Slam right: Eugenio Suarez grand slam gets Mariners 1 win from World Series

Not good. Incredible vibes only.

Cal Raleigh had done it so many times. Sixty-two times, in fact, this season.

He grabbed the top, barrel end of his torpedo bat that set a major-league record for home runs by catchers and by switch-hitters this season. The packed house chanted “M-V-P!”

Toronto reliever Brendon Little fell behind in the count to Raleigh 2-0. That’s not a great idea.

Unless you are a Mariner.

Batting right-handed against the lefty releiver, Raleigh dropped the barrel of that torpedo bat to the pitch. He golfed it like an iron shot. Left fielder Nathan Lukes ran to the wall, leaped — and couldn’t caught the ball. It landed into the glove of a fan standing in the first row behind the wall, under the line-score board.

Home run number four of this postseason, number 63 all year. The Mariners, Raleigh, had tied this taut thriller at 2.

The crowd was as loud as its been this week, perhaps as loud as in the last 25 years since Seattle’s baseball team has won a league championship series game at home. They packed yard kept roaring as Little walked the next two Mariners. That got him out of the game. Toronto releiver Seranthony Dominguez entered. With two on, no outs and the count 2-0, Randy Arozarena swung so hard the breeze of the bat missing ball blew up to the 300 level. Then Dominguez’s next pitch hit Arozarena.

Bases loaded, no outs.

Eugenio Suarez, who earlier homered, got the count to 2-2. Then he hit the sweetest sounding swing this baseball team has heard in a generation. Or ever.

Suarez launched Dominguez’s 99-mph fastball deeeeeep into the bleachers beyond right field. Grand slam. Grand time. The yard went absolutely bonkers. Suarez stood and blew the fans kisses just after he crossed home plate.

Mariners 6, Blue Jays 2.

Andres Munoz finished the top of the ninth. When it ended, teammate Julio Rodriguez dumped the entire Gatorade bucket of ice water on Suarez’s head.

The fans roared some more.

And the Mariners got off the deck of losing two straight to pull within one more win of the World Series for the first time in the 48 years Seattle’s franchise has played.

The M’s lead the best-of-seven league championship three games to two. Game 6 is Sunday night in Toronto.

For the major league-leading ninth time in 10 games this postseason, the Mariners scored first. For only the fifth time in those nine games with an early lead, they won.

Way back in the second inning, Suarez golfed Toronto starter Kevin Gausman’s high, 95-mph fastball deep beyond Seattle’s bullpen past left-center field with one out in the second inning. Suarez looked up to the closed roof as he crossed home plate on his second home run of the playoffs. The Mariners led 1-0.

But like all this week against the Blue Jays in Seattle, that didn’t last.

M’s starters’ short leash

For the second consecutive pregame, manager Dan Wilson talked about how “aggressive,” his word, the Mariners could be with their bullpen well-rested considering they are two weeks into the postseason.

For the second consecutive game, manager Dan Wilson took out his starting pitcher far earlier than he normally would have, while he was in trouble but not yet battered.

It was Luis Castillo in a 2-1 game in the third inning of Game 4; Seattle’s bullpen allowed six runs to score after that decision.

Friday in Game 5, Wilson came out to the mound to replace Miller after he allowed Addison Barger’s lined single leading off the fifth inning. Four-plus innings, four hits, no runs, two walks and four strikeouts, his second strong start against Toronto in this series.

Yet Miller was done.

Matt Brash entered. He got two outs, to the eight and nine batters. But then George Springer lined a double off the wall in deep left-center field. That scored Barger to tie the game. The run was charged to Miller

Miller began the game throwing the hardest pitch of his career, 98.3 mph, a high fastball that struck out George Springer for the game’s first out.

He held the Blue Jays scoreless through the first three innings. That’s the first time that’s happened to Toronto this postseason. A big reason was Josh Naylor. The Mariners first baseman caught a line drive by ninth hitter and recent thorn Andres Gimenez just off the infield dirt while on one knee. In one motion,

The Blue Jays started the fourth aggressive again. Nathan Lukes sent Miller’s sent pitch of the inning inside first base down the right-field line for a double. Manager Dan Wilson and pitching coach Pete Woodworth wanted none of lethall Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who had doubled in his first at bat. They intentionally walked him. But then Miller unintentionally walked Alejandro Kirk. Toronto had the bases loaded and no outs, down 1-0.

You could feel the tension throughout the packed house.

Miler then struck out Daulton Varsho on a split-fingered fastball in the dirt for the first out. Ernie Clement was next, with the bases still loaded. He swung awkwardly at Miller’s low, 83-mph splitter and squibbed it into the dirt at home plate. The ball was barely fair.

Catcher Cal Raleigh, a Platinum Glove award winner last season but not even a finalist for a 2025 Gold Glove on a list announced this week, quickly got out of his crouch and grabbed the ball before it squibbed foul. Raleigh stepped on home plate for the force out there. Then he threw to first baseman Josh Naylor leaning inside Clement running down the line. Naylor caught the ball as he fell down for a mammoth, 2-3 double play.

Just like they drew it up, the Mariners still led 1-0.

Bryan Woo, unprecedented

The roof was closed. The lights went off. So did the sirens.

The sellout crowd stood — well, almost all the 46,758 fans were standing the entire game, anyway. Bryan Woo was jogging out of the bullpen, the starting pitcher and Mariners All-Star’s first relief appearance of his career.

The first pitch he threw in a game since Sept. 19, after recovering from pectoral inflammation, was a fastball. Toronto’s Alejandro Kirk ripped it on a line to the right-center field wall for a double.

One out later, Ernie Clement hit a soft line drive into right field. That scored Kirk, because right field Dominic Canzone’s throw was woeful, short, late and skipping up the third-base line. The Blue Jays had the Mariners down for the third straight game, 2-1.

The Mariners got two men on in the bottom of the sixth on back to back walk to Randy Arozarena and Eugenio Suarez, and Toronto starter Kevin Gausman (5 2-3 innings, three hits, one run, three walks, four strikeouts) out of the game. J.P. Crawford shortened his swing compared to his huge, looping cuts in this series and game. But him slapping the ball the other way in search of a game-tying single became a hopper to shortstop Andres Gimenez and the inning’s final out.

The Mariners still trailed 2-1. At that point, Seattle was 2 for 30 with runners on base in the ALCS games at T-Mobile Park.

Woo pitched two innings. He allowed that one hit and run. He threw 28 pitches, making it a question whether he will be available for Game 6 Sunday in Toronto, too.

Gabe Speier replaced Woo to begin the top of the eighth, with Seattle still trailing 2-1.

Arozarena kept it 2-1 in the top of the eighth. He leaped to the top of the wall in deep left field to catch a drive by Clement that likely would have gone over for a home run. It was the second out of the inning instead, part of Speier’s scoreless eighth.