Their champagne remains on ice.
Their ticket to the American League Championship Series (ALCS) remains unpunched.
Their dream lives — but for how long?
The Seattle Mariners entered Wednesday’s ALDS Game 4 with the league championship series in their sights for the first time since 2001. They stormed to an early, 3-0 lead over the Detroit Tigers behind four scoreless innings from right-hander Bryce Miller, silencing a Comerica Park crowd that could sense elimination.
The stars have aligned at every step of the way in this magical Mariners season. Their starting rotation answered the call as one of the league’s best. Their bullpen is one of baseball’s nastiest. And their catcher has been superhuman, a home run-hitting machine with 60 blasts and zero passed balls. But for as improbable as it seemed through four innings of Wednesday’s potential clinch game, their opponents rose from the ashes — scoring nine unanswered runs that stunned a Seattle team seemingly destined to play for their first league pennant in more than two decades.
Detroit’s Riley Greene launched a go-ahead home run that led off the sixth, and the Tigers avoided elimination with a 9-3 win over the Mariners in Game 4 of the ALDS on Wednesday.
The stage is set for a winner-take-all Game 5 on Friday night at T-Mobile Park. And Tigers ace Tarik Skubal looms, set to make his second start in as many postseason games in the Pacific Northwest.
“One of the things our guys do the best is they bounce back. We’re going to do that,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “No better place to do that than (back) home.
“We’ll do what we need to do.”
Miller cruised early, flashing his trademark four-seamer and retiring nine of Detroit’s first 10 hitters. He was everything the Mariners needed him to be, holding the Tigers and their fans in check in a game that had more at stake for the franchise than any game before it since 2001.
Seattle’s 27-year-old right-hander surrendered a leadoff single to Tigers 1B Spencer Torkelson in the fifth inning. Miller then induced Zach McKinstry’s ground-ball force out at second, but Tigers catcher Dillon Dingler followed with a one-out double stung to the left-center gap that rolled to the wall and easily scored McKinstry from first. Mariners manager Dan Wilson emerged from the dugout with a 3-1 lead and pointed to the bullpen, the end of Miller’s valiant outing as one of the league’s best relievers warmed.
“It’s the best I’ve felt in a long time,” Miller told reporters outside of the visiting clubhouse in Detroit. “I thought I threw the ball really well. Fastball was playing really good, the splitter was good. These past few weeks, I was working on getting the off-speed in the zone, and I was doing that.
“I thought I attacked hitters pretty good, and I was in the zone a lot. I don’t know. Regular season, I think I go six or seven innings there and we’re in a good spot. But yeah, I was happy with my outing.”
When left-hander Gabe Speier relieved Miller, Detroit manager A.J. Hinch countered with pinch-hitter Jahmai Jones, a right-handed bat in place of Parker Meadows. The decision paid instant dividends as Jones roped the first pitch he saw to left field, scoring Dingler and slashing Detroit’s deficit to one, 3-2.
Tigers shortstop Javier Baez followed with a game-tying, RBI single to center field. Speier limited the damage to three, but Detroit had stolen the momentum when their season was at its bleakest.
Wilson stuck with Speier in the sixth for a lefty-lefty matchup with Detroit’s Greene, who golfed a low 1-0 slider an estimated 454 feet to right field for Wednesday’s biggest swing. It was the logical move on paper; Speier had limited left-handed hitters to a .179 batting average and .516 OPS in the regular season.
“He’s thrown the ball incredibly well all season long,” Wilson said of Speier, who had allowed just one earned run across his previous 12 innings. “They were able to get to him on a couple of pitches. It looked like they were very aggressive on him, and able to get some balls into the outfield.
“They were just able to get to our bullpen. It’s been such a strength.”
Wilson pivoted to right-hander Eduard Bazardo in the sixth, immediately tagged by Torkelson’s double and McKinstry’s RBI single that extended Detroit’s lead, 5-3. With two outs, Wenceel Perez doubled and Baez cranked a two-run homer to left that sent Comerica Park into mayhem.
Detroit’s Gleyber Torres added an opposite-field, solo home run to right field off Seattle’s Carlos Vargas in the seventh.
Baez’s RBI groundout scored McKinstry in the eighth and pushed Detroit’s lead to six, 9-3.
Miller’s final line: 4 ⅓ innings, four hits, two earned runs, no walks, and two strikeouts. He exited with a two-run lead before the bullpen allowed eight more.
“The postseason is about momentum,” Wilson said. “They were able to turn the table there and get it. We weren’t able to get back, and they were able to score again and spread the lead a little bit.
“It’s up to us now to turn the table back. Get back home, bounce back, and get in front of the home fans and feel their energy.”
A defining moment the Mariners wish they had back: Seattle loaded the bases with no outs but mustered only one run in the fourth, stalled by Victor Robles’ double-play grounder and J.P. Crawford’s inning-ending foulout that kept Detroit’s hopes alive.
Seattle scored first for a fourth-consecutive postseason game when Josh Naylor doubled and Dominic Canzone smacked an RBI single to right field, lifting the Mariners in front by the second inning, 1-0. Robles’ bases-loaded double play in the fourth doubled the lead in the worst of ways.
Cal Raleigh’s RBI single scored Randy Arozarena in the fifth, building a three-run lead that pushed the Mariners’ odds of winning Game 4 to a high of 85.1 percent, per ESPN Analytics.
Wilson declined to name a Game 5 starter at his postgame press conference in Detroit. The leading candidates are George Kirby and Luis Castillo, who started Games 1 and 2 for the Mariners, respectively. Bryan Woo (pec) was kept off of Seattle’s ALDS roster and Logan Gilbert threw Tuesday, an inadequate amount of rest ahead of Friday night.
The larger question that will decide this back-and-forth ALDS: Can the Mariners beat Skubal, arguably the best pitcher on the planet, for a fourth time this season? Seattle won both of the left-hander’s regular-season starts against the Mariners, plus Sunday’s 3-2 win over the Tigers at T-Mobile Park in Game 2.
In 31 starts this season, the Seattle University alum and favorite to repeat his AL Cy Young Award went 13-6 with a 2.21 ERA and 241 strikeouts — both career-bests. Skubal’s 0.891 WHIP (walks + hits per innings pitched) led the major leagues.
Friday’s first pitch in front of a rocking T-Mobile Park crowd is scheduled for 5:08 p.m. PDT and televised on FOX.
“We’ve got a lot of confidence in this clubhouse, and I’ve got no doubt we’re going to bounce back,” Miller said. “(We’ll) go to Game 5, and we’re going to have some fun in Seattle.
“It’s going to be electric. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I look forward to it.
“It’s more fun to win at home anyways.”
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