Featuring everything from incredible defensive plays, historic starting pitching, herculean bullpen efforts on both sides and a walk-off for a success-starved franchise, Game 5 in Seattle was a game fans will remember for ages.
As a Cubs fan approaching 30 years of age, my answer for the greatest baseball game ever played is the same as every other Cubs fan – Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, the night a 108-year championship drought finally came to an end.
While the circumstances surrounding that game and World Series are impossible to replicate in North American pro sports, it’s notable whenever a singular game features the drama and urgency that reminds me of that early November night nine years ago.
Baseball fans of all ages and teams were treated to one of those “remember where you were” moments Friday evening, as the Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners squared off in Game 5 of the ALDS.
The stakes were high for both clubs even before any games were played in the first-ever playoff meeting between the two teams. Established in 1977, the Seattle Mariners are the lone MLB franchise to have never been to the World Series, only qualifying for the ALCS on three occasions heading into this series.
As for Detroit, the stakes of this series included both short-term and long-term pressure. While the Tigers had effectively erased the significance of their blown 15.5 game division lead to the Cleveland Guardians with a Wild Card Round series victory over the division rival, that still didn’t negate the high expectations the Tigers had built for themselves through a mostly dominant regular season.
Additionally, it’s been a good 41 years for the Tigers since they’ve won it all, with trips back to the Fall Classic in 2006 and 2012 coming up well short of a championship, with Detroit only winning a single game between the two series’.
Similar to most baseball fans, I entered Friday’s Game 5 between Detroit and Seattle with the expectation of a pitcher’s duel, pitting the game’s premier left-handed starter in Tarik Skubal against Mariners’ control wizard George Kirby. Both starters handily delivered on this expectation, with Skubal setting an MLB record with 13 strikeouts in a winner-take-all game.
Despite piling up strikeouts, the Mariners still managed to work deep counts against Skubal, instrumental in running the southpaw for 99 pitches, securing his exit from the game following the sixth inning.
Though hindsight is 20/20, Tigers skipper A.J. Hinch has to at least wonder if he should have left Skubal in for the seventh inning, with a game-tying knock from unlikely hero Leo Rivas negating the go-ahead two-run home run from Kerry Carpenter the inning prior.
From this point on, the winner-take-all contest seemed to enter a distinct second stage, with both clubs’ bullpens and defenses impressively locked in as a lengthy battle for survival began in earnest.
The following innings saw a plethora of missed offensive opportunities from both teams as bullpens eventually handed the ball off to starting pitchers to keep the game going.
This of course came after both teams’ high-leverage relievers already answered the call – after hitting Randy Arozarena in the eighth inning, Will Vest proved to be unfazed as he struck out both Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez to end the inning. For Seattle, All-Star closer Andrés Muñoz pitched around two walks before inducing a Riley Greene pop-out to end the eighth inning, then returned to pitch a 1-2-3 ninth inning.
Dan Wilson’s Mariners were the first to go to a starter, with righty Logan Gilbert taking over in the 10th inning and pitching two scoreless frames before allowing two singles to lead off the 12th inning. Despite pitching in all four prior games of the series, Seattle went to Eduard Bazardo after Gilbert, who managed to escape the jam before pitching a 1-2-3 13th inning and getting the first two outs of the 14th frame.
The Tigers themselves went to their rotation in the bottom of the 13th inning, with righty and 2024 World Series champion Jack Flaherty taking the mound, escaping two walks to start the frame with a strikeout and double play ball from Jorge Polanco and Eugenio Suárez, respectively.
Though Bazardo did record the first two outs of the 14th inning, it didn’t come without allowing a double to Dillon Dingler, which was cleaned up by starter Luis Castillo who made his first career MLB relief appearance, be it regular season or postseason.
After Flaherty escaped a two-out walk in the 14th inning and Castillo responded with a 1-2-3 15th inning, A.J. Hinch questionably pulled a starter for the second time in the game by replacing Flaherty with veteran changeup specialist Tommy Kahnle.
Instantly clear that Kahnle didn’t have his best stuff, it was ultimately the Tigers who cracked first as the righty allowed a J.P. Crawford single to lead off the inning before hitting Randy Arozarena with a pitch immediately afterwards.
While Kahnle did induce a flyout from 60-home run hitter Cal Raleigh before intentionally walking Julio Rodríguez in an attempt to set up their third double play of extra innings, Jorge Polanco stayed on a 3-2 changeup at the bottom of the strike zone and pulled it into left field, giving the Mariners a 3-2 win in the game and the series.
Even as a neutral fan of baseball watching this game, it’s impossible to explain the feeling that the twists and turns of this contest gave you. Time and time again, both in the late innings and several times in extra innings, both clubs manufactured situations that had myself and likely millions of other fans convinced of the game’s eventual outcome.
But then baseball just kept happening. The Leo Rivas game-tying single. The bizarre Victor Robles hit-by-pitch that ultimately had no bearing on the game’s outcome. Pitchers that appeared taxed beyond belief emptying the tank to keep their team alive. This game is what baseball is all about.
In addition to the incredible performances from starters Tarik Skubal and George Kirby, the relief performances of Jack Flaherty, Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo were all sensational, giving fans a peak into what it looks like when sheer adrenaline takes the wheel, shattering any previous conception of a player’s limitation.
Though using starting pitchers in relief during the postseason is now standard practice, it’s easy to look back at then-Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly’s famous usage of Randy Johnson in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series as a gutsy move that inspired what is now one of the best parts about October baseball.
Throw out the rulebook, forget about how games are played in May – this is when the season is on the line and all the best arms are available. To see that manifest itself in a game that featured two incredible starting pitching performances before essentially becoming a full bullpen game is a remarkable display of what this sport is capable of giving to fans in the biggest moments.
Jorge Polanco’s walk-off single will be the singular play that will be remembered by fans, a triumphant knock that ended a marathon of a game that featured both sides exerting every last bit of energy and fight. For Mariners fans, it may very well be “The Single,” coming 30 years after Edgar Martínez’s series-winning hit in Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS simply known by fans as “The Double.”
Yet beyond Polanco’s heroic hit, both fanbases will have history to remember from this game – Tarik Skubal defining his label as a top tier pitcher in the game with a record-setting performance as his team faced elimination. Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo both shining in their first-ever relief appearances of their MLB careers. Josh Naylor having three hits and single-handedly manufacturing the first run of the game from the Mariners.
This game threw more twists and turns at fans than just about any game I’ve watched in my 24 years of baseball watching that I can remember – reminding me of established all-time classic games such as Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, the aforementioned 2016 Cubs clincher and Game 5 of the 2017 World Series.
In lieu of the back-and-forth offense that some fans look for in games that have helped define the sport over the past 25 years, Friday night’s game was all about opportunity. Every runner on base may have felt like a rally, but titanic performances from some of the game’s brightest arms made capitalizing on any little mistake a prerequisite to winning the game and the series. On Friday, it was Tommy Kahnle and the Tigers that blinked first as Seattle outlasted Detroit en route to their first ALCS since 2001.
Tigers fans will remember this game for years as a late night-turned-early morning heartbreaker, while Mariners fans will remember it as a signature moment in franchise history.
Yet for all baseball fans, this game was an encapsulation of what makes this sport the greatest game on the planet – something that was apparent far beyond the field of play on Friday night. The energy of T-Mobile Park was palpable for all 15 innings, with tens of thousands of fans displaying visible emotion as they took in one of the biggest games in franchise history.
There are an endless amount of things wrong with a world that feels more chaotic, uncertain and divided as ever – Friday night’s game in Seattle serves as a timely reminder of the cultural and emotional power sports have.
I know I speak for many more people than just myself when I say this, but sports and baseball specifically is so much more than keeping up with stats or screaming at the television in elation or frustration – it’s deeply woven into the fabric of family and friendships for millions.
As a lifelong baseball addict, I’ve watched many more games by myself than I have with other people – and I don’t expect most people to take an interest into watching a Padres-Pirates game at 11:35 a.m. on a Thursday in July. But I can confidently say I wouldn’t be a baseball fan if it wasn’t for the memories made with my father watching countless games on MLB Extra Innings growing up, taking in the 2001 World Series as a five-year-old and falling in love with the game for good.
It felt appropriately full circle when my father and I watched the Cubs break the curse on Nov. 2, 2016 in the same room that we watched Luis Gonzalez walk off Game 7 of the 2001 World Series in almost 15 years to the date earlier. It’s in those moments, and moments of sharing my joy of baseball with close friends during my college years, that remind me what it’s all about.
For a packed house at T-Mobile Park and tens of thousands of Mariners fans across the Pacific Northwest watching at home, those memories were made Friday night. Stories that will be told generationally within families were written Friday night at T-Mobile Park, and those stories had nothing to do with what happened on the field.
That’s what makes baseball so fucking special.
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