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The Seattle Mariners can advance to their first World Series in franchise history while the Toronto Blue Jays aim to force a Game 7 at home as the 2025 ALCS heads back to Rogers Centre for Game 6.
Follow live for play-by-play updates and real-time expert analysis from The Athletic’s team of MLB writers from pregame through the final out and beyond.
There was some sad news in the baseball world before the game today. Jesus Montero, who was a Mariners catcher for four years, died at age 35 as a result of complications from a traffic accident in Venezuela several weeks ago. Montero was a Mariner from 2012 through 2015, and hit 15 homers as their everyday backstop in 2012. “Our hearts go out to his family, friends and loved ones,” the Mariners said in a statement.
Manager Dan Wilson, himself a former Mariners catcher, said of Montero’s death, “It's obviously a sad moment. You always hate to hear that, and especially someone so young.”
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The velocities on all three of Trey Yesavage’s pitches in his Game 2 start were down. His four seam fastball averaged 94.1, compared to 94.7. In amped up playoff atmospheres, that number tends to go up. He allowed five earned runs in four innings to start Toronto’s 10-3 loss to the Mariners.
Neither he nor manager John Schneider seemed overly concerned, however, and Yesavage explained the dip by saying,
💬 “I just wasn't connected in my delivery as much. So just keeping everything in place and firing when it needs to fire, I think that will get me back on the right track.”
The rookie will get the ball in this do-or-die start tonight.
The Athletic has live coverage of Mariners vs. Blue Jays from Game 6 of the American League Championship Series
It was the 14th inning of the winner-takes-all Game 5 of the American League Division series, and Steven Blackburn, a diehard Seattle Mariners fan, couldn’t contain his emotions any longer. The stress of the tie game between his Mariners and the Detroit Tigers was starting to take its toll.
Blackburn and the rest of the 47,000 fans at sold-out T-Mobile Park had been standing, yelling and nervously watching for 4 1/2 hours as the game grinded into an extra-inning standstill. So the 26-year-old Blackburn got out his phone and started sending messages to the woman most credited with the Mariners’ September surge and nearly unprecedented playoff run: a witch named Luna who sells custom spells on Etsy.
The first five games of both the NLCS and ALCS, a constant theme emerged — despite raucous home crowds in Toronto, Milwaukee and Seattle, the home teams in those series went 0-5. (It’s only fair to note that the Dodgers then won Games 3 and 4 of the NLCS at home, and the Mariners bounced back to win Game 5 in Seattle after dropping Game 4.)
If the Mariners win tonight, they will have claimed three of the needed four ALCS wins in the hostile environment of Rogers Centre.
All in all, home teams are 3-6 in the LCS round so far — and as Tyler Kepner points out in his piece below, 26-34 in the last 60 World Series games played in front of home crowds. Here’s more from Tyler:
📝 “If you’ve been paying attention lately, it’s no surprise. In the MLB postseason, home-field advantage has never mattered less.”
GO FURTHER
Smacked down in Seattle, the Mariners reinforce an October truth: There’s no place like road
Once again, the Dodgers are sitting in Los Angeles after an early clincher not only unsure of who their next opponent will be, but who will get home-field advantage in their next series.
The Dodgers won 93 games in the regular season, one fewer than the Blue Jays — so if Toronto wins tonight and tomorrow night, Shohei Ohtani and his teammates will head north for Game 1 at the Rogers Centre on Friday, and the Blue Jays will have home-field advantage in the series.
But the Mariners only won 90 games, meaning if they win either tonight or tomorrow, Seattle will head to Los Angeles for their first-ever World Series game on Friday, and the Dodgers will have home-field advantage in the series.
After getting hit in the knee during Game 5, Blue Jays George Springer is back in the lineup for Game 6 of the ALCS as the DH. The team did a CT scan, and Springer is a little sore. Barring a very serious injury, Springer was going to be playing no matter what, according to Blue Jays manager John Schneider.
💬: “It was going to take a whole lot more, I think, to keep him out of the lineup. He was feeling better yesterday, feeling better today.
“I was checking in with him via text this morning. He basically told me to shut up. Did the same thing when he got in today.”
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If you’re reading to think about life after this series, here is the full World Series schedule:
Game 1: Friday
Game 2: Saturday
Game 3: Monday, Oct. 27
Game 4: Tuesday, Oct. 28
*Game 5: Wednesday, Oct. 29
*Game 6: Friday, Oct. 31
*Game 7: Saturday, Nov. 1
*if necessary
Late in the regular season, I was part of a group of writers tasked with finding a new way to write about Cal Raleigh’s insane year. How could we put into context a switch-hitting catcher hitting 60 home runs, putting up strong defensive metrics, and playing 159 games? It’s a combination that just doesn’t happen in today’s game. (Lest the regular-season numbers not impress you, Raleigh has four more homers and a .333/.435/.692 slash line this postseason.)
So, we decided: Let’s talk to a bunch of current and former catchers to see what they think. The result was this story by Zack Meisel and Cody Stavenhagen. It’s worth a read, but we’ll pull just a few of the quotes.
Royals catcher Salvador Pérez: 💬 “I think he’s the MVP of the American League. I have a lot of respect for Aaron Judge and I know he’s a good hitter, too, but to be a catcher and prepare the game plan, help the pitcher, catch well, throw well and hit 50-plus homers? Ha!”
Tigers catcher Jake Rogers: 💬 “Once you catch every day and you get about 30-40 under your belt, your body becomes kind of numb. You get really tired, but you don’t really feel like it. You feel like you can go forever. You get in the routine of things and you’re like, ‘OK, this is not that bad.’ And then at the end of the year, you’re like, ‘Holy s—, I’m the most tired I’ve ever been in my entire life.’”
Guardians catcher Austin Hedges: 💬 “Every inning you catch is making you a worse hitter. You don’t have your legs. You’re thinking a lot. You’re mentally exhausted. There are so many things that are taking away how hard hitting is, or at least challenging that. And for him to go out and play literally every single day and his off-days are DH days — he doesn’t get a day to just stop thinking about game-calling — it’s really, really special. For me, he’s MVP.”
Then-Rangers manager (and former catcher) Bruce Bochy: 💬 “I’ll show you how tough it is — look how many times it’s been done. It’s pretty incredible what he’s done. He’s a workhorse. It’s kind of an old-school thing. You look at Johnny Bench and Carlton Fisk and those guys. I’m sure he’s been beat up at times, too. Foul tips and things that go with catching every day. And to be able to do what he’s doing, it’s really incredible.”
Blue Jays starting pitcher José Berríos was seen throwing in left field ahead of Game 6. He hasn’t pitched since Sept. 24 due to elbow soreness, but an MRI revealed no structural damage. He was left off Toronto’s ALDS and ALCS rosters.
Even with Berríos back throwing, he’ll remain out for the rest of Toronto’s postseason, even if they progress to the World Series. Here is manager John Schneider on Berríos.
💬: “I think he’s just back to playing catch. We’ll kind of revisit everything when the off-season hits and kind of see what that looks like for him.”
It’s unfair to put decades of disappointment on the shoulders of 26 guys who had, basically, nothing to do with it. But the Mariners are the only franchise that’s never been to the World Series, and that context inevitably hangs on every pitch and every swing.
As Tyler Kepner wrote heading into the postseason, it doesn’t have to be an obligation. It can be an opportunity.
📝 “That is a tired theme around here, but historically speaking, it fits. No expansion club took longer than the Mariners to register a winning record, which finally came in Year 15. Now, in the 50th season of Major League Baseball in Seattle (including the one-and-done Pilots), the Mariners’ past is less a burden than an invitation to make history.”
Tyler’s story went on to quote Mr. Mariner himself, Alvin Davis, saying:
💬 “I feel like the players, even going back a few years now, they’re looking at it as a challenge — not, ‘Why are we being held responsible for 40-some years of clubs not being able to get it done?’ … They understand the opportunity that’s in front of them and they’re ready to lean into it.”
These Mariners are now one win away from the franchise’s first ever pennant.
Dominic Canzone is just 2-for-23 in the postseason with one walk and two singles. However, he gets the start tonight over Victor Robles, who is also struggling in his own right (3-for-26, five walks). Mariners manager Dan Wilson said it has to do with Blue Jays starting pitcher Trey Yesaavge being better against lefties, which is accurate (.161 BAA vs. lefties compared to .333 BAA vs. righties). However, Canzone is the left-handed batter.
💬: “We think the way Dom has swung the bat that he's got a good opportunity against Yesavage,” Wilson said, adding that Robles could be a late-inning sub.”
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The Athletic has live coverage of Mariners vs. Blue Jays from Game 6 of the American League Championship Series
The Los Angeles Dodgers earned themselves a breather. Their dominance this October – a 9-1 mark that includes a sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series — means that they can sit and watch to see who will join them in the 2025 World Series.
Who should they prefer?
Los Angeles ended the season in Seattle, sweeping the series even as they sought to rest their regulars and dial back workloads. The first game was effectively a bullpen game, while Tyler Glasnow threw three shutout innings in the second game and Clayton Kershaw, the retiring future Hall of Famer likely making his final MLB start, tossed 5 1/3 scoreless in the season finale. (Kershaw remains on the Dodgers’ playoff roster as a reliever.)
The Mariners were outscored 13-6 in that series.
The Mariners are seeking their first World Series appearance in their 49th season of existence. During that time, they finished below .500 30 times, and have only made the postseason six times — with five total series wins to show for it. Seattle has never played a win-and-in game for the World Series. Tonight is the biggest game in franchise history, and with that comes some emotions. Here’s what Mariners manager Dan Wilson said about how they’re handling that pressure.
💬: “The feeling in the clubhouse is good. I think we have said all along that there's a lot of work to be done and there's more work to be done. And that's the message. And these guys are well aware of that. And obviously, a big win coming out of Seattle there earlier, the feeling just continues to be, whether it was at the workout yesterday, just work to be done, more work to be done. So I think they're in a great frame of mind, they're focused, and they're ready to go, and that's what you want.
“It's easy this time of year to get distracted by a lot of the outside noise, but these guys have done a really good job on the whole of staying focused on the task at hand and that's where they're continuing to keep their focus.”
The Dodgers hosted the Blue Jays Aug. 8-10 in Los Angeles. Clayton Kershaw and Blake Snell captured the first two games of the series, as Toronto was limited to one run in each game. In the series finale, Tyler Glasnow pitched well, allowing two runs over 5 2/3 innings, before the bullpen blew the game. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Addison Barger homered off reliever Blake Treinen in the eighth, and Ernie Clement hit a solo shot off Alex Vesia leading off the ninth.
The Blue Jays were outscored 18-7 in that series.
However, Treinen and Vesia remain among the handful of relievers in the Dodgers’ beleaguered bullpen that manager Dave Roberts has continued to trust this postseason …
LOS ANGELES — There are stars. There are rock stars. And then there’s whatever supernatural phenomenon that Shohei Ohtani is.
There is history. There is postseason history. And then there’s whatever that was we witnessed Friday evening from the Greatest Shoh on Earth, in a stadium full of people at storied Chavez Ravine who still can’t believe what they’re seeing, no matter how many times they see it.
So what was it they saw? There’s no other way to put this:
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LOS ANGELES — The legend painted his magnum opus on Friday night, with the Los Angeles Dodgers on the verge of the World Series.
Shohei Ohtani has tested the bounds of human comprehension for what a baseball player can do on a diamond from the moment he forced his way onto the radar. He has changed rules and challenged conventional wisdom and now, on the largest of stages, has his masterpiece.
Ohtani is the unicorn who flips his bat when he launches baseballs out of the stadium, the monster pitcher who grunts and pumps his fist after unleashing devilish splitters. It should not make sense that those two things are possible from one man, nor should it ever appear normal what Ohtani is capable of doing.
The hulking, billion-dollar behemoth better known as the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Dodgers were heavily favored to repeat at the beginning of 2025 but stumbled through the regular season due to several injuries and a shaky bullpen. But L.A. is firing on all cylinders in October. The Dodgers are 9-1 in the playoffs. Their starting rotation, consisting of aces Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and some guy named Shohei Ohtani, tore through the 97-win Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS, posting a 0.63 ERA in 28 2/3 innings.
Snell faced the minimum and allowed only one hit in Game 1, Yamamoto threw a complete game in Game 2, Glasnow scattered three hits across 5 2/3 innings in Game 3 — but they all paled to what Ohtani did in Game 4: six-plus shutout innings, 10 strikeouts and three towering solo home runs, the second of which sailed entirely over the right-field bleachers at Dodger Stadium.
For more on that all-time performance, let’s turn it over to Dodgers beat writer Fabian Ardaya and the patron saint of MLB stats and history, senior baseball writer Jayson Stark …
With his first pitch of Game 6, Blue Jays rookie Trey Yesavage will have as many postseason starts under his belt as regular-season starts. That’s how fresh this dude is.
Yesavage, who began this season in the low minors, has mostly been sensational this past month. But the Mariners cracked him last time out, with Julio Rodríguez jumping him for a three-run shot before Yesavage had even recorded an out. Yesavage pitched into the fifth before an infield single and intentional walk left two on for reliever Louis Varland, who promptly permitted both inherited runners to score on a Jorge Polanco homer.
The Mariners have now gotten a look at Yesavage, though it’s a small sample and only Rodríguez, Randy Arozarena and Josh Naylor have hits off him (Cal Raleigh walked twice). He with a power fastball and splitter, Yesavage has the stuff to go right after this lineup. He has subdued impact lineups before, like when he punched out 11 in a scoreless appearance against the Yankees in the ALDS.
But manager John Schneider will be forced to have a short leash on Yesavage, pulling him at the first sign of trouble as the Blue Jays try to force a winner-take-all Game 7.