15 Glorious Innings

The Detroit Tigers and the Seattle Mariners faced off in one hell of a Division Series, and that's an understatement. Game One went extras, needing 11 innings before the Tigers won it in Seattle. The Mariners took Games Two and Three, and looked to finish it in Game Four. Seattle led 3-0, but the Tigers took over; nine unanswered runs. The nine runs in Game Four stand as the most in a game in Tigers postseason history. Wow.

So after four games, it was two aside for each team. The deciding Game Five would be played. The series shifted right back to Seattle one more time for the do-or-die battle, and it would be Seattle who struck first with a sac fly in the 2nd inning. It was 1-0 for the longest time, until Kerry Carpenter struck in the 6th inning. Two-run homer to give the Tigers the lead. The Mariners ended up tying the game in the seventh, and that 2-2 score held up after nine regulation innings.

We had extra innings in this do-or-die game. A lot of them. By the time the game reached inning #12, the words "What," "Went," and "Wrong" suddenly left my vocabulary. Being eliminated in such a classic should not be subjected to dissection, finger-pointing, shame, and ridicule. The chances were there, for both teams. So were the pitchers. The game ended up reaching the 15th inning. J.P. Crawford singled to lead it off. Randy Arozarena was hit by a pitch. 1st and 2nd. Cal Raleigh was up, he hit a long fly ball that does its job. One out, but the runners advance. Winning run is 90 feet away. Julio Rodriguez gets the free pass to load the bases. Jorge Polanco up next. 0-for-5; he was due. The count was full: three balls, two strikes, one more pitch and no place to put Polanco. The pitch becomes a grounder hit past the infield, run scores, and the Mariners are off to Canada.

The Seattle Mariners have advanced to the American League Championship Series for the first time since 2001, and only the fourth time in franchise history. There are 30 teams currently in MLB, and it's been a 30 team league since 1998, which is the year that the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays debuted. Out of the 30 teams, the Mariners are the only franchise who has never reached the World Series, and they now stand just four wins away from their first-ever pennant in their 49th season. The Mariners will face off against the Toronto Blue Jays in a battle between teams who debuted in MLB in the same year (1977).

As for the Tigers, well, this was a wild year. They went from being on the verge of running away with the American League Central to ending up as a Wild Card in a span of a month. They may have lost the division to the Cleveland Guardians, but they beat Cleveland when it counted the most. And they took a game and loaded Mariners to the maximum five games, and to extra innings in the final game. So I think that does make up for the fact that they coughed up the division. However, Tigers, you only get one mulligan like that. Don't blow that division again. Tigers should be back in the hunt in 2026. Count on it.

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