Mariners provide both unstoppable forces and immovable objects in 8-4 extra innings win over Blue Jays

Mariners take wild one over Jays in 12 innings

Today’s game was a game of unstoppable forces vs. immovable objects—

—no, not like that. Although yes, also like that. Unstoppable force: the ultra-aggressive Blue Jays, who have the third-lowest strikeout rate in baseball and put the ball in play on their uber-fast turf. Immovable object: Logan Gilbert, who has the second-highest K/9 in baseball. Who will win? The answer, as always, is the unstoppable march of time.

True to form, the Blue Jays were ultra-aggressive against Logan Gilbert, making him pay when he came on the plate against them. Toronto pulled out to an early lead thanks to a Vlad Guerrero Jr. double on the third pitch of the ballgame, a 96 mph sinker that might have been a single for the slow-footed Vlad, but Miles Mastrobuoni struggled to field the ball on the bouncy Rogers Centre turf. Anthony Santander followed that up with an RBI single, shooting a well-located slider through that fast turf, and Andrés Gimenez followed him with another double, another location mistake from Gilbert with 97 on the plate. Gilbert was able to navigate out of trouble, striking out the free-swinging George Springer on three pitches and getting the less-free-swinging Alejandro Kirk swinging over a splitter, but the Mariners found themselves in an early hole.

The Mariners hitters were equally aggressive with Blue Jays starter José Berríos, but much less successful. Berríos spun a ton of weak contact on the ground and in the air as the Mariners hitters got themselves out quickly; his pitch count was 39 at the end of the third inning, with a Luke Raley walk the only mar on his record the first time through the order.

Meanwhile, Logan Gilbert had his most taxing inning yet in the bottom of the third, having to work around a leadoff walk to Guerrero Jr., a long seven-pitch battle with Gimenez that ended in a single, and Kirk getting hit by a splitter that I thought he swung at. With two outs and the bases loaded, Gilbert victimized rookie Alan Roden on four pitches, all sliders, for his biggest strikeout of the day, and some big emotion from the normally reserved Gilbert:

The Mariners had an opportunity to make a momentum-swing in the bottom of the inning: Cal Raleigh checked in with the Mariners’ first hit of the day, scorching a ball deep enough in the hole that even perpetual Gold Glover Andrés Giménez didn’t have a play on it; Raley then worked his second walk of the day, but the hitters behind him again couldn’t cash in. Whoever set DMo’s bat to “pop-ups” mode, please reset it to “line drives,” thank you.

There was then a weird moment where José Berríos appeared to say something to Cal as the inning ended, and the benches briefly cleared. Logan Gilbert came back out and struck out his first two hitters, looking like he was going to post his first clean inning of the day; instead, he fell behind Bo Bichette and issued a walk to the free-swinging Bichette, before coming back to strike out Guerrero.

Ben Williamson has had an incredibly impressive first week as a Mariner, and that’s only continued in this series. He led off the fifth with the first extra-base hit against Berríos, smoking a line-drive double into left field. J.P. Crawford followed with a walk, and Mastrobuoni sacrificed the two into scoring position, setting up Blue Jays killer Cal Raleigh:

There is no more unstoppable force against the Blue Jays than Cal Raleigh, and maybe Berríos was expressing some team-wide frustration in the player whose picture is likely on a very large dartboard in the Blue Jays clubhouse.

“Sometimes these things do fire you up a little bit,” said Dan Wilson postgame, “but I think our guys do a really good job of staying in the moment. That was a big at-bat for us, with a couple of guys on, and to be able to paint the line down there on the right field side, that’s just a great at-bat. Sometimes those moments you have when the emotions flare it can go the other way too, but Cal was able to calm himself down and get the job done.”

John Schneider (derogatory) was so mad about this, he challenged it and cost the Blue Jays their challenge for the rest of the game. But surely this game would just go the regulation nine, right?

Finally given a lead, Logan Gilbert attempted to get through the fifth, carrying a bloated pitch count due to the pesky Blue Jays and their nonstop traffic on the bases. Gilbert couldn’t quite escape the fifth, giving up a single to the pesky pesky Giménez and then battling Kirk with two outs and his pitch count near 100, giving up a tough-luck single on a good splitter below the zone that tied the game. Collin Snider came in and cleaned up the mess, getting an easy ground ball where Roden ran down the line hard and directly into the immovable object that is Rowdy Tellez, bouncing off him like Wile E. Coyote running into a painted tunnel on the side of a mountain. Rookie 0, Immovable Object 1.

Even with the short outing, the Blue Jays struck out against Gilbert more than they have against any starter this season, nine times. Obviously, Gilbert would happily trade some of those strikeouts for more length in the game, but it’s a testament to the nastiness of his stuff; his 19 whiffs would lead baseball today except for Mackenzie Gore going god-mode against the Rockies, which should not count. Here’s all his strikeouts today if you want to watch them all in one place.

With Gilbert out of the game, the Blue Jays took the lead against Snider, working again in the sixth. A leadoff single up the middle by Ernie Clement came around to score thanks to some small ball, as Bichette finally checked in with a single that pushed Clement, who had taken second on a sac bunt, around to score. Snider was able to strike out Guerrero Jr. and get Santander to fly out to limit the damage at just one run, setting up Ben Williamson to notch yet another first:

That homer was hit at exactly the same exit velocity (102.9) as his double. Williamson isn’t known as a power threat, but he is strong—he hit some lasers in Tacoma—and when he gets himself into good counts, he can really do damage.

Carlos Vargas, last seen melting down in Cincinnati, was given the eighth to face the bottom of the lineup. He gave up another yet up-the-middle single to Clement, who is probably making Dan Wilson deeply jealous during this series, but got out of the inning unscathed when Raleigh made another perfect throw to cut down Clement trying to steal, featuring an excellent tag by Dylan Moore on Clement’s shoetops.

The Mariners had a chance to go ahead in the ninth inning against Chad Green, as J.P. Crawford and Julio Rodríguez—who had come into the game as a pinch-hitter on what was supposed to be an off-day for him—hit back-to-back two-out singles, but Mitch Garver, also in as a pinch-hitter, struck out to end the threat.

Dan Wilson opted to send Vargas back out to face the top of the Blue Jays lineup in the bottom of the ninth, and three pitches later, Bichette was standing on second and Guerrero Jr. on first. Vargas, to his credit, stayed true to the zone, challenging the aggressive Blue Jays hitters, and got three quick outs to push the game to extras (thanks partially to a sure-handed play on a slow roller at third by Williamson, today’s obvious Sun Hat Award winner).

Rowdy Tellez illustrated the duality of man in extras, being both a very stoppable force, as he grounded into a double play to strand the bases loaded in the 10th, and then moving many objects in the form of Blue Jays fans filtering out of the Rogers Centre after he came up with a game-breaking hit in the 12th. But more on that later. First we must give Eduard Bazardo his flowers, for working a scoreless bottom of the 10th, and then give a slightly larger bouquet to Andrés Muñoz, who came out after the bottom of the order went down 1-2-3 in the top of the 11th and shut down the top of the Blue Jays lineup, who had been living on base all day.

That set up the Mariners to finally surge ahead in the 12th. With the bases loaded, Randy Arozarena made up for a slow day at the plate for him with a go-ahead RBI single against reliever Jacob Barnes, who was grunting so loudly I could hear him from my house in Seattle.

Then Rowdy, who walked to the plate carrying a -.502 WPA at the time, took one big difference-making swing.

With that comfortable lead, Casey Lawrence was able to come out and shut things down, completing the 1-2 punch of former Blue Jays; Rowdy even caught the final out, capping off a strong day in the field for him again, and yet another improbable road win for the Mariners on this long trip. Chaos remains the most unstoppable force of all.