Blue Jays advance to the ALCS, previewing next Postseason games! | Morning Lineup (MLB Daily Recap)
Jeff Hoffman trying to finish the job. His 1 to 2 pitch Jays have punched their ticket to the championship series from mlb.com. This is the morning lineup podcast. I’m your host, Mandy Bell. Today is Thursday October 9th and the first team has punched their ticket to the league championship series but three other spots remain vacant. We’ll take the next 10 minutes to catch you up on all the latest postseason action. Let’s get to it for the first time since 2016. The Blue Jays have won a postseason series and are on their way to the A L CS Cody Bellinger waved at a strike three in the bottom of the ninth inning, sending the Blue Jays into an on field celebration as clubhouse attendant put the finishing touches on the visiting clubhouse at Yankee stadium protecting it from the champagne showers that were about to occur. This was a 74 win team just one year ago. A team that was projected to maybe be 500 this year. Nothing special. Nothing crazy. Definitely not a contender to win the A L pennant. This was something that needed to be celebrated from start to finish this series. This team has been carried by its $500 million star Vladimir guerrero Junior. So it was only fitting that he once again was the spark plug for Toronto on Wednesday night down the line, it’s a fair ball on a two strike pitch. Guerrero serves it into the corner one to Blue Jays. George Springer brought one home on a sack fly. Nathan Lucas took advantage of Jazz Chisholm booting a ball and played a two on a single miles. Straw added an insurance run in the eighth. It was all a recipe that led to a five to Blue Jays win over their long time division rival Yankees to advance to the A L CS for the first time in nearly a decade. Something that this group knew it could do, as explained by George Springer. These guys don’t quit. This team never quits. Day in and day out. You fight. It’s just, it’s such a special group and I’m so proud everybody. Now the Yankees are going home much earlier than they anticipated after making their way to the World Series last year. They don’t even have a chance to win their first championship since 2009. This postseason, the ending is the worst, especially when you, when, you know, you have a really good group and a group of guys that really came together so well. It’s a team that played for one another, did a lot of really good things. And we got beat here. Instead the Yankees watch the Blue Jays score 34 runs and rack up 50 hits in these four short games. They also sat and watched their opponents celebrate on their turf knowing their run had come to an abrupt ending. And now the Blue Jays get to sit back and wait to find out whether they’ll play the Tigers or the Mariners in the next round. But we’ll get to that in a minute before we get into all the other A l chaos. Did you know the Dodgers could have clinched last night too after the way games one and two looked against the Phillies. It seemed like it was set up for the Dodgers to sweep Philadelphia in front of a home crowd. It definitely looked like it was going to happen when the Dodgers got on the scoreboard first. Here is Suarez and on the first pitch, Tommy Edmond is gonna send one out of here a greeting that was, but Then a Schwar bomb changed everything. You’ve probably heard the term Schwar bomb before. If you were ever looking around for a proper definition of the term, look no further than this moment one way out of here. How far will it fly? My goodness that traveled 455 ft. Schwarber has five homers that have gone at least 450 ft in his postseason career. The only other player to even have two tracked under stats is Freddie Freeman, Then a ball singled in another run and brandon Marsh brought one home on a sack fly to give the Phillies a 3 to 1 lead in the fourth. If the Dodgers didn’t have anything else to celebrate, they at least had a nice moment as Clayton Kershaw trotted in in the seventh inning to have his postseason moment in front of a home crowd in case you missed it. He announced that this season will be his last. So it was special for him to get another taste of this atmosphere. But when it came to the eighth, the wheels fell off the cart for Kershaw and that special moment was over, Jt Rutto hit a homer and Then Schwarber returned and now Schwarber a high towering fly ball, that one is deep. Hernandez will watch it fly. It’s a, everyone blinked and it was suddenly 8 to 1. Now the Dodgers did score once more in the ninth, but the Phillies were able to avoid elimination with an 8 to 2 victory keeping their season alive at least one more day. Speaking of avoiding elimination , two other teams did exactly that last night too. We’ll get to those after the break. The script was set for the Mariners to cruise into the A L CS up 2 to 1 in the series against the Tigers. The Mariners just needed one more win to advance. They entered the game four and oh, all time in postseason games with a chance to clinch the only team in postseason history to not have a loss in those games. And Then they came out and took an immediate three nothing lead in the right field that’s down for a base hit a Rose are getting the way home. He’s going to come around and score Raley with another RB I in Detroit and it’s three to the Tigers have struggled at park recently. They had lost eight straight at home not winning since September 6. It wasn’t until Dylan Dingler singled in a run in the bottom of the fifth that the offense showed some signs of life and Then another run and Then the 22 swing a line shot base hit into center Tiger’s gonna tie it up Jones around third Baez big turn and hold at 1st 33 game in the fifth. That’s when Riley Green stepped up and allowed the Tigers to never look back breaking ball lifted to right. The Tigers played in nine runs thanks to more homers by Baez and Glaber torres. They not only won 93 which is the most runs they’ve scored in a postseason game since 1968 but they danced around elimination and forced a win or go home game five on Friday in Seattle. And even though Terri Sle didn’t lead his team to a winning game two, I think the Tigers like their chances with the reigning A L Cy Young on the rubber in game five. This is what competition is all about. This is why you play the game, you know, for game five. Yeah, it’s competition, you know , and I think that’s going to bring out the best in everyone involved and that’s why this game is so beautiful. We’re going to be able to experience that on Friday knowing they’ll be in front of their home crowd. Cal Raley and the Mariners are confident that they’ll be able to bounce back and win the series on Friday. I mean, a lot of the guys that are going to go out good baseball, you know, it’s going to be tough, but we’re up for the challenge and that’s what you do this time to face good pitching, good teams and there’s going to be challenges and bumps in the road and we’re up for it for this Brewers Cub series has had active first innings so far and game three started with a test. How well do you know the infield fly rule? Contreras pops it up. Where is it? Nobody sees it. It might fall. It does. Taking off from first is Tang, nobody’s at second base. Everybody’s safe late afternoon sun at Wrigley field. And now craig wants to know why the infield fly rule wasn’t in effect in this scenario because the ball was lost in the sun and no one made a move toward it or appeared as if they could catch it with ordinary effort. No infield fly call was made luckily for the Cubs. It only led to one Brewers run but still one was enough to be uncomfortable. The Brewers were one win away from a sweep after taking the first two matchups against Chicago. So the Cubs needed to respond to that chaotic first inning and that’s exactly what they did. Here’s a swing and a high fly ball to deep right off the bat of Bush back is that ball at the wall, Armstrong delivers with a base hit to right. That will score two and the Cubs have the lead at a run scoring wild pitch and the Cubs answered with a four run bottom of the first inning and Bush’s homer was the second leadoff homer of the series. The first player to do that multiple times in a single postseason series. Brewers, first baseman jake Bowers singled in a run in the fourth and Then did this in the seven Kittridge first pitch swinging Jake Bowers to left and that is hip at the track. It is gone, Jake Bowers, but that comeback attempt ended there. Now the Cubs still have their work cut out for them trailing 2 to 1 in the series. However, they’re confident that they can avoid elimination one more time to force a game five. Just ask Nikko Horner. Yeah, same thing as today. It was great energy. We had some big moments and they were there behind us every step of the way. So I will see you guys tomorrow night. That’s all for today’s morning lineup. We have national league action coming up tonight. Game four between the Phillies and Dodgers will start at 6:08 p.m. Eastern time on T BS. The Phillies have to win again to force a game five and game four between the Brewers and Cubs will follow at 9:08 p.m. Eastern time. Also on T BS, the Brewers are one win away from punching their ticket to the NL CS Anthony Castro Vince will be with you tomorrow to recap everything that happened and preview the upcoming A L DS game five on Friday. As always, please be sure to give us a rating and a review and share this episode with the baseball lovers and your life. Thanks for listening and enjoy the rest of the division series.
All of the important storylines from 10/8/2025 across MLB including: the Blue Jays advancing to their first ALCS since 2016, the Tigers tying the ALDS vs. the Mariners, big wins by the Cubs and Phillies to force a Game 4 of the NLDS, and previewing what’s to come as the Division Series continue!
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