The Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners offered up pure baseball theatre on Friday night during Game 5 of the American League Division Series. Though, as the action was unfolding, the Toronto Blue Jays chose too refer to a diffrent sport while describing the clubS likely thoughts in a post on its official X account.
The GIF, which showed two boxers trading blows while the referee stood back and enjoyed the show, aptly described what was happening.
The Tigers and Mariners played for 4 hours, 58 minutes at T-mobile Park in Seattle before Jorge Polanco’s single to right field off tommy Kahnle decided the contest, 3-2, and sent the crowd of 47,025 into a frenzy. The 15-inning contest set a record for the longest winner-take-all game in MLB history.”We’ve talked about the fight all year long,” Seattle manager Dan Wilson told reporters afterward. “To go 15 innings tonight, 15 rounds, so to speak, and to come out on top, that sure feels good.”
Up next for the M’s, following a champagne festivity in their home clubhouse, is a flight in the early hours on Saturday to Toronto, where they’ll meet the Blue Jays in an AL Championship Series matchup that begins with Game 1 on Sunday at 8:03 p.m. ET (Sportsnet and sportsnet+).
After such a hard-fought win over the Tigers, it’s hard to ignore the immediate ramifications for the Mariners, who used seven starting pitchers to navigate 45 outs. The collection of arms was incredibly successful, allowing just two runs on eight hits over 15 innings, with four walks and 17 strikeouts. Yet, five of the six relievers logged more than one inning, and, in total, the staff tossed 209 pitches while Seattle’s superstar catcher Cal Raleigh squatted down behind the plate for each one, illustrating just how demanding the position is.
Right-hander George Kirby started the game and was dominant before being removed by Wilson in the sixth inning at just 66 pitches. Kirby had allowed a leadoff double to Javy Baez before the manager elected to bring in southpaw Gabe Speier to face the left-handed hitting Kerry Carpenter, who already had two hits off kirby.