GUERRERO, SPRINGER SPARKS BLUE JAYS, WHO HIT 5 HRS AND CUT MARINERS’ ALCS LEAD TO 2-1 WITH 13-4 ROUT
SEATTLE (AP) — Tired in Toronto, the Blue Jays slugged in Seattle.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer woke up Toronto as the Blue Jays hit five home runs to rebound from an early deficit, routing the Mariners 13-4 Wednesday night and closing to 2-1 in the AL Championship Series.
Toronto had 18 hits — all within the first three pitches of each at-bat.
“If they give us a first pitch, the pitch that we’re looking for, we’re going to attack and we’re going to be aggressive,” Guerrero said.
Seattle starter George Kirby gave up eight of the hits.
“I wasn’t really executing when they got the guys on base,” Kirby said. “And they’re really aggressive when that happens. They made some good swings.”
Julio Rodríguez’s two-run, first-inning homer off former Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber put Seattle ahead and stirred thoughts of a possible sweep in the best-of-seven matchup by a team seeking its first World Series appearance.
Andrés Giménez then sparked the comeback with a tying, two-run homer in a five-run third against Kirby.
Springer, Guerrero, Alejandro Kirk and Addison Barger also went deep as the Blue Jays totaled 2,004 feet of homers.
Guerrero had four hits, falling a triple short of the cycle, after going 0 for 7 as the Blue Jays lost the first two games at home.
“No one expected us to win the division, no one expected us to be here, and I think the guys take that to heart,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “I said it when we left Toronto: I hope we find some slug in the air out here. Maybe we did.”
In the 2-3-2 format, teams that lost the first two games at home and won Game 3 on the road have captured the series three of 11 times.
A crowd of 46,471 at T-Mobile Park for Seattle’s first home ALCS game since 2001 saw the teams combine to match the postseason record of eight combined home runs, set by the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis in Game 3 of the 2015 NL Division Series and matched by the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston in Game 2 of the 2017 World Series.
Giménez hadn’t homered since Aug. 27 before his drive off a Kirby fastball.
“Definitely something changed for our offense,” Giménez said. “We come tonight with a mentality to attack.”
Kirby allowed eight runs, eight hits and two walks, taking the loss.
“The first couple innings I thought he was dynamite,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “This is a team that’s going to hurt you if you make mistakes on the plate. It looked like there were a couple that they were able to get to.”
Kirby’s run-scoring wild pitch put Toronto ahead 3-2 and Daulton Varsho followed with a two-run double.
Springer homered in the fourth, tying Bernie Williams for fourth on the career list with his 22nd postseason homer. Guerrero hit his fourth of the postseason for a 7-2 lead on the first pitch of the fifth.
Kirk added a three-run homer in the sixth and is hitting .413 (19 for 46) with eight RBIs in 14 games at T-Mobile Park.
Bieber, who got the win, pitched shutout ball after the first and wound up allowing four hits in six innings — the longest outing by a Blue Jays starter in seven postseason games.
“Obviously didn’t start the way he would have wanted to, but that’s pretty much who he is,” Springer said. “He can battle back from anything.”
After the Blue Jays opened a 12-2 lead, Randy Arozarena connected in the eighth against Yariel Rodríguez for his first home run since Sept. 9 and Cal Raleigh, who led the major leagues with 60 home runs during the regular season, followed three pitches later with his third of the postseason.
“If there’s one thing we’ve done since I’ve been here, we bounce back together well as a team,” Mariners reliever Caleb Ferguson said. “We respond well when we kind of get smacked in the face a little bit.”
Up next
Seattle RHP Luis Castillo, who pitched 1 1/3 innings of relief against Detroit in Game 5 of the Division Series, starts Thursday against RHP Max Scherzer. The 41-year-old, a three-time Cy Young Award winner, is 0-3 over eight postseason starts since the 2019 World Series opener and hasn’t started since Sept. 24.
REPORT: YANKEES SS ANTHONY VOLPE UNDERGOES SHOULDER SURGERY
New York Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe underwent surgery on his left shoulder to repair a torn labrum, the New York Post reported Wednesday.
The operation was reportedly performed Tuesday by team doctor Chris Ahmad.
Per the report, Volpe, 24, could be ready to play at the start of the 2026 regular season.
The shoulder had been bothersome since Volpe landed on it after attempting to make a diving play in a game against the Tampa Bay Rays on May 3.
He had a cortisone shot and played through the injury but aggravated it early September. He had another shot and missed four games.
Volpe hit just .212 but hit 19 home runs and drove in 72 runs, both career highs, in 153 games.
“We grinded the whole way until today,” Volpe said of playing through the injury after the Yankees were eliminated in the American League Division Series. “I know I could have done a lot better.”
In the postseason, he was 5-for-26 batting (.192) with a home run and two RBIs.
In mid-September, general manager Brian Cashman gave his endorsement of Volpe, despite a drop-off in batting average and a lack of consistency.
“Yeah, I think he’s a good player,” Cashman said, per the Post. “This year notwithstanding, he’s got a lot of abilities that are positive. He’s had a tough stretch, but I think he’s someone we can count on, and we believe in.
“But acknowledging at the same time, this isn’t the season we expected or he expected. But that doesn’t change our viewpoint of what he’s capable of. I think he’s a really talented guy and I think he has a chance to be a positive impact on us.”
MAX SCHERZER EAGER FOR JAYS POSTSEASON DEBUT IN ALCS GAME 4
SEATTLE — This is why the Toronto Blue Jays signed Max Scherzer in the offseason.
The three-time Cy Young Award winner is set to take the mound Thursday night as the Blue Jays try to even the best-of-seven American League Championship Series against the Seattle Mariners at two games apiece.
“I love it. This is what you play for,” the 41-year-old right-hander said. “You want to have the ball in this situation, you want to be pitching in the postseason.
“Every game in the postseason’s a must-win, so when you step on the field in these situations, you got to bring it, you got to have your ‘A’ game, you got to really be on top of your stuff. So they’re going to be as prepared as heck to go against me and try to beat me, and I got to do the same and find a way to navigate it.”
He will hope to get as much support on Thursday as the Blue Jays supplied for starter Shane Bieber on Wednesday. Andres Gimenez, George Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Alejandro Kirk and Addison Barger homered as Toronto clobbered Seattle 13-4 in Game 3. Julio Rodriguez, Randy Arozarena and Cal Raleigh went deep for the hosts.
Scherzer, who was left off the Blue Jays’ AL Division Series roster because of a neck ailment, will be making his first appearance since Sept. 24.
He went 5-5 with a 5.19 ERA in 17 regular-season starts, missing nearly three months due to an inflamed right thumb.
“I don’t want to sit here and go backwards and blame injuries for any way I pitched,” Scherzer said. “When I take the mound, I take the mound, and I have the attitude (that) I’m going to win no matter what.”
That’s the Scherzer his teammates have come to know and love.
“I expect Max to be Max in the aspect of just go out there and execute at a very, very high level,” fellow right-hander Chris Bassitt said.
Scherzer is 0-3 with a 5.00 ERA over his past eight postseason appearances since helping the Houston Astros win the World Series title in 2019. However, he has had success against the Mariners, going 4-2 with a 2.97 ERA in nine career starts against them.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider hopes the time off will be beneficial for Scherzer.
“He kept himself ready to throw, obviously, with a number of pitches, but I think probably more so than even he was leading on to you or anyone, he needed a little bit of a break to feel good physically,” Schneider said. “It’s easy to trust a guy who has been through what he’s been through and done what he’s done.”
The Mariners feel much the same way about their Game 4 starter, Luis Castillo. The right-hander went 11-8 with a 3.54 ERA in 32 regular-season starts, and he is 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA in the postseason.
Castillo pitched a total of six scoreless innings of one-hit ball against the Detroit Tigers in the AL Division Series, including coming out of the bullpen to get the victory in the decisive Game 5, which went 15 innings.
While Scherzer struggled down the stretch, going 0-3 with a 9.95 ERA in his final five starts before being shut down, Castillo went at least six innings in each of his last four regular-season starts, allowing no more than one run in any of them.
“Yeah, I’ve always said it, it’s a long season in baseball, there’s highs and lows,” he said. “You always have to go out there, keep your head up and just wait for those good moments to come. To me, it came at the right time, just because I knew it was an important part that needed to happen. For me, it was just kind of the start, you know, of something good to come.”
Castillo is 2-3 with a 4.68 ERA in six career starts against the Blue Jays, including a 1-1 mark with a 7.20 ERA in two outings this season. He also won at Toronto in Game 1 of a 2022 AL wild-card series, when he threw 7 1/3 inning shutout innings.
The bullpen options behind Castillo could include Mariners ace Bryan Woo. The team leader with 15 wins and a 2.94 ERA in the regular season, Woo has been sidelined since mid-September due to an inflamed pectoral muscle.
The Mariners left him off the AL Division Series roster but added him back for the ALCS, though he has yet to pitch. Woo threw batting practice on Monday, then sat in the bullpen during the Wednesday game.
“A good chance for him tonight to just get out there and get acclimated in case that’s a place where he comes out of later in the series,” Seattle manager Dan Wilson said. “So a chance to just get comfortable out there and see what it’s like. So that’s really what it was about tonight for Bryan.”
METS BEGIN REBUILDING COACHING STAFF
The New York Mets announced two additions to manager Carlos Mendoza’s staff on Wednesday.
Kai Correa is the new bench coach and Jeff Albert will serve as director of major league hitting.
On Oct. 3, the Mets purged the coaching staff after tumbling from first place in the National League East all the way out of the postseason picture.
New York fired pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, hitting coaches Jeremy Barnes and Eric Chavez, and third base coach Mike Sarbaugh. Bench coach John Gibbons resigned and catching coach Glenn Sherlock retired. Assistant pitching coach Desi Druschel and bullpen coach Jose Rosado were granted permission to speak to other teams.
Correa, 37, was the Cleveland Guardians’ field coordinator/director of defense, baserunning and game strategy this season.
Albert, 44, spent the past three seasons as the Mets’ director of hitting development.
The Mets were 21 games over .500 on June 12 with the best record in baseball (45-24) and had a season-high 5 1/2-game lead in the division that day. By the time the All-Star break arrived, New York was 55-42 and trailed the Philadelphia Phillies by 1/2 game.
A 28-37 record following the break, including an eight-game skid from Sept. 6-13, left the Mets at 83-79 — 13 games behind the Phillies and out of the wild-card race.
DODGERS’ TYLER GLASNOW EAGER TO KEEP BREWERS’ BATS QUIET IN GAME 3
LOS ANGELES — After charging through America’s Dairyland with a pair of beefed-up pitching performances, the Dodgers play host to the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.
Six victories away from becoming the first team to win back-to-back World Series titles in 25 years, the Dodgers now get three home games against the Brewers in order to produce two victories for an NL pennant.
Their 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series came on the back of pitching performances from left-hander Blake Snell in Game 1 and right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2. The duo combined to allow one run on four hits over 17 of the 18 innings at Milwaukee to open the series.
Up next is right-hander Tyler Glasnow, who has made one start in the Dodgers’ 7-1 playoff run so far. The L.A.-area product made an impression by allowing two hits over six scoreless innings in Game 4 of the NL Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies, when the Dodgers clinched their spot in the NLCS.
“Right now, all four (starting pitchers) are in a really good head space,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, after also announcing right-hander Shohei Ohtani as his Game 4 starter. “Physically they’re sound. And you feel good about those guys starting a game and pushing them. And they’re prepared for this.”
Less productive has been a shaky bullpen and the top of the order that includes three MVPs in Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. That trio is 4-for-24 (.167) in the series with one home run and three RBIs.
Teoscar Hernandez and Max Muncy carried the offense with home runs in a 5-1 victory in Game 2. Muncy now has the most postseason home runs in Dodgers history with 14, breaking a tie with Justin Turner and Corey Seager.
“I know from our standpoint offensively there are still some moments that we can take advantage of,” Muncy said. “I still think there’s another gear in there. But at the end of the day, we’re winning games.”
Brewers manager Pat Murphy declined to name a starter for Game 3 and instead labeled it an all-hands-on-deck situation.
“We’re more depleted than the Dodgers are, but none of that matters,” Murphy said. “It’s about playing Thursday. Everybody will be available, with the exception of (Game 2 starter) Freddy (Peralta). And we’ll attack them.”
And yet, pitching might be the least of Milwaukee’s problems after six members of the Brewers’ staff combined to give up two runs in Game 1 and Peralta was charged with three runs in 5 2/3 innings of Game 2.
On offense, the Brewers not only have just five hits in the series, they have struck out 18 times and have just one at-bat in two games with a runner in scoring position. Jackson Chourio led off Game 2 with a first-pitch home run, but Milwaukee had just two more hits the rest of the way.
“We just have to continue to battle and find a way to get the offense going,” said the Brewers’ Christian Yelich, an L.A.-area native, who is 0-for-7 with a walk and three strikeouts in the NLCS. “I have to be better. We have to be better. Just facts. … Be ready to battle in Game 3.”
In going 6-0 against the Dodgers during the regular season, the Brewers did win two games started by Glasnow in July. But they scored just one earned run off him in 11 innings, with a combined 11 strikeouts.
