The Seattle Mariners are headed to the ALCS. They needed a marathon to get there.

Game 5 of the ALDS turned into a 15-inning show of endurance, with Seattle beating the Detroit Tigers 3-2 on a bases-loaded, walk-off hit from Jorge Polanco. They will face the Toronto Blue Jays in the next round, beginning Sunday in Canada.

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The 15 innings broke the MLB record for the longest winner-take-all game ever, exceeding the 13-inning 2018 NL wild-card game between the Colorado Rockies and Chicago Cubs.

“It took so long, holy s***,” Mariners star Cal Raleigh said in his postgame interview on Fox.

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In addition to Game 1 starter George Kirby getting the start, the Mariners used Game 2 starter Logan Gilbert and Game 3 starter Luis Castillo in relief to keep them alive against the Tigers, supplementing multi-inning outings from top relievers Andrés Muñoz and Eduard Bazardo.

There was action as the extra innings drew on, just not of the scoring kind. Troy Melton worked around a leadoff double in the 10th inning. Gilbert came in for his professional relief appearance and cruised until he needed Bazardo to save him in a 12th-inning jam. A controversial (read: wrong) review decision gave the Mariners two on with no outs in the bottom of the 12th, but it went nowhere. Same with a similar threat in the 13th, when Tigers starter Jack Flaherty entered the game with his control left behind in the bullpen. Seattle was working the better plate appearances overall, and the team was eventually rewarded for it.

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The ending arrived on another Mariners rally. In the bottom of the 15th, J.P. Crawford hit a leadoff single off Detroit reliever Tommy Kahnle, and Randy Arozarena followed with a hit-by-pitch. Cal Raleigh advanced the runners on a lineout, and Kahnle intentionally walked Julio Rodríguez, setting up a Polanco hit that will have a place on Mariners’ highlight reels for years to come.

The last time the Mariners reached the ALCS was with their 116-win team in 2001, and that series ended in disappointment against the New York Yankees. They’ll get a different AL East team this time around in the Blue Jays, with Game 1 scheduled for Sunday in Toronto.

The first 9 innings of Tigers-Mariners were epic too

Before that ending was an epic back-and-forth featuring clutch hits amid a pitchers’ duel. The Tigers entered the game with the starting pitching advantage on paper, with likely AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal against George Kirby for the Mariners.

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For the first six innings, it was advantage Kirby, but not through any fault of Skubal’s. The southpaw was masterful, throwing 13 strikeouts and walking none in six innings, setting an MLB record for strikeouts in a winner-take-all game. He also set an MLB postseason record with seven consecutive strikeouts at one point.

It would have been an untouchable night, had it not been for a single, hesitant swing from Josh Naylor. The Mariners’ first baseman, a trade-deadline acquisition, tried to check his swing when a Skubal sinker veered outside the zone, but his bat kept going … and made contact enough to poke the ball 89.4 mph down the left-field line. Naylor recorded an almost accidental double, then stole third base and scored on a Mitch Garver sacrifice fly.

That’s the kind of stuff you need against a pitcher such as Skubal when he’s on.

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The Mariners hoped that run would be enough, and for Kirby, it appeared to be. After coming up short in Game 1, the right-hander adjusted by throwing slider after slider — 33 of his 66 pitches. It kept every Tiger off-balance save for Kerry Carpenter, who got two hits off the pitcher to improve his career line to 7-for-13 with five homers against Kirby.

Seattle clearly didn’t want a sixth homer, so after Kirby allowed a leadoff double to Javy Báez in the sixth inning with Carpenter on deck for his third crack at the starter, manager Dan Wilson pulled Kirby for left-hander Gabe Speier. Despite Carpenter having a career .335 slugging percentage against left-handers, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch kept him in, rather than pinch-hitting Jahmai Jones.

With one swing, Carpenter rewarded Hinch’s faith in him and punished Wilson’s faith in platoon advantages. A two-run homer — perhaps the unlikeliest of the 2025 postseason from a matchup standpoint — flipped the game on its head.

At that point, the Tigers had the lead and the best pitcher in baseball on the mound. Skubal was overwhelming the Mariners, mostly with a changeup that drew a ludicrous 14 whiffs on 18 swings. On his 99th pitch of the game, he hit 100.9 mph to strike out AL MVP candidate Cal Raleigh to end the sixth inning.

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And that was all for him. Rather than let his ace run his pitch count into triple digits, Hinch pulled Skubal for Kyle Finnegan, who got into a two-on, two-out jam. The Mariners pinch-hit Dominic Canzone for Mitch Garver, so the Tigers pulled Finnegan for left-hander Tyler Holton, so the Mariners pulled Canzone for Leo Rivas.

The 28-year-old Rivas was making his first career postseason appearance, after 776 games in the minors. It was his birthday. And he came through with a single to send T-Mobile Park into a frenzy.

That wound up being the first of four plate appearances for Rivas.

Both teams settled in from there, exchanging zeros for the next three hours until Polanco finished the job.

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Tigers vs. Mariners Game 5 live blog