The Seattle Mariners have never won more than two games in the ALCS, and they’ll need to wait a day for another shot.

Recap: Blue Jays hit 5 HRs to cut Mariners ALCS lead to 2-1

Of course, they’ve also never had a 2-0 lead in the ALCS. That’s shrunk to 2-1 following an offensive explosion from the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday night, but it’s a reminder of two important themes here.

First, this Mariners team is good. Special, even. Certainly better than they’ve been in years, and they’ve been resilient more often than not.

Two horrible road trips? No problem, just bounce back with 7-0 homestand.

Need to make up ground in the AL West in September? Win 17 of 18 in a stretch that includes sweeping a bitter divisional rival on the road for first place.

ALDS pushed to a winner-take-all Game 5? Battle for nearly five hours through 15 innings to beat the Tigers.

The second theme is also important, though: They’ll need to look like the best version of themselves to beat a very, very good team.

Not that anyone needed a reminder about the Blue Jays’ offense — this game was an incredibly unwelcome refresher on that one for Mariners fans — but Toronto led the league in hits (1,461) and batting average (.268), and was fourth in runs (798) during the regular season.

The surprise about their start to the series at Rogers Centre wasn’t just about the Mariners aiming to make history or doubt the Seattle could pose a real threat; it was also genuine shock from national baseball voices about the lack of production from one of the league’s most productive teams. A team that led the postseason in slugging coming out of the ALDS was suddenly outscored 13-4 across two contests.

It wasn’t going to be easy. Which is why avoiding running through the bullpen was probably the only good news to come from this one. I initially expected to begin with a critique about the lack of urgency in pulling George Kirby and the need to treat postseason games more aggressively, but… well, the Blue Jays had 18 hits and that wasn’t slowing down.

• Strong starts and sweeps in AL history: While teams with a 2-0 start to a best-of-seven series have advanced 84% of the time, those series have very rarely been sweeps. The last four ALCS sweeps were in 2022, 2014, 2012 and 2006 — just four times in nearly 20 years. The NLCS hasn’t seen a sweep since 2019 and has seen just four since 1995.

More Seattle Mariners ALCS coverage

• Mariners-Blue Jays has been the bizarro ALCS through three games
• Blue Jays ride big third inning to Game 3 rout of Mariners
• Julio Rodríguez hits another first-inning HR
• Randy Johnson throws out first pitch for Mariners’ ALCS Game 3
• Times, radio and TV details for Seattle Mariners’ home ALCS games