Jays came to play: Toronto blows out Mariners

On most Seattle Mariners game nights, or days against the Toronto Blue Jays, the fans from the north outnumber their Mariner counterparts pretty handily. But for a game that Seattle has longed to see play out in front of their eyes, that was not the case. For many fans, the feeling of being overwhelmed happened early and often.

Mariners fans funneled into T-Mobile Park with hopes of seeing their team take a commanding 3-0 series lead in the ALCS and be just one game away from the promised land they yearned so long for. But the reality of what went down inside T-Mobile Park on Oct. 15 was the stuff of nightmares.

The Toronto Blue Jays roared back into this championship series and announced their presence with authority, winning 13-4 in thunderous fashion, much like Seattle did in Game 1 and Game 2.

Fans were given a tease, a taste of what that feeling was like, but that feeling vanished just as fast as it got to Mariners fans.

Julio Rodriguez lit up Seattle in the first inning on a two-run home run to give the Mariners a quick 2-0 lead. The 24-year-old centerfielder roped a Shane Bieber cutter into the Mariner bullpen out in left-center on a 112 mph laser beam.

“Julio got a pretty good pitch to hit there in that first inning. I thought he did a really good job of driving that ball on a line,” Manager Dan Wilson said.

But from that moment forward, the Blue Jays fans who still made the trip, made all the noise.

Ernie Clement and Andrés Giménez tied the game on a double and two-run home run, respectively. Nathan Lukes continued his hot hitting and singled, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his first extra base hit of the ALCS and doubled one of three extra base hits in the game. Alejandro Kirk walked to load the bases, and Lukes scored on a wild pitch to take the lead, 3-2.

Seattle starter George Kirby faced one over the minimum in the first two innings, but that third inning saw five Jays cross home plate.

“He really came out with good location, with good heaters coming out of his hand and was able to keep them in check. This is a team that is gonna hurt you if you make mistakes over the plate. It looked like there were a couple they were able to get to and really that was where it was at that point,” Wilson said.

Daulton Varsho then drove in Guerrero and Kirk with a double of his own for the fifth hit of the frame.

By the end of the third inning, it seemed like T-Mobile Park might as well have been empty. All the momentum, excitement and intrigue had left. Especially when in the Mariners’ half third inning, all that occurred was an infield hit from Rodriguez.

Kirby gave up a home run to George Springer in the fourth and a home run to Guerrero Jr. in the fifth. His night ended allowing eight earned runs on eight hits, and he left the game trailing 8-2. It was the largest deficit the Mariners have faced since Game 4 of the ALDS in Detroit when the Mariners fell 8-3 to the Tigers.

“I thought he came out with one of the best fastballs we have seen, in the first couple innings. I thought the way it was coming out of his hands, it looked great. They were able to get some pitches over the plate a little bit in that third inning, then it was four two-out runs at that point,” Wilson said.

The Blue Jays, however, kept adding. Kirk really hammered the nail into the Mariners’ Game 3 coffin. His three-run homer off Caleb Ferguson put Toronto up 12-2 after Giménez scored on a groundout.

Seattle’s offense after the Rodriguez home run was a meager 2-19 from the first to the sixth inning. The Mariners had just one walk until the sixth inning, Randy Arozarena, to lead off the game.

“As good pitchers do, they get a little more comfortable and settled in. Their command comes back, their stuff comes to them a little bit. It looked like he (Bieber) was able to get comfortable and into a bit of a rhythm and find his secondaries,” Wilson said.

The Mariners scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth inning on an Arozarena one-out homer followed by Raleigh for his third home run of the postseason. But the speck of momentum was crushed when Addison Barger crushed a solo homer to kick of the ninth inning.

Luis Castillo takes the ball for Seattle in Game 4 as it may not be a must win, but there is now a sliver of doubt creeping into the minds of the Mariners.

“This is a team that has done this a lot this year, in terms of bouncing back and being resilient. We’ve used a lot of words for it. But tomorrow is that opportunity again for us, these guys know how to prepare and be ready for it,” Wilson said.

First pitch is at 5:33 p.m. PST Oct. 16.