SEATTLE — Somewhere along the 2,100-mile flight from Toronto to Seattle, the Blue Jays found their bats.
Somewhere along the journey west, Blue Jays hitting coach David Popkins also sent manager John Schneider a video of the 1996 World Series — a series in which the New York Yankees lost the first two games at home only to rally and win the next four.
The message: This series is not over.
The Blue Jays, after losing the first two games of the American League Championship Series at home, tattooed baseballs all over T-Mobile Park on Wednesday evening, smashing five home runs and four doubles in a 13-4 rout of the Seattle Mariners to get back in the series and avoid facing an elimination game Thursday.
It always helps when the big guy does his thing — the big guy being Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the Blue Jays’ $500 million man who is the centerpiece of their lineup. He went 4-for-4 with a home run to center field, a screaming double off the left-field wall, another double into the left-center gap and a mere single up the middle. The exit velocities of the four hits: 108 mph, 106 mph, 105 mph and 103 mph.
After going 0-for-7 in the first two games against Seattle, Vladdy Jr. is back — and so are the Blue Jays.
“He’s one of the best hitters on Earth,” said teammate Addison Barger. “When he’s on, it’s scary. I feel bad for the pitchers.”
Said Guerrero: “It feels great, obviously, but for me, it’s just about winning. I’m very happy that we won the game. I never think about myself. I think about the whole thing.”
Guerrero wasn’t the one only crushing the ball in Game 3. After mustering just eight hits in the first two losses, the Blue Jays knew their game plan: Get the ball in the air more often — and hit it hard when you do, like they did against the Yankees in the American League Division Series, when they hit .338 and scored 34 runs in four games, with Guerrero hitting three home runs and driving in nine runs. They did just that, with absolute authority.
Across those first two games against Seattle, the Jays hit just 10 total balls in play at 100 mph or higher. In their five-run explosion against George Kirby in the third inning, there was nothing cheap. They had four hits alone in the inning of 103-plus mph, with No. 9 hitter Andres Gimenez starting the attack with a two-run home run to right field and Daulton Varsho finishing it off with a two-run laser beam of a double off the wall in right.
“If they give us a first pitch, the pitch that we’re looking for, we’re going to attack and we’re going to be aggressive,” Guerrero said.
The exclamation points came on George Springer‘s 431-foot blast to center field in the fourth … and then Guerrero’s home run to center in the fifth … and then Alejandro Kirk‘s three-run opposite-field home run to right in the sixth.
The Blue Jays had Mariners fans in the outfield bleachers scattering like the seagulls looking for scraps at Ivar’s Acres of Clams on Alaskan Way.
All told, the Blue Jays had 13 balls in play of 100-plus mph — and 11 of them went for hits. Springer’s home run was the loudest, his 22nd career postseason home run and 40th career extra-base hit, just the sixth player in postseason history to reach 40.
The Blue Jays jumped all over Kirby early in the count, especially on his fastball, knowing he would pound the strike zone with both his four-seamer and sinker. Gimenez’s home run came on an 0-1 four-seamer, Varsho’s double came on a 1-1 four-seamer, Springer’s home run was off a first-pitch sinker and Guerrero’s home run was against a first-pitch slider. Ernie Clement‘s double in the third that started the inning was also on a first-pitch sinker. All eight hits off Kirby came when the count was 1-1 or earlier.
“We have to be aggressive,” said Barger, who hit the team’s final home run of the night in the ninth inning. “You can’t just wait around and expect results. I think that was a big part of it. Just go in and attack early and see what happens.”
Kirby is known for always being around the strike zone — he walked just 29 batters in 23 starts in the regular season and just one in his two ALDS starts against Detroit.
“I’m never going to stray away from what I do: Get ahead,” Kirby said. “I think they were really comfortable at the plate. Maybe next time, pitch inside more.”
As for the Popkins video, the Blue Jays players didn’t see it but agreed that it sounded like something the coach would do.
Clement grew up a Yankees fans and knew about that ’96 World Series.
“I remember watching, I think it was ‘100 Years of the Yankees’ or whatever, some documentary, and I remember seeing Joe Torre, no panic whatsoever,” Clement recalled. “They lost the first two and he’s like, ‘We’ll go back to Atlanta and get it done there.’ It’s that no panic that’s so huge. Like, we’re in the same boat.”
Barger agreed.
“Par for the course,” he said of Popkins. “Absolutely. I think the message is just to keep your heads up. We’re a great team. We’ve been doing it all year.”
Everyone seemed to get in on the act for the Blue Jays: As part of an 18-hit attack, they had six different players with multiple hits and at least one RBI, the first team to do that in a playoff game since the Texas Rangers in the 2011 ALCS. The five home runs matched the most ever for an American League team in a playoff game — something the Blue Jays also did in Game 2 of the ALDS against the Yankees. (The eight combined home runs also tied the MLB record for most in a postseason game, matching Game 3 of the 2015 NLDS between the Cubs and Cardinals and Game 2 of the 2017 World Series between the Dodgers and Astros.)
Meanwhile, after serving up a 414-foot, two-run home run to Julio Rodriguez in the bottom of the first inning, Shane Bieber settled in and showed why the Blue Jays acquired him at the trade deadline, even though he was still in the final stages of recovery from his 2024 Tommy John surgery.
Rodriguez had connected with a fastball. After the first inning, Bieber shifted to a steady diet of sliders, curveballs, cutters and changeups, throwing just 20 fastballs out of his 84 pitches across six innings. Since his return in August, Bieber had thrown about 37% fastballs, but he ended up just 23% in this game. It worked: He induced 17 swing-and-misses — more than his past two outings combined, his final start of the regular season and his start against the Yankees in Game 3 of the ALDS, when Schneider pulled him in the third inning after he allowed five hits and three runs.
“I’ve said it a lot, it’s why you acquire a guy like Shane,” Schneider said. “You just see how he is. He was making big pitches.”
For the Mariners, their dream of clinching the first World Series trip in franchise history at home now means they’ll have to win the next two games — or the series shifts back to Toronto, where the Blue Jays had the best home record in the AL in the regular season.
“It’s just one game,” Rodriguez said. “They’re here for a reason, too. That’s the motto of baseball. You have to move forward.”
