but he arrived at a predictable pivot point in the sixth inning, with Tigers slugger Kerry Carpenter coming to the plate with a runner on second after Javier Baez led off with a double. Carpenterâ€s home run against Kirby in Game 1 — his fifth against the pitcher in 11 plate appearances to that point — plus two more hits already in Game 5 ensured that Wilson called on lefty reliever Gabe Speier to handle Carpenter in this scenario.

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And that matchup promptly backfired, as Carpenter drilled Speierâ€s second pitch deep to center field for a stadium-silencing, two-run homer that made it 2-1 Detroit.

With Skubal still in the game — having struck out eight of 10 hitters since Garverâ€s sac fly, including a postseason-record seven in a row — the prospect of scoring another run with just four innings left seemed awfully daunting for Seattle. But Skubal left it all on the table in the sixth. His final pitch of the game was also his hardest: 100.9 mph right down the middle to blow away Cal Raleigh for his 13th strikeout. Skubal roared as he bounced off the mound toward the dugout.

“After the fifth, I checked in on him how he was doing physically and emotionally, and we both knew that he had one left,†Detroit manager A.J. Hinch said postgame. “He emptied his tank and obviously was emotional coming off the mound, and I think that signals exactly where we were in the game. He gave us everything he could.â€

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With that, Skubalâ€s night was over.

For everyone else, it was only just beginning.

As soon as Skubal departed, Seattle conjured a rally in the seventh against Detroit reliever Kyle Finnegan. A Polanco walk plus another Naylor hit put Polanco in scoring position for … Leo Rivas?

On his 28th birthday and with zero postseason plate appearances to his name — not to mention just 197 in the regular season — the switch-hitting utility infielder was called on to pinch-hit against lefty reliever Tyler Holton. Holton had entered after the Mariners announced lefty slugger Dominic Canzone would be pinch-hitting for Garver, but Wilson opted to burn Canzone and instead tab Rivas for the high-stakes spot and the chance to be the unlikeliest of heroes.

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And Rivas delivered. He smacked the second pitch from Holton into left field for a game-tying single, sending the crowd into euphoric disbelief while simultaneously (and unknowingly) settling the game into a stalemate of epic proportions.

Over the next seven-and-a-half scoreless innings, a stunning carousel of pitchers cycled through the ballgame for both teams, ranging from traditional high-leverage arms (Will Vest, Matt Brash, Andrés Muñoz, Eduard Bazardo) to versatile swingmen (Troy Melton, Keider Montero) to full-blown starting pitchers (Logan Gilbert, Jack Flaherty, Luis Castillo). All of these pitchers had already been asked to cover pivotal innings in this series against these same hitters, yet all of them were up to the task of continuing their efforts in a sudden-death scenario.

All of them, until Tommy Kahnle in the bottom of the 15th, put up zeroes.

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“It felt like it was a pretty quiet game, from an opportunity standpoint, until we got into extras,†Hinch said, “and then there were runners everywhere, and there were double plays, and thereâ€s caught stealing, and there’s bunts, and there’s guys picking up each other on errors or misplays.â€

Tigers closer Vest carved through the middle of Seattleâ€s lineup with ease. Gilbert, who starred for Seattle in his Game 3 start just three days earlier, made his first relief appearance since his sophomore year of college and provided two scoreless innings. Melton, Detroitâ€s Game 1 starter, was touching 100 just two days after throwing three scoreless innings in relief in Game 4. Bazardo, whoâ€d already pitched for the Mariners in the first four games of the series after 73 appearances in the regular season, recorded eight outs, two more than he had in any outing all year. Tigers starter Flaherty has barely pitched out of the bullpen in his career, and he delivered two hitless frames, navigating around three walks. Castillo, Seattleâ€s Game 2 starter, made his first relief cameo since he was in A-ball nearly a decade ago — and earned the win.

While Detroitâ€s cavalcade of hurlers led by Skubal unquestionably did their part, Seattleâ€s pitching staff was ever-so-slightly better, and their collective effort to preserve the tie and set the stage for Polancoâ€s walk-off will be remembered as one of the great triumphs in franchise history.

“You can’t say enough about the bullpen and two starters we had up there in the bullpen, just taking the ball and just running with it and not wanting to come out of the game, wanting to keep throwing pitches, keep throwing innings,†Wilson said postgame. “… They don’t want to leave the ballpark until they win. And tonight was that.

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“They didn’t want to leave the ballpark until they won, and they made it happen.â€

It was Crawford, though, who began the sequence that ensured the Mariners didnâ€t need to throw any more scoreless innings. He led off the bottom of the 15th with a single against Kahnle, scooping a 3-2 changeup into right field for his first hit of the game. Kahnle then plunked Randy Arozarena with his next pitch to move Crawford into scoring position. After a Raleigh flyout allowed Crawford to advance to third, Julio Rodriguez was intentionally walked to load the bases, with Detroit seeking a double play from Polanco after theyâ€d wiggled out of jams in the 12th and 13th.

But Polanco stayed on the changeup from Kahnle and laced it into right field for the game-winner, allowing Crawford to take the 90-foot journey home.

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“It was bound to happen at some point,†Kirby said later. “The more you keep letting us into the game, especially at home, you know, we’re going to find a way.â€

As Seattleâ€s longest-tenured player, Crawford knows as well as any what his winning run meant. His acquisition from Philadelphia via trade in December 2018 was a critical one in a series of transactions that marked the start of a rebuild. Crawford is the only current Mariner who endured the non-competitive lows of the 94-loss 2019 season. He raised his national profile by winning a Gold Glove in 2020, but the team was still quite bad. 2021 marked a huge step forward, as the team won 90 games, but their minus-51 run differential was a sobering indicator that the club was miles away from being a real contender.

In 2022, Crawford got his first taste of the spectacular highs and devastating lows of postseason baseball. Seattle ended its dreaded playoff drought and even won a wild-card series against Toronto, but the Mariners were emphatically swept out of the ALDS by the rival Astros. Their season ended in a game eerily similar to Fridayâ€s thriller: an epic marathon of prolific pitching in which scoring seemed impossible until one swing from Jeremy Peña delivered the ultimate gut punch in a 1-0 loss in 18 innings.

But this time was different. It had to be. After coming up painfully short of qualifying for the postseason the previous two seasons, the Mariners aggressively assembled a roster worthy of returning to baseballâ€s premier month. Urged in August by franchise icon Ichiro Suzuki to not take an opportunity like this for granted, the Mariners surged in September en route to their first division title since Ichiroâ€s rookie season in 2001 and home-field advantage in the ALDS — an advantage that proved vital as Seattle leaned into its core strength and pitcher-friendly ballpark while tossing 15 nearly flawless innings to punch its ticket to the ALCS.

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Four wins against the top-seeded Toronto Blue Jays now separate the Mariners from a place they’ve never been before. For all the ups and downs Crawford has experienced in his seven years as Seattleâ€s shortstop, they represent merely a fraction of this franchiseâ€s tortured history as the only major-league team that has never even appeared in the World Series, much less won one.

It was 30 years ago that Edgar Martinezâ€s iconic walk-off double defeated the Yankees to send the Mariners to the ALCS for the first time. That Martinezâ€s walk-off sustains as the premier franchise highlight in nearly a half-century of existence is a testament to the magic of the moment — and a reflection of how little Seattle has accomplished in three decades since. Several superstars have come and gone, with feats of individual brilliance and a few formidable ballclubs along the way. But only rarely has the World Series been remotely within reach. The ‘95 team faltered in the championship round. Back-to-back trips to the ALCS in 2000 and ’01 produced the same result. And then, a drought — thedrought. Sure, 2022 was a salve of sorts, but it was nowhere close to the ultimate prize.

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But in toppling the Tigers and advancing to Toronto — Game 1 is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET Sunday at Rogers Centre — the 2025 Mariners have arrived at a special opportunity. Their five grueling games against Detroit served as a reminder that nothing comes easy this time of year — and evidence that Seattle has the talent and resilience to succeed in these pressure-packed postseason affairs.

What happens next for the Mariners in their quest to finally reach the Fall Classic remains to be seen. But in emerging victorious on Friday — and giving the Seattle crowd a night to remember — they made sure that elusive goal is still within reach.

“That was an incredible win for them, which means it was an incredible loss for us,†Hinch said. “But I wish them well in the next round. They earned it, and that was an epic game.â€

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  Buster OlneyOct 11, 2025, 01:19 AM ET

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  • Senior writer ESPN Magazine/ESPN.com
  • Analyst/reporter ESPN television
  • Author of “The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty”

SEATTLE — After Jorge Polanco singled to end the Mariners’ 3-2 victory over the Tigers in 15 innings late Friday night, propelling Seattle to its first American League Championship Series since 2001, a full accounting and assessment could begin.

Four hours, 58 minutes. The two sides combined for 15 pitchers who threw 472 pitches, including two starters — Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo — who made the first relief appearances of their careers. So many missed opportunities in extra innings, by both teams. So much emotion, fueled by a T-Mobile Park crowd of 47,025 that was relentless in its decibel generation.

“An incredible win for Seattle,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said, “which means it was an incredible loss for us. That was an epic game.”

Mariners pitcher George Kirby said, “From the eighth inning on, I had a massive headache. I am glad that game is over.”

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It felt like two different games, some of them said afterward. Kirby joked that he felt like the start of the game, when he was pitching against the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal, had occurred three days before the finish. The Mariners took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second, and when Kirby was removed by Seattle manager Dan Wilson in the sixth inning, Kerry Carpenter immediately crushed a two-run go-ahead homer — which might have felt like enough at the time, given Skubal’s dominance.

Skubal confounded Seattle with his changeup, and though the Mariners pushed his pitch count steadily, as they had hoped, he kept racking up strikeouts. Two in the first, two in the second, three in the third; in one stretch, he whiffed seven hitters in a row. Skubal’s season high before this outing was 107 pitches, and with the left-hander approaching triple digits in his pitch count, he and Hinch agreed the sixth inning would be his last. His final pitch, against MVP candidate Cal Raleigh, was 101 mph and gave him his 13th strikeout of the game on his 99th offering.

But for the Mariners, Skubal’s exit was a reprieve. They immediately tied the score on a pinch-hit single by Leo Rivas, who was celebrating his 28th birthday.

Nobody could have known that the score would remain tied for the better part of the next three hours, with Wilson and Hinch summoning relievers and each of them responding effectively, from Detroit’s Will Vest, Rafael Montero and Jack Flaherty to the Mariners’ Matt Brash, Andres Munoz, Gilbert and, yes, Castillo, working out of the bullpen for the first time in nine years.

“You can’t say enough about what those guys did out of the bullpen,” Wilson said.

Jorge Polanco’s walk-off single in the 15th capped the Mariners’ first series-clinching victory in extra innings since Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS. Steph Chambers/Getty Images

The work was often accomplished under duress. The Mariners put two runners on base in the 10th inning, two more in the 12th — the basepaths constantly filled — and twice the Tigers turned double plays to get out of jams. After Kirby left the game, he went back to the clubhouse to do his postgame work then went to the dugout to watch. So did Skubal. Players on both teams draped over the front rails of the dugout, tracking every pitch that had the potential of ending or extending their season.

Tommy Kahnle came on to pitch for Detroit in the bottom of the 15th inning, and J.P. Crawford smoked a single — yet another promising start to an inning. Kahnle then hit Randy Arozarena with a pitch, bringing Raleigh to the plate, and the catcher slammed a fly ball deep enough to center to enable Crawford to tag up and take third while Arozarena took second. Hinch ordered an intentional walk of Julio Rodriguez, and now it was Polanco’s chance to end the game.

“I was just looking for a pitch to hit,” Polanco said, describing how he narrowed his focus on Kahnle’s changeup.

When Polanco pulled the ball between first and second base, Crawford raced home.

“I couldn’t believe it was over,” said Raleigh, who, like the other Mariners, chased after Polanco in celebration.

T-Mobile Park went into full meltdown, with a din so loud that it was nearly impossible for the players standing next to each other on the field to hear each other.

Maybe it was the loudest scene in Mariners history. Or maybe the second loudest. The last time a winner-take-all AL Division Series game ended in extra innings took place 30 years earlier, when Seattle designated hitter Edgar Martinez — now the Mariners’ hitting coach — pulled a ball into the left-field corner and another future Hall of Famer, Ken Griffey Jr., raced around the bases to score the deciding run of a series against the New York Yankees.

Before this Game 5, the Mariners’ pregame ceremonies began with the unveiling of a shiny sports car coming through an alley in the right-field wall, and the guy riding on top of the back seat was familiar to this crowd: Griffey. The extra-inning madness that followed, all the pitching heroics and runners left on base and the way the Mariners chased Polanco after his game-winning hit, will be remembered in the same way as that 1995 epic.

Champagne was still dripping from the back of Polanco’s hat after the game when he spoke with reporters.

“I have so much gratitude,” he said.

Baseball fans who witnessed this 15-inning saga can relate.

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