Blue Jays earn Game 7 in ALCS: 'This is why we sacrifice everything'

TORONTO — They played for the first time this year without the safety net of a tomorrow and the Toronto Blue Jays didn’t blink, instead earning themselves a Game 7 in the American League Championship Series. Trey Yesavage once again belied his age and inexperience to pitch not just beyond his years, but beyond those of most starters in the post-season. They scratched out runs and also got big swings, one from Addison Barger and yet another from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who extended a playoff run destined for franchise lore.

And they slayed a couple of demons, one old and one new, along the way, too, staving off elimination against the Seattle Mariners the way they didn’t while blowing an 8-1 lead in Game 2 of a 2022 wild-card series, and then getting through the same pocket of hitters that started the fateful eighth-inning Game 5 rally Friday – Cal Raleigh, Jorge Polanco and Josh Naylor – in another eighth, this time with closer Jeff Hoffman tearing through the trio.

Put all together, a 6-2 victory before a roaring crowd of 44,764 sent this tremendous best-of-seven to a winner-takes-all finish, with Shane Bieber set to start against George Kirby in just the second Game 7 in Blue Jays history.

The defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers await the winner.

“If you like post-season baseball, this is what it's all about,” said Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman, who plans to be available in the bullpen. “You might see Max Scherzer in the fifth. You might see me later in the game. It's all hands on deck. It's fun. As a player, this is what we want. We've all been grinding since February, even before then. Now, we win one game, we're going to the World Series.”

The Blue Jays haven’t been this close to the big dance since 1993, when they completed the second of back-to-back championships, while the Mariners have never been this close before. The expansion cousins each shook off differing disappointments in 2024 — Toronto lost 88 games after consecutive playoff appearances, while Seattle narrowly missed the post-season — to reach this point.

There will be ecstasy for one, agony for the other.

“This is why we sacrifice everything. It's why players sacrifice everything,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “It's special and unique, but you have to look at it as a game. Easier said than done, but really happy with the way we played today. Got to come out and do it again tomorrow.”

Yesavage did much of the heavy lifting for the Blue Jays in Game 6 after the gutting 6-2 loss in Game 5 that left Schneider’s decision to use Brendon Little in the eighth an emotionally charged focal point through Saturday’s travel day and into Sunday.

The 22-year-old right-hander – making his third post-season start, equal to the number of regular-season starts he has in his career – put up a clean nine-pitch first and then struck out the side in the second, quickly seizing the reins of the contest and didn’t relent.

Locating his fastball more effectively and leveraging his splitter and slider off it, he struck out seven in 5.2 innings, inducing three inning-ending double plays, two with the bases loaded, after allowing five runs in four innings against Seattle in the 10-3, Game 2 loss.

“What impressed me the most is the adjustments he made,” said shortstop Andres Gimenez. “They saw him pretty well and then he comes out and just dominates.”

Said Gausman: “We all believe in him and he's done it enough now that we kind of know how much of a difference-maker he can be. For him to go out tonight and set the tone was really cool and you just don't see that from many guys, especially 22-year-olds.”

The Blue Jays' offence responded against Logan Gilbert, using the contact-and-pressure game employed so well all season long to produce a two-spot in the second inning.

Daulton Varsho singled and took second on Julio Rodriguez’s error in centre, Ernie Clement’s grounder was booted by Eugenio Suarez, Addison Barger followed with an RBI single to right and before Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s dribbler to third that brought home a second run. The Blue Jays loaded the bases but Suarez made a diving stab on Guerrero’s 116 m.p.h. rocket to third and relayed to second to end the threat.

The Mariners delivered their first pressure point in the third inning, loading the bases with one out for Raleigh, but he beat a first-pitch splitter into the ground that Guerrero snared on the move to start a pretty 3-6-1 double play.

“That's such a hard groundball to turn a double play on,” said Clement. “It helps that he's throwing to the best defender in baseball in that situation. But he does it every day in practice. There's no panic, obviously, he lets the instincts take over and makes a perfect throw.  That's such a momentum gain.”

The Blue Jays built on it in the bottom half as Barger’s two-run shot came immediately after Clement’s two-out triple and extended the lead to 4-0. Yesavage quickly found himself in another bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fourth, but this time got J.P. Crawford to bounce into a 4-6-3 double play to get himself out of trouble.

“A lot of emotion, a lot of momentum,” said Kiner-Falefa. “I feel like it helped us get control of the game.”

A third double play, this one off the bat of Julio Rodriguez, ended the top of the fifth and Guerrero opened the bottom half with his sixth homer of the post-season, matching Joe Carter and Jose Bautista for the franchise lead in playoff homers, for a 5-0 lead.

By game’s end, Guerrero was batting an absurd .462 (18-for-39) with three doubles, 12 RBIs and six walks to go with his six homers in 10 post-season outings.

“I don't even know how to explain it,” Clement said of Guerrero’s performance. “Every single swing is right on the money. He's obviously locked in, but I think he's staying within himself and not trying to do too much. And he is doing a lot.”

Yesavage finally wilted with two outs in the sixth, when Naylor turned on a first-pitch split and sent it 389 feet to right and Randy Arozarena followed with a base hit, prompting Schneider to make a change. 

The rookie walked off to a well-earned standing ovation.

“I was getting my stuff in the box early, getting ahead of batters and letting my defence work,” said Yesavage. “Getting three double plays in back-to-back-to-back innings to get out of two bases loaded jams, that is huge, and I knew my defence had my back.”

Louis Varland took over and Suarez followed by dunking a ball into short right, allowing Arozarena to race home with a second run before Crawford struck out to end the frame.

But the Blue Jays scratched out another run in the seventh when Guerrero was hit on the elbow by Matt Brash, advanced to second on an Alejandro Kirk single, broke for third on a wild pitch and then scored to make it 6-2 on Raleigh’s wild throw.

Hoffman then struck out Raleigh and Polanco before Naylor flew out weakly to end the eighth and he then handled the ninth, too, his first outing of more than an inning since going two against the Boston Red Sox on April 30.

“I knew if I was going to face Raleigh in my first inning, then I would probably be asked to go back out in that second inning, unless the score had gotten out of hand or something like that,” said Hoffman. “We've been throwing all year and our arms are in the best shape that they're ever going to be in throughout a season so if you're healthy, you're good to go for whatever they need. And that'll be the same (Monday) too.”

The Blue Jays have played in only one Game 7 — a 6-2 loss in the 1985 ALCS to the eventual World Series champion Kansas City Royals. They won their two other winner-take-all contests — a 6-3 victory in Game 5 of the 2015 ALDS best remembered for Jose Bautista’s bat flip; and the 5-2, 11-inning 2016 wild-card win over the Baltimore Orioles capped by Edwin Encarnacion’s walk-off homer.

Monday night, this group of Blue Jays get their turn.

“I've prepared since the first game of the series, I always put in my head, like, if I lose this game I'm going home. That's the way I take it, that's the way I do for every single game,” Guerrero said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “Anything can happen in Game 7.”

Nine months and 172 games for the Blue Jays, 173 for the Mariners, all come down to this.