SEATTLE \u2014 The Toronto Blue Jays pulled even in the American League Championship Series on Thursday, using vintage pitching from Max Scherzer and another offensive barrage to stifle the Seattle Mariners 8-2 in Game 4 at T-Mobile Park.<\/p>\n
Scherzer, 41, worked 5 2\/3 innings \u2014 the longest of his last six postseason starts \u2014 while allowing just three hits and two runs. For the second game in a row, the Blue Jays\u2019 No. 9 hitter, Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez, started Toronto\u2019s scoring with a two-run homer. Gim\u00e9nez finished with four runs batted in, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is 6-for-9 in the two games here, also went deep again.<\/p>\n
The series continues here on Friday at 3:08 PT\/6:08 ET, and because both teams have won twice so far, it will continue at least through Game 6 on Sunday in Toronto.<\/p>\n
Scherzer goes full Mad Max, shows why he\u2019s a Hall of Famer<\/p>\n
Scherzer hadn\u2019t given the Blue Jays a great start in two months. He hadn\u2019t made it through the fifth inning in the postseason since the NLDS in 2021. He\u2019s 41 years old. Neck, thumb and back issues sidetracked much of his season. But when the Blue Jays needed Scherzer most, he proved why his visage likely will be featured in Cooperstown one day.<\/p>\n
Every pitcher who reaches the big leagues is talented, but few do what Scherzer has done. They don\u2019t win three Cy Youngs, two World Series rings and pitch for 18 years.<\/p>\n
Scherzer\u2019s decided difference, teammate Chris Bassitt said, is intensity and preparation. Those things don\u2019t go away at 41. They made him great and allow him to access that greatness still.<\/p>\n
Even when his velocity isn\u2019t in the high-90s and his command isn\u2019t pinpoint \u2014 he walked four in his outing against the Mariners \u2014 Scherzer still has an edge. That\u2019s why the Blue Jays were confident in turning to him for his first start in weeks. That\u2019s why you don\u2019t doubt a Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n
Blue Jays\u2019 lineup depth is the stuff of World Series champions<\/p>\n
George Springer and Guerrero are crucial to Toronto\u2019s lineup. They\u2019re the engines, the power and the guys on the posters. But the Blue Jays\u2019 lineup might be one of the deepest in baseball.<\/p>\n
When Ernie Clement is hitting almost .500, as he is this postseason, and Gim\u00e9nez is pulling balls into the bleachers, that group turns from productive depth to entirely terrifying. It\u2019s the kind of thing that distinguishes real World Series contenders.<\/p>\n
For the second straight night, Gim\u00e9nez vaulted the Jays back into a contest. He launched a score-tying blast in Wednesday\u2019s third inning and followed on Thursday with another two-run homer. They were his first long balls since August and they came at an opportune time.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays owned the second-best bottom of the order in the American League this year, with their sixth to ninth hitters posting a 99 wRC+. The lineup depth helped carry the attack through the regular season. Now, it has helped the Blue Jays claw back in this series.<\/p>\n
Wilson acted decisively with early hook for Castillo, but M\u2019s bullpen couldn\u2019t keep it close<\/p>\n
In the third inning of Wednesday\u2019s Game 3, George Kirby allowed a leadoff double to the No. 8 hitter, then a homer to Gim\u00e9nez. Mariners manager Dan Wilson let Kirby keep pitching into the fifth inning, long enough for him to tie a single-season postseason record with eight earned runs allowed.<\/p>\n
In the third inning of Thursday\u2019s Game 4, Luis Castillo allowed a leadoff double to the No. 8 hitter, and then a homer to Gim\u00e9nez. This time, Wilson activated his bullpen as Castillo waded through the next four batters, loading the bases for lefty Daulton Varsho.<\/p>\n
Sensing a potential early turning point in the game, Wilson deployed his best lefty, Gabe Speier. After a leadoff walk forced in a run, Speier struck out Clement and Addison Barger, leaving the bases loaded and keeping the Mariners\u2019 deficit at a reasonable two runs.<\/p>\n
Alas, Wilson pushed too far with Speier in the fourth, trusting him against the righty Springer with a runner on second and one out. Speier held righties to a .203 average this season, but Springer drilled a slider over the middle for a run-scoring double. He scored to make it 5-1 when another reliever, Matt Brash, spiked a slider for a wild pitch.<\/p>\n
The \u201925 Blue Jays have a clear team to emulate \u2014 the \u201996 Yankees<\/p>\n
The last time the Blue Jays reached the World Series, in 1993, the ALCS followed this same pattern, with the home team losing each of the first four games.<\/p>\n
In that instance, though, it was Toronto jumping to the early lead with two road wins over the White Sox in Chicago. When the series shifted north of the border, the White Sox tied it up. Toronto then took Game 5 at home and wrapped things up in Game 6 in Chicago behind ALCS MVP Dave Stewart, a reliable October titan.<\/p>\n
Ideally, the Blue Jays want to follow the lead of the last team to lose the first two games of a best-of-seven series at home and come back to win. That was the 1996 New York Yankees, who dropped Games 1 and 2 of the World Series in the Bronx, then swept the Braves in Atlanta and returned home to clinch in Game 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 The Toronto Blue Jays pulled even in the American League Championship Series on Thursday, using vintage…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":310399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,1288,62,1290,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-310398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-seattle-mariners","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115388854035646474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}