It’s not good for my mental health, but as a lover of all things baseball, I can’t help but point out the fact that the first two games of this series have been about as entertaining and heart-pounding as it can get in baseball. Game two was a must-win for Seattle. I usually don’t like using the term "must win" in the postseason. I feel like you should be going into every game in October with a must-win mentality, but the idea of Seattle going down 2-0 in this series, headed back to what will surely be a ruckus Comerica Park, seemed like a death sentence.
It’s a huge momentum swing for them to win a game where Tarik Skubal started. And it wasn’t like Tarik didn’t have his best stuff. He was brilliant tonight. Jorge Polanco had two good swings against him for home runs; besides that, he was every bit the dominant ace that we’ve seen him be over the last few seasons.
What was maddening for the heavy majority of the game was that it felt like Detroit continued to waste opportunities. If there is something that you can point to as to why they lost this game, look no further than letting Luis Castillo off the hook multiple times. He did not have his best command in those early innings, and Detroit was sadly unable to take advantage of it. At the same time, you’re gonna play a lot of close, low-scoring games in October, and Detroit did get the big hit from Spencer Torkelson in the eighth inning. That was simply remarkable at bat, where it seemed like Tork was doomed to get put away with spin, and he bounced back by hitting a double down the right field line off a Matt Brash fastball. Seattle responded with a run from the heart of their order that ultimately proved to be the game-winner in the bottom of the eighth inning. People can spend their time trying to play the blame game, but AJ managed it correctly. Detroit’s pitching held up as well as they could against a solid Mariners lineup; Seattle just made the most out of one too many opportunities. Sometimes there isn’t a scapegoat.
I see where this is going. This baseball team will do everything possible to ensure that my hair turns gray by the end of this month. This is a postseason series that goes the distance. I know that Detroit came into October stumbling quite a bit, but these two teams are evenly matched, and we’ve seen that through the first two games in this series. To Detroit's credit, their pitching staff, which was a pretty big question mark coming into the postseason, has been really rock solid outside of a few innings. They’re going to need that to continue. They got a solid start from Troy Melton in game one and another strong start from Tarik Skubal in game two, where he did Tarik Skubal things. You’re going to need a good version of Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize if you want to wrap this thing up at home. I hope they’re up to the challenge.