Game 5 of the American League Division Series lasted long into Friday night. The celebration in Seattle, after the Mariners walked it off in 15 innings, lasted even longer into Saturday morning.
But once the cheers die down and the champagne is wiped from everyone’s eyes, there’s a new task at hand — one that’s becoming more imminent by the minute:
“Everybody’s super excited,” George Kirby said. “We’ll be prepared for that.”
It’s the second time Seattle has faced Toronto in the postseason in recent history; the Mariners went to Toronto for the 2022 Wild Card Series and walked away with a pair of wins to advance, sealed by the largest comeback in a clinching game in playoff history. A good chunk of Seattle’s current core was on that squad, from Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodríguez, J.P. Crawford and Eugenio Suárez in the lineup to Kirby, Luis Castillo and Logan Gilbert in the rotation.
The Mariners dropped the 2025 regular-season series to the Blue Jays in a six-game set that saw the road teams rule. In April, Seattle went into Rogers Centre and took two of three. Less than a month later, though, the Jays came back to T-Mobile Park and swept the Mariners in front of the heavily Canadian crowd that has become all but a tradition for one weekend every summer.
Whether Blue Jays fans will be able to pull off a repeat of their partisan road crowd in a postseason setting is yet to be seen, though a combination of higher ticket prices, higher local interest and way less time to prepare travel probably means that the crowds for Games 3 and 4 (and 5, if necessary) in Seattle will look a whole lot more like they did for the ALDS than anything else. And that’s something that the Mariners have eagerly fed off of.
“It means a lot to us,” closer Andrés Muñoz said. “… They’ve been doing it the whole season.”
There’s been a lot of season since the last time Seattle saw Toronto. The club’s undisputed MVP in the regular-season series was Rowdy Tellez, who went 3-for-9 with three home runs (including a grand slam) in the series across the border and added another home run in the home series. Tellez, of course, hasn’t been a Mariner since he was designated for assignment on June 20, and he finished the season with the Rangers.
In fact, of the 24 RBIs recorded by Mariners hitters vs. the Blue Jays in 2025, 12 came from players who aren’t on the team anymore.
Of the players who will be in the starting lineup in the AL Championship Series, Randy Arozarena had the best numbers against Toronto this season, going 4-for-10 with a pair of doubles in the series at home, while Raleigh went 5-for-19 with a home run and seven walks across the six games.
Raleigh also had the best numbers in that 2022 Wild Card Series, going 4-for-8, with a two-run homer off Alek Manoah in the first game and a three-hit day in the second. And he’s coming into the ALCS on a roll after hitting safely in all five ALDS games and finishing the set with an 8-for-21 line.
The biggest question, though, will come on the other side of things, in terms of who Seattle will have available on the mound to try to tame a Blue Jays lineup that finished fourth in the regular season in runs scored (798) before dropping 34 in four ALDS games against the Yankees.
Like with the ALDS, the discussion will start with Bryan Woo, who has been out for three weeks with right pectoral inflammation and was not on the ALDS roster. The right-hander threw a bullpen ahead of Friday’s game and is expected to be on the ALCS roster, according to sources, but will not be available for Game 1 in any capacity.
If Woo returns, it’ll be a huge boost to a rotation that needed three of its four other members to pitch in Game 5 alone. The lone exception was Bryce Miller, who started Game 4 of the ALDS and will start Game 1 of the ALCS. After him would probably be Castillo, who threw 15 pitches on normal rest in Game 5. A Woo return by Game 3 on Wednesday would allow Gilbert and Kirby to pitch on normal rest.
The other spotlight will be on Gabe Speier and the Blue Jays’ lefty bats, particularly Daulton Varsho and Addison Barger. With only right-handers in the Seattle rotation, Speier turned into arguably the Mariners’ highest-leverage reliever in the ALDS, a role he thrived in to start before faltering in Games 4 and 5.
Varsho went 0-for-9 vs. Seattle in the regular season. Barger was a different story, going 7-for-20 with a homer and four doubles, but he went 0-for-1 against Speier.
