With it, they are just three wins away from their first World Series in franchise history — and they’ll now have home-field advantage over the rest of this best-of-seven bout.
“We’ve talked about just how resilient these guys are,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said, “and tonight was one of those instances again.”
Raleigh dug out and demolished a 420-foot solo homer on a full-count splitter from Kevin Gausman with two outs in the sixth inning. Then, after Julio Rodríguez drew a walk and ended Gausman’s outing, Raleigh advanced to second on a wild pitch from lefty reliever Brendon Little before scoring easily on Polanco’s 110.7 mph go-ahead single into left.
Little was explicitly brought in to turn the switch-hitting Polanco around, but the move from Blue Jays manager John Schneider backfired.
“Cal went out there and took a really good at-bat for us,” Polanco said. “He got the homer, he tied the ballgame, and from there, we’re just trying to stay focused on the game. We were in the game from the first inning. It was only 1-0. But he delivered it really good, and we just tried to keep going.”
Polanco one-upped himself in the seventh, this time batting left-handed off reliever Seranthony Domínguez and yanking a chopping single through the right-side hole — a carbon-copy of his game-winner in Friday night’s 15-inning marathon that clinched the AL Division Series against Detroit.
He now has six hits in the postseason, five of which have driven in runs — including a pair of booming homers off Tigers ace Tarik Skubal in ALDS Game 2. And dating back to Sept. 1, he’s hitting .306 with a .951 OPS, continuing a resounding turnaround after undergoing surgery to repair the patellar tendon in his left knee this week last year.
“He’s been kind of our heart and soul over this last month,” said Raleigh, a fellow switch-hitter. “Really happy for him that he’s healthy and he’s playing every day and it’s consistent — and that does make a big difference, because he went through a lot last year with injuries and even earlier this year. I’m just happy he’s healthy like that, and he’s been huge from both sides of the plate.”
Raleigh and Polanco were the vessels to victory on a night when the Mariners had nothing going early vs. Gausman. But they grinded their way through with one pesky at-bat after another as the game reached its tensest stages.
The Mariners haven’t flexed their offensive might much in these playoffs, outside an eight-run outburst in ALDS Game 3. And really, after taking a 3-0 lead in Detroit the next day with the chance to put that series away, they’d been limited to a 13-for-79 clip (.165) before Raleigh went deep, dating back to when the Tigers scored nine unanswered runs to force the winner-take-all Game 5.
As for Raleigh, on the heels of his historic 60-homer season, Sunday’s long ball in Toronto was his second this postseason. But the venue was even more part of the story, as Raleigh now has nine homers in 14 career games at Rogers Centre — the most of any player in his first 14 games in Toronto (regular season and postseason).
Raleigh’s nine in Toronto since 2022 are the second most by a visiting player, behind only Aaron Judge’s 11 — and Judge’s Yankees obviously play in the same division at Toronto, with double the games here in the regular season compared to Raleigh’s Mariners.
“I don’t know if it’s one thing,” Raleigh said. “I think really I try to go out there with the same plan, and sometimes it’s more coincidence than anything with it being here.”
Schneider said he considered intentionally walking Raleigh but opted not to with a 1-0 lead and Rodríguez on deck. That decision, along with opting for Little to face Polanco despite Gausman only being at 76 pitches, allowed the Mariners to pounce.
Had they stuck with Gausman for Polanco — who has a .931 OPS vs. lefties this season and a .786 OPS vs. righties, and again, with two outs — Little might’ve been a better option for a left-on-left battle with Josh Naylor, who was on deck.
“You’re kind of getting into game-state, inning-state,” Schneider said. “I wish there was a little bit more swing-and-miss. You’ve got a fully rested bullpen and wanted him to get Julio. It’s kind of pick your poison there. I was kind of reading the situation after the walk.”
Beyond a few clutch hits, the Mariners have been able to eke out wins on the shoulders of their pitching staff, which has a 2.95 ERA in the postseason while holding hitters to a .567 OPS — both best among the four teams still alive. That heavily taxed group will now make another big ask of Gilbert, who’s been tabbed for ALCS Game 2 on Monday despite throwing 34 high-stress pitches on Friday.
He’ll look to follow up Bryce Miller, who was brilliant in what might have been the Mariners’ best start of these playoffs. Miller rebounded from a leadoff homer to George Springer on his very first pitch but kept Sunday’s game within reach, even as Gausman retired 16 Mariners in a row at one point.
The tide turned once Raleigh went deep amid a smattering of boos with his majestic blast beyond the visiting bullpen, followed up by Polanco’s second big hit.
“It’s a hostile environment,” Raleigh said. “We all knew it was going to be coming into today and everybody was going to be getting that kind of treatment, and that’s what it’s like in playoff baseball. Like I said, you tune that stuff out and you try to go out there and execute and slow the game down.”
