The Toronto Blue Jays kept their season alive on Sunday, Oct. 19, forcing a decisive Game 7 in their American League Championship Series with the Seattle Mariners thanks to a 6-2 win. The Blue Jays smacked two home runs, mowed through the top of the Mariners potent lineup and now will have a chance to punch the ticket to their first World Series appearance in more than three decades in front of their home crowd on Monday night.
Here are the winners and losers from Game 6.
Winner: Trey Yesavage
Rookie pitcher Trey Yesavage looked thoroughly outmatched during Game 2 of the NLCS, pummeled for five runs in just the sixth start of his big league career. Yesavage bounced back in a big way with the Blue Jays on the brink of elimination, firing 5.2 innings of two-run ball that were enough to give him the win.
The 22-year-old right-hander fanned seven batters across 87 pitches and only ran into trouble at the end of his day — and with a comfortable five run lead — giving up two runs in the sixth inning. He deserves little blame for the second of those runs, as Mariners’ speedster Randy Arozarena got a massive jump at first base on a 3-2 count, coming around to score on a blooper single that trickled into foul territory.
The Blue Jays needed a big game out of Yesavage, and the young pitcher delivered.
Winner: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
As Vladimir Guerrero Jr. goes, so do the Blue Jays. The hulking first baseman hit his sixth home run of the postseason on Sunday night, and Toronto has won all but one of the games in which he’s cleared the fences. His latest home run was a 102.6 mile per hour no-doubter that put the Blue Jays ahead 5-0.
Vladdy Jr. also added an insurance run in the seventh inning after wearing a pitch, coming around to score on a wild pitch and subsequent throwing error from catcher Cal Raleigh — the big man can do it all — then added a single the following frame. He’s now slashing .462/.532/1.000 this postseason with more extra base hits (10) than strikeouts (seven).
Loser: Top of the Mariners’ Order
The top three spots in Seattle’s lineup went a combined 0-for-11 and grounded into two inning-ending double plays, including one with the bases loaded from MVP candidate Cal Raleigh, who struck out in each of his other three plate appearances.
The rest of the Mariners’ batting order pulled their weight, with each of spots four through nine reaching base at least once (and four of them twice), but they had little chance of keeping up with the Blue Jays without the contributions of their big bats.
While in the field, Julio Rodríguez and Cal Raleigh both committed errors that helped Blue Jays runs to cross.
Loser: Logan Gilbert
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. chased Mariners starting pitcher Logan Gilbert from the game on the third pitch of the fifth inning, crushing a home run to ring him up for his fifth run of the evening. Only four of those runs were earned, courtesy of a second inning error from Rodríguez, but Gilbert still gave up plenty of contact that allowed Toronto to drag out rallies.
The right-hander has now allowed six earned runs across seven innings in the ALCS, as he also melted down early in Game 2. Allowing seven hits to just three strikeouts with a chance to put Seattle in the World Series for the first time in franchise history, Gilbert wasn’t up to the task.
