M’s take two in Toronto for commanding ALCS lead
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Jorge Castillo
TORONTO — J.P. Crawford, the longest-tenured member of the Seattle Mariners, has experienced some disappointment in his seven seasons in the Pacific Northwest. A last-place finish. Falling just short of reaching the postseason three times. Playoff exhilaration getting abruptly extinguished the year they made it.
Sometime early this season, the shortstop believed this team was different.
“We know we’re a good team,” he said shortly after the Mariners completed perhaps the most important road trip in franchise history with a 10-3 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Monday night to take a 2-0 lead in the American League Championship Series. “And now everyone knows that we can do this thing, and that’s what’s lighting the fire underneath everyone.”
The Mariners are two wins from doing the thing — winning their first AL pennant and advancing to the World Series for the first time in franchise history — with Game 3 scheduled for Wednesday at T-Mobile Park. It is the first time they’ve led an ALCS by multiple games. It is the 28th time in postseason history that the road team has won the first two games of a best-of-seven series. Only three of those clubs lost the series.
“We think about it,” said second baseman Jorge Polanco, who swatted a go-ahead, three-run home run in the fifth inning to give Seattle a lead they didn’t relinquish. “We hear it a lot. We know. But the mentality is just keep it simple. Just try to refocus on playing game by game.”
Less than 24 hours after the Mariners — wearied after an emotional 15-inning win in Game 5 of the AL Division Series on Friday — won Game 1 thanks to a late-inning comeback fueled by adrenaline, they used a less dramatic blueprint in Game 2.
The Mariners pounded three home runs and got six scoreless innings from three relievers to complete Monday’s demolition inside an open-roofed Rogers Centre on Canadian Thanksgiving before heading back to Seattle to potentially close out the series.
The Mariners did not waste time inflicting heavy damage against a pitcher they never had faced. Eight days ago, Trey Yesavage held the New York Yankees hitless over 5⅓ innings in his fourth career start in Game 2 of the ALDS. His abnormally high release point and arm angle, coupled with a fastball-splitter combination, overwhelmed the Yankees.
The Mariners entered the encounter with a simple game plan to avoid falling victim to the splitter, which limited the Yankees to 0-for-11 with eight strikeouts: If it’s low, let it go. Wait for a mistake up in the zone and do not miss.
Julio Rodriguez did not miss. Three batters into the game, after Randy Arozarena was hit by a pitch and Cal Raleigh walked, Yesavage threw a mistake splitter to Rodriguez up and over the plate on a 1-2 count that Rodríguez cracked down the left-field line for a three-run shot.
It was the first home run Yesavage has allowed in his brief major league career — he had previously surrendered just two extra-base hits in four starts — and the first extra-base hit he has surrendered with his splitter in the majors.
“I feel like, at the end of the day, you got to see the ball and get your pitch,” Rodríguez said. “We have seen what he’s been doing, and obviously we respect that, but we went out there to compete.”
Blue Jays manager John Schneider called for a reliever to warm up as Yesavage’s pitch count approached 30 after Rodriguez’s crowd-silencing blast. But the rookie right-hander stranded a runner at second base with consecutive strikeouts. He then settled into the game as Toronto responded with three runs in the first two innings to tie the score. Yesavage held the Mariners without another run until departing with one out and two runners on base in the fifth inning.
Two batters after Yesavage’s exit, Polanco continued his torrid October by launching a 98 mph fastball from right-hander Louis Varland just over the right-center-field wall to give the Mariners the lead with their second three-run homer. The home run was the switch-hitting Polanco’s third of the postseason and first batting left-handed. His first two were against Detroit Tigers ace lefty Tarik Skubal in the ALDS. Polanco, a 12-year veteran, has eight RBIs in the playoffs, already tied for the third most in the Mariners’ concise postseason history.
Josh Naylor delivered the final blow, a two-run home run to right field off right-hander Braydon Fisher for Naylor’s third hit of the day to give Seattle a 9-3 lead in the seventh inning. A native of Mississauga, Ontario, the first baseman became the first Canadian-born player to hit a home run in the postseason as a visiting player in Canada.
“I went 0-for-4 yesterday, and we won,” Naylor said. “So, if I did it again today, maybe [it] was good luck to go 0-for-4, and we would win again. But I was very thankful to get some hits, help the team out. Super cool to do it in front of my family, too.”
Naylor celebrated the homer by pointing to the crowd behind the Mariners’ dugout as he began his trot. He and third baseman Eugenio Suarez were the two sluggers the Mariners acquired at the trade deadline to bolster an offense that failed to adequately complement an elite pitching staff in previous years. The moves solidified Crawford’s belief early in the season — that this team could do what no team has done since the franchise’s inception in 1977.
“We’re two wins away,” Crawford said. “If that doesn’t fire anyone up, I don’t know what can.”
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Kristen Shilton
TORONTO — The 2026 Winter Olympic Games are less than 90 days away in Italy, and there is still work to be done on the ice surfaces that will showcase NHL players suiting up at their first Games in a decade.
The league hasn’t allowed its skaters to participate at the Olympics since 2014 in Sochi. Now that they are on the cusp of returning, there are serious questions about the quality of ice both men and women players will be working with in February.
“There’s still work ongoing on the rinks and the ice conditions,” confirmed NHL commissioner Gary Bettman at the NHL GM meetings on Tuesday. “It’s something that we’re monitoring closely, and we have absolutely no control over. This is all on the [International Olympic Committee] and the [International Ice Hockey Federation].”
Bettman said the league is getting “constant reassurances” from the IOC and IIHF that “everything will be fine” with the rinks by the time athletes arrive overseas. At this point, the main hockey rink — Santagiulia Arena — is still under construction. The venue was meant to undergo testing for Olympic events in December, with a U-20 world championship tournament. But that’s now been moved to another rink — the Rho Fiera — that will host secondary hockey matches during the Games.
Those building delays could mean that no games will actually be played at Santagiulia Arena until the women’s hockey schedule officially opens Feb. 5 with an untested ice surface. Beyond just being a safety issue for players, there’s also a question of testing things such as bathrooms and concessions for fans in a newly constructed space.
While the NHL can’t do much to expedite the construction process, they are staying actively involved in what’s going on. When the league’s current Global Series showcase in Sweden between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators wraps up this weekend, NHL executives will make a pilgrimage to Milano-Cortina to check the status of rink construction for themselves.
What they find there remains to be seen. All Bettman can reiterate is that it’s out of the NHL’s hands.
“We’re simply invited guests,” Bettman said.
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