SEATTLE — Zach McKinstry stepped into the box with two outs in the top of the 11th inning. The lefty hitter was looking for anything to score first baseman Spencer Torkelson. Up at the plate facing right handed reliever Carlos Vargas, McKinstry got a cookie — a 100-mile-per-hour fastball driven right in the 3-4 hole to get Torkelson home.
“Silencing a crowd, there’s probably no better feeling,” he said, according to ESPN. “It’s a special feeling, especially because it’s not easy when the crowd’s insanely loud.”
That would be the deciding factor, as the Seattle Mariners now find themselves down 1-0 in the ALDS to the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers have been on the road for the past two weeks and have held their own — including a Wild Card series win against Cleveland. They are 3-1 in those games and are only giving up 1.33 runs per game in wins.
The Mariners are looking to get their offense going. They had six hits in Game 1, but only two batters got the hits. Power-hitting catcher Cal Raleigh and outfielder Julio Rodriguez both went 3-for-5 in the game, but Rodriguez had both RBIs on the day for the Mariners — featuring the first home run by a Mariner at home in the playoffs since Game 2 of the 2001 ALCS.
Raleigh’s day was quiet, even with the 3-hit game, with all of them being singles. However, he was a key part in the Mariners’ second run of the game, advancing Randy Arozarena to third in the sixth inning with Rodriguez driving in Arozarena in the next at-bat.
On the mound for both teams is a clash of titans. For Seattle, it is the veteran pitcher Luis Castillo. They acquired him at the trade deadline in 2022 from the Cincinnati Reds for high-leverage situations like this.
He has faced off against Detroit twice this season. One was at the start of this season, when he threw seven strong innings, giving up 5 hits and two earned runs. The second game was a little worse, only going five innings, giving up six hits for three earned runs.
On the other side is a dangerous pitcher for the Tigers — last year’s American League Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal. In two games against Seattle, he has given up seven earned runs, two home runs but has struck out 13 Mariners’ batters. Skubal is coming off a dominant performance against Cleveland, where he had 14 strikeouts in the game — a Tigers club playoff record. With a team that is top 10 in the league in strikeouts, that looks like a recipe for disaster for the Mariners.
Both pitchers went against each other twice in the regular season, with Castillo beating out Skubal both times. The Mariners aim to win their first home playoff game in 24 years. The Tigers look to be only one game away from the ALCS. First pitch is tonight at 8:03.
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