TORONTO – Some 24 hours after shaking the city of Seattle with one swing of lumber, Eugenio Suárez was still sorting through the hundreds of text messages from family and friends amazed and inspired by his go-ahead grand slam that sent the Mariners to the brink of their first World Series.
It was his closest associates that meant the most – a note from his pastor, a salute from his wife, messages from his brothers, his mom and dad, to say nothing of the dozens of former teammates fortunate enough to cross paths with Suárez during a 12-year career across four franchises.
Now, Suárez stood in an empty Rogers Centre, some teammates flinging a football around to stay loose, others peppering the seats with batting practice home-run balls during an off day workout Oct. 18, a natural comedown from the stunning events of Game 5 in this bumpy American League Championship Series.
For the Mariners, who have two shots to vanquish the Toronto Blue Jays and capture their first AL pennant, Game 6 will represent an inflection point: Can they bottle the energy that stunning eighth-inning rally created and carry it forward?
Or will the capricious momentum swings of this series – it’s gone Mariners-Mariners-Blue Jays-Blue Jays-Mariners in the win column – threaten to make Suárez’s epic blast a historic footnote?
Suárez knows what needs to be done.
“We got to keep that same energy,” Suárez tells USA TODAY Sports. “We gotta keep that electric moment and bring it here. Not try to do much, stay in the momentum, enjoy the process and try to play hard and play good baseball here in Toronto and see what happens tomorrow.”
And perhaps that defining Game 5 will continue to inform what unfolds in Game 6 and, if the Blue Jays survive, Game 7: Whether the victors can ride that momentum and, perhaps equally important, if the losers can flush the residue of that sudden collapse before it sinks them for good.
One day later, the clubs’ paths showed little sign of diverging.
‘I don’t think there was much sleeping’
There are quiet flights and funereal flights, happy flights and raucous flights, and when competing teams in a playoff series are three time zones apart, perhaps it’s all of the above.
Yet you just can’t have an eighth inning like Game 5 – Cal Raleigh tying the score with a home run in his first right-handed plate appearance this ALCS, a pair of walks, a hit batter and then Suárez posterizing Canada – and expect to come down quickly.
“I don’t think there was much sleeping,” says Seattle right-hander Logan Gilbert, who will get the assignment to start the potential clincher. “After a game like that it’s tough.
“But like I said, you got to ride the momentum when it’s there.”
And oh, what momentum.
Suárez is in his second stint with Seattle, acquired in July in the middle of a 49-homer campaign, and he was around for the 2022 season when they broke a two-decade playoff drought.
That year brought no shortage of delirium. And then there was Game 5, and a T-Mobile Park roar the likes nobody had seen when Suárez found the right field seats.
“Never. Never. That was electric. I can’t explain how loud it was. And that’s awesome,” says Suárez. “That is all that matters. That is why you play baseball.
“That is why you play in October. You’re happy to see your fans enjoy the moment like that.”
Rogers Centre is known for its hockey arena level of insanity when the moment strikes. Yet that would require moving on from a Game 5 in which the Blue Jays were six outs from taking a 3-2 lead back home.
Instead, after manager John Schneider opted for lefty reliever Brendon Little, the series flipped.
Little threw 15 pitches, one of which Raleigh popped into the left field stands for a game-tying homer. Ten more were balls, producing two walks and leaving Seranthony Dominguez with an inferno he had no way of dousing.
Given nearly 24 hours to reflect, Schneider remained convicted in his decision.
“I can sit here and say it’s not a mistake, and you guys will all write that I said it’s not a mistake, and I’ll get crushed on social media for saying that. I get it,” says Schneider from his dais at Rogers Centre. “I trust my players. I trust my players. In hindsight, I had a couple other options to do. That’s what I decided to do.
“So, again, I have all the information that I need, and I don’t think I made a mistake. Players have to go perform. There is always risk when you put a player in a situation that he won’t get the job done. That’s part of the game.
“But no, I stick by my players, I stick by my decision, I leave them behind me.”
It’s a laudable position, even if Blue Jays fans might prefer a mea culpa. But Schneider also can’t control the downstream effect on his players if Game 6 goes sideways quickly.
Iconic moment, or footnote?
Suárez’s slam is such recent history that it’d seem difficult to contextualize. But we already know how this will go: Advance to the World Series, and the moment is further immortalized. Win it, and Suárez might find a street adjacent to T-Mobile Park named after him some day.
“That’s an all-time game,” says Gilbert. “Like, we’ll be talking about that decades from now. And just to be a part of it, like, be there to watch as a fan, almost, is crazy. We’re still a long ways away.
“Like, we’re nine long innings away from where we want to be, and I think everybody gets that.”
And if they fall short?
Well, the blast may never be a footnote in Seattle, but then again, you don’t hear much these days about Tino Martinez and Scott Brosius electrifying Yankee Stadium on consecutive nights with ninth-inning, game-tying home runs in the 2001 World Series.
The Yankees lost in seven games. These Mariners can ensure Suárez’s place in history is magnified.
“The playoffs is so momentum-based that I think you have to ride with the momentum, and moments like Geno’s home run, Cal’s home run, that stuff’s huge,” says Gilbert. “But actually in the moment, the adrenaline’s great for your body, your sharpness in your mind, that kind of stuff, but you don’t ever want to try too hard in the moment.
“I know that sounds kind of weird, but you have to know that even in the biggest moment in the playoffs, you have to do the exact same thing the same way that you’ve been doing the whole season.”