Tigers-Mariners Game 2 takeaways: Polanco powers Seattle past Skubal, Detroit

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SEATTLE – The Seattle Mariners had done the hard part in Game 2 of this American League Division Series, building a lead off Tarik Skubal and taking it into the late innings on Sunday night. But after fumbling away their edge with a critical error in the eighth, they wasted no time in wresting the game back to pull even with the Detroit Tigers.

Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez came through in the bottom of the eighth inning to rescue the Mariners with a 3-2 victory before 47,371 raucous fans at T-Mobile Park. Facing Kyle Finnegan with one out, Raleigh, the slugging catcher, doubled into the right field corner. He scored when Rodríguez ripped a double of his own into the left field corner.

Raleigh and Rodríguez had combined for all five Seattle hits in Game 1, when the Tigers escaped with an 11-inning win, also by 3-2. They delivered again when the Mariners needed them most, setting up Andrés Muñoz for the save.

Skubal was mostly sharp over seven innings, allowing just five hits – but two were solo homers by Jorge Polanco, who joined the distinguished trio of Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martínez and Jay Buhner as the only Mariners with multi-homer games in the playoffs. Seattle pitching allowed just three hits to the Tigers, who didn’t get their first until Gleyber Torres chased Luis Castillo with a two-out single in the fifth.

Gabe Speier and Eduard Bazardo collected the next seven outs, but an error by first baseman Josh Naylor on a potential double-play grounder extended the eighth inning against Matt Brash, who gave up a two-run double to Spencer Torkelson. Brash recovered with two strikeouts, bringing up the top of the Mariners’ order for the go-ahead rally in the bottom of the inning.

The series shifts to Detroit for Game 3 on Tuesday, when the Mariners’ Logan Gilbert will face the Tigers’ Jack Flaherty, and Game 4 on Wednesday, when Bryce Miller will likely start for Seattle against Detroit’s Casey Mize.

One year post-surgery, Jorge Polanco delivers

One year ago this week, Polanco was undergoing surgery to repair the patellar tendon in his left knee. He had flopped in his debut season with the Mariners, hitting .213/.296/.355, with a career-high 137 strikeouts, but Seattle hoped the surgery would restore Polanco to the player he’d been with Minnesota.

The Mariners brought him back for one year and $7.75 million, and the switch-hitter responded with a strong season: 26 homers, a .265 average and an .821 OPS. He capped that performance in Game 2 by slugging two homers off Skubal.

The first came off a slider in the fourth inning to give Seattle a 1-0 lead. The score stayed that way until Polanco came to bat again, in the sixth, when he turned around a 99 mile-an-hour sinker and hammered it onto the netting below “Edgar’s Cantina” in the left field corner.
Polanco had been 7 for 26 (.269) with one career homer against Skubal, a frequent foe from his days in the AL Central.

Primarily a DH this season, Polanco started at second in Game 2 and made a slick play in the field in the top of the fifth, ranging up the middle to rob Parker Meadows of a hit. Polanco got a force at second on that play, and the Tigers left two runners on base.

A walk, an error – and a tie game in the eighth

Raleigh said it himself after Carlos Vargas lost Game 1: “You can’t walk the first guy of the inning. Usually it’s a recipe for a run.” So it was again in Game 2, when Brash walked the leadoff man in the eighth inning. He then struck out the dangerous Kerry Carpenter, but Riley Greene’s bouncer deflected off the glove of Naylor. Instead of an inning-ending double play, the error kept the Tigers alive, and they tied the game on an inside-out double by Torkelson down the right field line.

Carpenter can’t: This time, Seattle neutralizes Kerry in the fifth

With two outs in the fifth inning of Game 1, George Kirby stayed in the game to face Carpenter, who clobbered a go-ahead two-run homer. In Game 2, Mariners manager Dan Wilson faced the same situation: Carpenter coming up, representing the go-ahead run with two outs in the fifth. This time, Wilson pulled the starter.

Castillo had just allowed his first hit, a single by Torres. But Wilson went with hard-throwing lefty Speier, who held left-handers to a .179 average this season. With the crowd standing and roaring, the move paid off when Speier fanned Carpenter on a foul tip at 96 miles an hour. Speier stayed in and worked a 1-2-3 sixth inning, setting down Greene, Torkelson and pinch-hitter Wenceel Pérez.

Tarik Skubal was good, but not good enough

Skubal vs. Raleigh threatened to be one of the most entertaining matchups of the postseason. Sunday it was Skubal who had the edge. In the first inning, Raleigh batted to a full count but whiffed on a Skubal changeup. In the third inning, Raleigh swung first pitch and hit a soft liner to shortstop for an out. In the seventh, Raleigh again struck out on a 99.5 mph fastball.

Skubal flummoxed the Big Dumper, and though Polanco did the only damage against Skubal, the reigning Cy Young Award winner did not appear to have the same dominant stuff he had when he struck out 14 batters against the Guardians in the AL Wild Card Series. His line — seven innings, five hits, two earned runs, one walk and nine strikeouts — was strong but not enough to will his team to victory.

A sleepy offense again costs the Tigers

Through two innings, the Tigers’ at-bats against Castillo looked fierce. They fouled off 14 balls, took three walks and forced Castillo to throw 51 pitches. One thing they did not actually do, though? Hit. Torres’ single was the Tigers’ lone hit against Castillo. While Polanco crushed two mistakes from Skubal, the Tigers had their chances but generated little hard contact all night.

Torkelson was the only Tiger to strike a ball at 100 mph or greater, and even that was a clear fly out with a 37-degree launch angle. Torkelson’s eighth-inning double (which had an exit velocity of only 85.8 mph) gave the Tigers life for a moment. But Pérez and Dillon Dingler both went on to strike out on six pitches, and the story of the night was otherwise clear — a lot of soft contact, too many foul balls on hittable pitches and a surplus of easy outs in the air.

(Top photo of Jorge Polanco: Rob Leiter/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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