Yahoo Sports senior MLB analyst Jake Mintz recaps the deciding game in the American League Championship Series – and explains why the Seattle manager made a crucial mistake in the key moment of Monday night’s loss. Check out the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
The Mariners are the only team to not participate in a World Series, and that’s not so fun a fact.
It endures for at least one more season.
What a year for the M’s.
They came within one game.
I mean, this is the furthest a Mariners team has ever gotten.
No Mariners team had ever won three games in an LCS.
Is that like a sad accomplishment a little bit, but I think in time Mariners fans will look back on this year fondly.
A reason they might not is because of how this all went down.
This is an unacceptable pitching decision, um, for Dan Wilson to go to Bizzarro and not Muoz on the spot with runners on second and third and one out.
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I mean, the season, as we very well saw, was hanging in the balance.
And instead of going to your best arm, you go to a good arm.
And it’s really like, can you sleep at night, right?
I would rather go down with the guy who got you there.
Now, why, let’s just put ourselves in Wilson’s shoes.
Like, why does he not go to Muoz?
The argument, I guess you would make, is, well, they’re gonna have to face the top of the order two more times at that point, right?
This is the seventh.
You’re, yeah, you’re probably gonna have to see Springer and Guerrero again.
And so you want Muoz to handle that in the ninth.
I get the argument.
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It’s a bad argument.
The reason it’s a bad argument is because the highest-leverage spot is right there in front of you, with two runners on and the tying run.
You don’t know what’s going to happen in the ninth inning.
The Mariners maybe tack on a couple more runs, maybe the bases are empty.
Like, this was the biggest spot in the game, and Dan Wilson did not have his guy ready and did not go to him.
And I think that is something that sadly will define the rest of his managerial career.