One Win Away

So the closest we�d been to the World Series was up 2 games to 1 vs. Cleveland in �95 after the Jay Buhner redemption game (error in 8th lets Cleveland tie it, HR in 11th wins it). That was October 13, 1995. And sure, we got within 2 games again, five years later, but that time we were down 3 games to 2. It felt like a lost cause. And it was.

Now, finally, we�re one win away.

I was at the park on Friday with Stephen M. for Game 5. It was my first time back since the previous Friday for the Game 5 against Detroit. �Game 5 Fridays� I call them.

After that 15-inning affair depleted our pitching staff, I, like everyone, didn�t expect the Mariners to do much in Game 1 in Toronto, but we won it, and the next one, and then the worst thing happened: I began to have hope. So of course at home the roof caved in. I never really got why Dan Wilson started George Kirby instead of Luis Castillo in Game 3, since George had thrown 60 pitches the previous Friday to Luis� 15, but suddenly George didn�t have it, and neither did Luis the next day, and bullpen stalwarts like Gabe Speier couldn�t hold them, and so we were tied going into Friday.

But the tie wasn�t the thing that worried me most as I walked to the game: It was Blue Jays fans. I hadn�t been to a Mariners-Blue Jays game since 2016 because they�re just too infuriating. Hordes come down from Vancouver, B.C. to root for a team 2,500 miles from their home rather than one in their own backyard, nationalists all, jingoists all, generally polite but still annoying as fuck. �A home invasion by the Glee Club� I called it back then. King Felix shut them down, sure, reminding them �This is my house!� but many Mariners fans seemed cool to let them have the run of the place.

Well, no more. For Game 5, yes, the BJs were there, but M�s fans were way more numerous and way more vocal. Yes, a group of BJs acted like jerks in our section, starting chants to just be annoying, staring down anyone (like me) who turned around to see the fuss; but I was in a good head space and ignored them the rest of the way. Yes, in the top of the 4th, the Blue Jays loaded the bases with nobody out (double, IBB, BB), and a BJ in the row behind me, who was there with his family, loudly and mockingly stated, �I�m new to this baseball thing, what does it mean when there are runners on every base? I�m confused, I don�t know what that means!� But then Bryce Miller got Daulton Varsho swinging and induced a one-foot double play (2-3) to end the threat, and I was able to respond to him, �I�m new to this baseball thing, what does it mean when a team has runners on every base and doesn�t SCORE? I�m confused, I don�t know what that means!�

Plus at that point we were ahead on a Eugenio Suarez home run in the second.

And then we weren�t. They tied it in the fifth, went ahead in the sixth (Alejandro Kirk somehow scored from second on a single), and suddenly it was the eighth, Big Dumper leading off.

And what does he do? Goes very high and just deep enough to tie the game again. And then BB, BB, pitching change, HBP, which brought up Eugenio again. At that point, there had only been one grand slam in Mariners postseason history, Edgar�s in Game 4 of the �95 ALDS. Well, now I�ve been to both of them. Edgar had homered earlier in Game 4, too, like Eugenio here, and like Edgar�s my immediate thought off the bat was: Sac fly anyway! But could it...? Could it ...? IT COULD!

And here we are, one win away.�I�ll be watching the game at Tim�s, with Jeff and the B�s, fingers and toes crossed.

My oh my, Dave.