ALCS Game 1 Reaction & Recap: Seattle Mariners vs Toronto Blue Jays | Foul Territory

ALCS Game 1 Reaction & Recap: Seattle Mariners vs Toronto Blue Jays | Foul Territory

And I can’t hold it much longer. FT live postgame show. ALCS game one in the books. It’s presented by Fox One, the new streaming app where you could watch the entire ALCS. Scotty Bronn along with Eric Kratz. He’s dancing and so are Mariners fans. They’re having a weekend, man. Hey, you got to be in it. You got to be here for the marathon to watch them win in walk-off fashion in 15 innings and then tired with a lot of exhausted arms moving their way up to Toronto and winning a 3 to1 ball game in very Mariners fashion. Pitching was fantastic. Lowscoring game and Kratz I thought as many others did that the Blue Jays were going to look just like they did in the last round and they did for one inning. Maybe for one pitch, for what? The first pitch of the game, which Bryce Miller throws 73 out of his 73 starts, he throws a speed ball. Like the Blue Jays came out and I was like, oh man. Like the Mariners are riding high. You went across the border and George Springer said, “Welcome to the six, boys.” And then Nathan Lucas has a I want to say 11 pitch at bat. Essentially, Bryce Miller was sitting there with 13 pitches, a runner on first, and losing one to nothing with the greatest hitter on the planet from the last postseason, last last se last series. And that was it. That’s all the Blue Jays got. What happened, Kratz? is, you know, I always like to ask the question, is this a Mariners staff that is just so supreme and someone was able to figure out how to keep this Blue Jays offense pretty quiet here in the postseason? Or did the Blue Jays bats look a little bit off compared to what you saw in the DS? I mean, compared to what we saw, yes. But let’s go to let’s go to what we saw in the last game against Cam Schlitler where the Blue Jays were like, “Okay, they’re going in there. They’re like, “Hey, we’re going to not strike out.” And you kind of give the other pitcher an opportunity to stay in the game. While Cam Schlitler didn’t get a million punch outs like he did against the Red Sox, he stayed in the game and he did well. Tonight they were facing the Blue Jays were facing Bryce Miller on short rest with the bullpen and every one of their starters absolutely gassed. So if I’m the Blue Jays, now this is not what you think as a hitter. You think, okay, I’m going to go in and I’m going to smash Bryce Miller because we have a history of being able to have success against a guy like this. He’s not going to strike us out. We’re going to drive the ball. But what happened was they let him in the game. They let him stay around and help his team on short rest get through six innings and 70ome pitches. This may be a downfall because it was tonight of a team that doesn’t strike out much. A team that says, “Okay, we’re not going to strike out.” It doesn’t mean they’re going to have long at bats. Especially when you think about the fact that Lucas had a 11 or 12 pitch at bat. the rest of the guys. He got 18 outs on under 70 pitches. Whatever that number is, 18 outs under 70 71 pitches is crazy. And the fact that the Blue Jays came out and only got two hits. I I chalk it up as a night off because I think this Blue Jays lineup is better than that. But it’s a prime case that Bryce Miller came in on short rest and they did not grind out these at bats that you would normally see a team that hits a ton of dingers, maybe grind out more at bats. Yeah, they’re going to strike out six to eight times, but they’re going to grind these at bats and make a belleaguered pitching staff push through this game. And they really didn’t. So, I’m with you for this game. you’d love to ride up a pitch count, get a starter knocked, and really make the bullpen work coming off the marathon game five. In the series as a whole, do you think it will matter because of what the Mariners have in their bullpen? They have solid starting pitching. So, if you can get to them and crack them at any point, you crack them, right? You don’t worry too much about working deep counts if that’s not part of your game. For some Jays, it is. for others. They love to attack early, but it’s not like you’re like, “Oh, I can’t wait to get to the Mariners bullpen.” They’ve had a really strong bullpen throughout the season, and yeah, there’s been some ups and downs. Spire’s really good. He’s had a few blips in the postseason, but the stuff is there for a lot of these guys. Munoz obviously got the job done in 5 seconds. They’ll use him as much as possible. Brash is great. So, is it really worth riding up pitch counts in a spot like this, in a series like this, I should say, to get to the bullpen when the bullpen looks like it’s really rolling? The bullpen does look like it’s really rolling, but who was the bullpen rolling against? The bullpen was rolling against the Tigers. The Tigers offense was They were not it. They were not it from the second half on. They were not it into the playoffs. And the fact that the Mariners took it to the 15th inning of game five is a telling sign that maybe the Mariners offense isn’t it. But this bullpen did everything they needed to do. And you can question, are they a a bullpen that needed to shut down the Tigers? Yes. And they did. Like you can’t you can’t say, “Ah, I don’t know. The Tigers were terrible. So, we’ll really see what the Mariners bullpen does. You can only get out the guys that are in front of you. And the guys that were in front of you, they did it. I don’t know that the Tigers would have ever scored in that game. Like, we went through a lot of game essentially. They had that they had late in game four, they late they scored there. And other than that, they really kept that Tigers team down. They spun a lot of balls. They weren’t able to hit breaking balls. So to me, if they are able to beat the Blue Jays, that’s where it is. That’s where the Mariners, that’s where the Mariners superpower is. Besides Cal Raleigh, who hit another dinger tonight, to me, this superpower is exactly why the last two years we’ve said here on our show, and I think a lot of people in baseball have said, don’t let the Mariners get into the postseason. Why? because they have a bunch of starting rotation that can then give the ball over to this like this combination of Spire, Brash, Munos. I mean, you’re talking about guys like Brarda who’s not who’s not even getting Brazon who’s not even getting a lot of dew because he got hurt by Jav Bayz. I think he had like a 26 this season. Yeah. No, you got it right the first time. Bazardo Brazan’s the Mets dude. Yeah. Brazo’s in New Mexico right now with the Mets sipping cocktails. Had to do it. Had to do it. Yes. But for the Mariners, we’ve seen this game in Seattle a million times. A million times over the past few years. Right. We have. We’ve seen great starting pitching from Bryce Miller, who had a rough year until he figured it out with the pitch tipping and then uh timely hitting and oh, Cal Rally. Should we mention Cal Raleigh and Jorge Palano? You can’t you can’t bet. I I I’m not gonna say it about poor Hippolano, but you can’t bet against Cal Raleigh. What What are we like What are we saying if we’re saying, “Okay, you know, I just don’t think Cal’s going to have enough for this team.” Like, he comes through, he’s been striking out a little bit here in the postseason, but he’s also been lacing some line drives, doubles, big hits. When you’re like, “Ah, it seems like this offense is is down. He’s not going to be able to do it.” Whack. Dinger. Like if you’re betting against Cal Raleigh, it feels like this is the year of Cal and if they move on to the World Series, he’s going to have more big moments just like this solo homer. And if you go back and look at the numbers that he’s had against the Blue Jays, he is a Blue Jay killer at home and in Toronto. They do not want to see him. And yes, quick side note for those in the chat or watching later on, my pup was pissed that we’re doing a show at 11 o’clock Eastern time instead of 1 to 3 Eastern time. Totally screwing up the schedule and the agenda. Bella is behaving beautifully right now in the Kratz household, but it is what it is. I mean, is there a more clutch hitter in the postseason right now than Jorge Palano? There’s there’s not. He’s been ridiculous. And on Yeah, go ahead. No, no, there can’t be. You’re talking about three three of his last five at bats have either walked it off, put them ahead or an extended a lead after the seventh inning. Like he’s doing it from both sides of the plate and he’s like clutch the it’s just it’s it’s clutch right now for Jorge Palano and I don’t think he’s blinked the entire postseason. He’s just like Yeah, I think he’s blinked the entire season. Gratzy, the worst season of his career last year. He’s been a really solid player in our game for a while now. Nice switch hitter to have. And we were one of the shows that questioned what the Mariners did in the off season. We’re like, Palano, that’s it. You’re bringing him back and you had a rough year. Okay, what else? Obviously, they patched things up at the trade deadline and it’s been a significantly different looking team this year. that plus Cal Raleigh basically doubling the production that we usually see from him if not more. But for Palanco Kratz, I mean, he completely turned it around this year and now he’s had I don’t know if it’s his best, if not one of his best seasons of his career, and he’s carrying it right into the playoffs as a really nice role player for the Mariners all year long and blossoming into a clutch star for them at the moment. Uh back to Cal just because this game looked like first inning Springer dinger Toronto’s going to get going. They were causing trouble in that first inning, right? You had the 12 pitch Nathan Lucas walk after that and hopefully he’s okay. We’ll find out if there’s any updates on him. He left early in the game with the knee issue. Fouled the pitch off his knee that looked pretty gnarly. Looked pretty flush. But anyway, so we go to finally the sixth inning where there’s action here like Kratz mentioned. Two out, two strike homer, fourth one off Kevin Gosman. We’re all talking about splitters, too. Four out of the five pitches in that at bat were splitters. And can anybody hit the splitters of the Toronto Blue Jays? The Yankees certainly couldn’t. They couldn’t touch the splitters of the Toronto Blue Jays. And during the broadcast, they talked about how the Mariners did not rank particularly well against splitters. And then what does Cal Raleigh do? Of course, smashes a splitter for a home run. And it’s a Kevin Gosman splitter, too. It’s one of the best in the biz. So, I want to talk about this, but I also want to make sure that we include who’s going to pitch in game two. And I wonder if the Mariners are a team that’s going to be able to handle one or two of those and try and create another scenario like they did in game one where they do just enough. They’re able to get a homer or two off of Trey Savage and completely turn this series in their favor heading to Seattle. Do you think that this team can handle pitches like that differently than what we saw last round with the Yankees in their approach against that pitch? that pitch like that like what he the uniqueness of it, the fact that it looks unlike any other pitch kind of starts to lose its sheen and shine every single at bat, every single outing in the big leagues because somebody from the somebody from the Mariners is going to go and talk to somebody from the Yankees say, “What do you see?” I mean, if you if you delve into Trey Savage, if you delve into Trey Savage’s like why his pitches are unique, then pitchers can start to like or hitters can start to formulate how they’re going to approach it. When they see that slider spin, technically that thing, it backs up. It doesn’t go away from a right-hander. So, guys are going to have to like start swinging in that direction. The Yankees, unfortunately, were a kind of a guinea pig against Treya Savage. They hadn’t seen him. They hadn’t seen much. So, can they do it? Yes, they can do it. Does the Mariners pitching staff have to show up and, you know, essentially throw up zeros or ones? Yes. His I mean, historically or so far in this in this postseason, that’s what they’ve had to do. But that Kevin Gosman splitter, I I know I’m kind of jumping around. We were talking about the Kevin Gosman splitter there. It is one of the best in the game. But if you watched Cal’s other at bats, he made a very concerted effort to do something that was kind of unlike other guys in the lineup that were doing where they were like, “Okay, the ball down. I’m taking it. I’m taking the ball down.” It almost looked like Cal said, “I’m going to swing at the ball down, but I’m going to catch it so far out in front that my only choice is to be able to hit a dinger.” Because you saw some meh swings late. I think it was later in his next step bat or maybe it it was one of his strikeouts. And you don’t get those kind of swings unless your approach is, hey, you know what? I’m going to catch that ball as far out in front as I can. And I know I’m going to chase balls that are going to bounce, but I don’t think he’s going to bounce it so far out in front that I’m not going to be able to clip it. And when you catch balls out in front, that’s when you’re going to do damage. And I think that’s what he’s done all year. He hasn’t Cal hasn’t hit four seam fast balls very well. He’s hit those off speed pitches that are down and it looked like that was his concerted effort against effort against Gosman. A couple other things about Cal that stood out to me. One, Tom Verduchi, who is a very smart brain in our sport, said he hasn’t seen a catcher command a game like this since Yachti Molina. That is super high praise. And we don’t have to get into the whole MVP debate right now between him and Judge. Let’s focus on the postseason. But just the value that Cal is providing, right? It’s a position Kratz where many teams don’t expect a ton of offense. They just want a guy that is an absolute stud. Handling a pitching staff, blocking baseballs, calling pitches, catching runners if possible, the whole deal, right? I mean, Kyle Riley is looking like one of the best catchers we’ve seen in a really long time. And hey, if he’s getting Yachty praise, that’s incredible. But also, he’s a much better hitter than Yachty in terms of impact. I mean, he’s the best spat. Definitely the most dangerous bat on the team. So, I thought that part was special. If you want to comment, then I got one other about Cal. It’s huge. It’s huge. Winning teams need a winning catcher. Show me a team in the playoffs, especially the later you get into the playoffs that doesn’t have a winning catcher. And people will say, “Well, that’s just cherrypicking. That’s an easy thing to say.” Guys that catch no hitters, guys that control a pitching staff really well, know how to help them get through a start on short rest like he did tonight. Like those are the things that you kind of you build that rapport and you get kind of a idea of what kind of a catcher this guy is. You can’t you can’t put a stat on it. The only stat you can put on it is the W at the end of the day. And Cal Raleigh is clearly is clearly running this staff and he clearly has their has their ear, but he’s also helping them get through tougher times here in this postseason. And if they’re going to do anything, like I said at the beginning, this is the year of Cal. It’s not just about him hitting dingers behind a dish. What can he do? How can he control? How can you help these guys? Now they’re exhausted. But you know what? You got to get them through. You got to be able to read what they have in that in that moment that night. You’re talking to the pitching coach, the manager. You know what? He gets as much credit as Bryce Miller gets here. and many catchers fade either in the second half or definitely in the postseason. Did Cal have as good of a second half as the first half? I think the first half numbers were better, but his second half was still very, very good. And look at what he’s doing in the postseason. It’s so impressive. And he’s coming off catching 15 innings. He got 15 innings two nights ago. He’s a beast. Durability matters. And he flew from Seattle to Toronto. Toronto was sitting like this. They were like, “We had we had Jeff Hoffman on on Friday and he was like, “It’s so nice to be watching these games.” Cal just played a 15-in game. Just caught all 15 innings. Got a little got a little booze, got on a flight, flew out to Toronto. Like, this is why at the end of October, when you play all the way through October, you’re exhausted. Nobody is going to need rest more than him. But he doesn’t need rest right now. Sorry. Whatever you get from him offensively is a bonus. And he is just cashing in these bonuses every it seems like night in and night out. Oh yeah. And Mariners fans obviously love him to death. They’re going to have him for a very long time. I mean, he signed an extension uh with Seattle. Uh what was that? Was that this year or last year? Now I’m forgetting. Oh, that it’s great that you brought that up. How much does an extension do for a player? People will say, “Well, you know, sometimes there’s pressure on players and all this stuff or some players, they get complacent.” He signed that extension this year. Do you think Cal Raleigh is sitting here going, “I need to prove this extension.” Maybe. Is he sitting there going, “Man, I wonder if I can play through this injury.” He’s sitting there going, “You know what? I have this money locked up. What I’m going to focus on now is just playing this game. Is just playing to win. And I think honestly too, and maybe I’m overstepping what an extension for a premium talent in the game does for an organization. How many other years did they go did they go all in to get offense at the trade deadline? Even offense in the off season. They signed them to an extension and all of a sudden they’re like, “Hey, you know what? We’re kind of in striking distance. They might have had a better team last year and they did nothing. This year they were in striking distance. They had Cal locked up. You know what we’re going to do? We’re pushing our chips all in. So good for Jerry Dotto and good for an ownership that I’ve been and we’ve been very critical on for pushing for pushing all in going to get a heno to add to this lineup going to get Josh Naylor to add to this lineup which is what they needed. Yes it is. Exactly. Yeah, we have been critical and Mariners fans are seeing what this pitching staff is capable of doing in the playoffs if they add enough offense. Now they have enough offense to make this a problem. Couple other quick cow notes and then we’ll move on to game two. Uh what is it now? Nine home runs in 14 games in his career in Toronto. That’s really good. Four home runs against Gossman. I mentioned they were really on the money in the broadcast describing everything. One more component that really makes the full se or the season full circle for me. The very beginning of our season, the sto story that dominated the sport for a week was the torpedo bat. The Yankees had these torpedo bats. Unfair. Now everyone’s getting them. Oh, it’s going to change the sport. Offense is going to go up a ton. It didn’t work out. Most of those got thrown out, right? You actually pull how many hitters are using them. A lot of them will throw them out and say, “Yeah, I tried it for a little bit. wasn’t for me. Kyle Raleigh uses a torpedo bat. Kyle Raleigh is the poster boy for that bat. It’s what a lot of people thought everyone’s numbers were going to turn into. They’re like, “This isn’t fair. This thing’s so different. Everybody’s going to have inflated numbers.” Nah, just Cal Raleigh. Just Cal Raleigh. And ultimately, like we we covered this so much. Torpedo Bat. There’s even variations of the torpedo bat. Cal Raleighs is a little bit different than Austin Wells with the Yankees. Austin Wells looks like a bowling pin. Like it’s such a pronounced smaller cup, which is the end of the bat. And CS is a little bit more less demonstrative. It’s just it’s just the feel. It’s just the feel of a bat. But man, the torpedo the to He doesn’t need another He doesn’t need another uh nickname. So, let’s just stick with big dumper. Don’t try to add like a torpedo to the big dumper or anything like that. But I don’t care what you call it. That thing’s a freaking bomb bat cuz he’s in That’s right. bombs. That’s right. Well, we’ll see if it continues. So, let’s finish by talking about game two of this series that remains in Toronto. First off, we did get word about Nathan Lucas. It’s not a fracture, so he’s going to try and play through it if he’s feeling good tomorrow. That was a tough one off the knee. Do you know what it brought memories of for me and why I was so concerned? Christian Yell’s fractured kneecap. So, it sounds like that’s not the case. That’s great news. He’s pretty damn good and important. All these scrappy quote no namers in our game. Lucas is one of them. Barger, Ernie Clement, Davis Schneider, right? The role players that Toronto has is what makes them special and complete and Nathan Lucas is a big part of that. Yeah, because you play 26 guys. These this team plays 26 guys. Ernie Clement will lead off if the Mariners, you know, when they face lefties. Ernie Clement will hit second in front of Vladimir Guerrero or Davis Schneider will hit second. Like this lineup, like really changes and morphs. And when one of those guys is out, that’s really tough to put put someone else in a situation for an entire nine innings, an entire seven innings that they’re not used to being in those spots. Do we think, it’s not announced yet, but do we think Luis Castillo starts game two here? Trey Savage is already announced. I feel like based off what they have to work with, Castillo only went 15 pitches in the epic game five inning and a third. I mean, Gilbert’s not pitching yet. And George Kirby obviously no isn’t pitching yet. So, it’s got to be Castillo, right? They haven’t announced it. I guess they could announce a bullpen game, but I’m imagining Castillo is going to go against you Savage here. Has to. I I I don’t see I don’t see how he doesn’t. I think they had not only I guess you could never think of this game when you’re in that game five NLD or ALDS, but you have to think like that’s his bullpen day. So in that bullpen day, some guys don’t throw more than 20 pitches. So for them to keep him under that 20 even I thought I thought that day I thought he could go 30. I thought you’d be pushing him to 30 because if you throw a 25 pitch bullpen then you know 25 pitches in the game is really pushing it but maybe that 30 mark 15 I feel like maybe he can give you 75 pitches. Maybe he can give you 70 pitches. I never felt like Luis Castillo over the last two years they’ve really pushed him super long anyway. So it’s going to come down to the bullpen. It’s gonna come down unless the Mariners find a way to say, “Hey, you know what? We’re gonna score five runs.” Like, the Mariners aren’t built for like a ton of like somebody just eating a ton of innings out of their bullpen. So, this next game, I’m not saying they kick it down the road, but if they can push through, they fly home, they’re back in their time zone, and then they have a day off. No team needs a day off more than this pitching staff does. And I think Luis Castillo can give them can give them this huge break that they need, but they’re going up against Trey Savage and I don’t think anybody has has the answers yet to to get after him. 100 pitches by the entire Mariners staff in this game one. It is, according to Sarah Langs, the fewest by a team to win a postseason game since the Dodgers in game two of the 2018 NLDS against the Braves. And they sure could use that medicine for this game one coming off what they did. So, an impressive 3-1 win for the Mariners. Brian Woo is on the playoff roster for the M and could be a factor later in this series. That’s important to keep in mind as well. Maybe it’s Castillo game two, Kirby game three, Gilbert game four, and uh Woo game five maybe. And for the Blue Jays, no Bob Bashette, but Max Sherzer and Chris Basset uh added to the roster. Oh, Logan Gilbert tomorrow is the word on the street. Hot off the presses. How am I What am I What am I missing there? Isn’t Isn’t Gilbert on short rest also. Then Daniel Kramer reporting Logan Gilbert will start game two. Okay. So he started he started what? Game Gilbert was game three in Detroit and then pitched in game five. We’re going to get help from the crack staff since it’s late Tuesday. So, Tuesday he’s pitching again Monday. My thing was he went 34 pitches. Yeah, he went 34 pitches. But I guess that’s an extended bullpin session. I don’t know. Hey, you also check in with your guys. Who feels good? He feels good, right? And you roll with Logan Gilbert. You gota have It’s more than just, “Hey, Logan, how you feeling?” I’m good. I’m good. I’m good. No, it’s like, dude, seriously, like, we need to know because we need 100% out of you. Like, what do we have? So, hey, good for them. 34 pitches in game five and your guys, the guys on the stem and stem and ice machine right now for sure getting it ready. They like him on the road and Castillo at home. That is very evident. Wow. I mean, it has to be, right? I love Logan Gilbert. I mean, we spoke to him what, a week and a half ago. Super swing and miss guy. Strikeouts up big this year. He had a big game in Detroit uh for the Mariners. So, we’ll see what he looks like in game two coming off a weird situation. It’s not even short rest. It’s like a weird 34 pitch bonanza and we’ll see if he’s okay or if he was like Matt Boyd saying he’s okay, but he wasn’t really okay because then Boyd was really good the next time around. That was the Cubs situation in the other series. Oh, it sounds short. It’s not short rest. It’s just It’s just a what I would call travel ball. He’s got travel ball arm right now. Like he started and then they’re like, “We need you to win the semifinal game.” Came back in. He’s like, “Well, I’ve thrown I’ve thrown 120 pitches in the last I’m looking at it. That was five days apart and now we need you to go and throw and start again for our high school team.” Like it’s like the whole travel ball travel ball kids schedule where it’s like well he only threw 12 pitches 120 pitches last week he can throw 100 again. It’s like well that was two three days ago. So I guess everything’s out there. It’s a postseason. Yeah. He’s a vet at this point. I think fourth year in the bigs and Trey Savage is a rookie who’s a baby in the big leagues coming off a nice nice rest. It’s been a minute since he was shining in Toronto, right? A little over a week. So, we’re excited for it. We’re going to do a postgame show after that game, too. So, we’ll be back to talk about that one. It’s a little bit earlier. It’s 5:00 Eastern time, first pitch for that one. So, figure the game’s 3-ish hours, and we’ll be on here at 8 to do about a 30-minute postgame show. We’ll do as many of these as we can. We’ll kind of keep you posted on a day-to-day on how our schedules line up with the games, where the games are at in terms of the series, and then we’ll do as many of these as possible. So, hope you enjoyed it. That was our little reacts instantly to the Mariners taking down the Blue Jays 3 to one. This show is presented by Fox One. That’s where you can watch game two. So, you can sign up for this app wherever you are in the US. You can try seven days for free. Hit the QR code on the screen. All of our playoff coverage is presented by Fox One. They’ve got all of the ALCS games and the entire World Series. So, if you’re looking for a spot to watch and you haven’t been able to find it, Fox One can be that destination for you. Uh game two, they’ve got Joe Davis, John Smoltz, Ken Rosenthal, Tom Braduchi riding that entire series. And we will talk to you after that one. But before that, Foul Territories 1:00 Eastern time uh every single weekday all year long. So, we’ll see you for the 1:00 show. Kratz, me and Kevin Polar back on FT. See you then.

Erik Kratz and Scott Braun give their instant reaction and recap to the Seattle Mariners winning Game 1 of the ALCS over the Toronto Blue Jays.

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