Blue Jays-Mariners ALCS Game 3: You Gotta Belieb

Whatever your superstition or good luck charm of choice is, if you switched it up between Games 2 and 3, you helped. The Jays, for their part, left the white panel hats in Toronto and switched to the double-blues to wear with their powder blue uniforms. The switches worked, and the bats exploded for 18 hits and 13 runs, with the team getting contributions from every part of the lineup. In keeping with the theme of switching things up, for this recap, I’m going to do things a little differently, and instead of running through the game chronologically, I’m going to look at the lineup from top to bottom.

Shane Bieber: 6 IP, 2 ER, 1 BB, 8 K
Bieber’s first inning started with a walk, fly out, home run and ground-rule double. It was quickly 2-0 Mariners, and Seattle had a 76.4% win expectancy. Bieber would retire the next seven batters in a row, including five strikeouts – all of them swinging. Bieber had 17 swing & misses on his way to putting up a pitching line and steady performance that was the exact kind of outing the Jays needed and why Toronto made the move for him at the trade deadline. He threw 88 pitches, and none more than his slider. He was perfectly split with 44 pitches in the zone and 44 out of it. He had hitters looking uncomfortable in almost every at-bat.

George Springer: 3 for 6, HR, 2 runs scored
With his home run in the fourth inning, Springer moved into a tie for fourth place all-time in postseason homers. With 22 for his career (three so far this postseason), he is now tied with Bernie Williams. He’ll need seven more to tie Manny Ramírez for the all-time lead. This particular dinger made it 6-2 Jays. His home run ball was also the hardest hit by anyone in the game at 112.5 mph and traveled the furthest of any ball (measured at 431 feet).

Nathan Lukes: 1-for-6, 1 run, 1 RBI
Lukes would single in the third inning and score the go-ahead run on a George Kirby wild pitch to give the Jays their first lead of the game – a lead they would not relinquish.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 4-for-4, HR, 3 runs scored
Vladdy’s first three ABs were a 102.8-mph single, a 104.9-mph double and a 106.4-mph HR. The fourth time, he was rewarded with an intentional walk. His fifth at-bat produced his hardest hit ball of the game: 108 mph for another double. A slight stumble out of the box likely kept him from considering going for third and chasing the cycle. With his fourth home run of the playoffs, he is now tied with José Bautista for the franchise's most in a postseason. His 16% win probability added was tied for the most of any Blue Jays batter.

Anthony Santander: 0-for-2, 1 BB, 1 run scored
Tony Taters was moved up to the cleanup spot to shake things up a little. He ended the game as the only Jays starter to not record a hit, but showed a remarkable amount of hustle to score from second base on an Ernie Clement single. On a play where Alejandro Kirk would be tagged out trying to go first-to-third to end the inning, Santander’s speed helped make it 7-2 Jays. He would be rewarded with the rest of the night off, as Myles Straw came in as a defensive replacement in the bottom half of the inning.

Alejandro Kirk: 2-for-4, HR, 2 runs scored, 3 RBI
Kirk’s three-run home run in the sixth inning didn’t do much to move the win probability needle (it was already pretty maxed out), but it did provide an exclamation point on a Jays offensive showing that proved this team is one to be reckoned with. He also scored from second on a Daulton Varsho double in the third, showing a determination to put runs on the board.

Daulton Varsho: 2-for-5, 2 RBI
Varsho was the only Jays starter not to score a run. His double to score Guerrero and Kirk in the third inning made the game 5-2 Jays and was the highest scoring play by WPA in the game at 17.5%. That double was also the second-hardest hit Jays ball of the night, behind only Springer’s homer, clocking in at 109.8 mph.

Addison Barger: 1-for-5, HR
Barger was the last of the starters to reach base in the game. Everyone else had done it by the top of the fifth inning, but Barger waited until the ninth. It was his first hit of the ALCS, and it was an emphatic moonshot. Measured at 414 feet, it was incredibly the only Blue Jays home run in the game that would have also been a homer in every other major league park. Barger was born in Washington State and had a number of family and friends in attendance to see his first career postseason home run. As he said in a post-game scrum on Sportsnet: “Homers are sick.”

Ernie Clement: 2-for-5, 1 run, 1 RBI
Clement led off the third inning with a double that set the stage for the offensive explosion that was to come. He followed that up with a single in the fifth inning to score Santander and extend the Jays' lead. His 1.208 OPS to this point in the playoffs trails only Paul Molitor’s 1.378 of all Jays postseason runs before this year (Vladdy’s 1.426 this postseason is the current franchise high-water mark). Not bad for the #8 hitter.

Andrés Giménez: 3-for-5, HR, 2 runs scored, 2 RBI
Speaking of the bottom of the order getting it done, and conveniently for my recap format, we’ve saved the best for last. Batting ninth and following that Clement double, Giménez was the second batter to the plate in the third inning. With the Jays down by two and none out in the inning, announcers Buck Martinez and Dan Shulman wondered aloud if Giménez might be asked to bunt to move the runner into scoring position. Thankfully he wasn’t. In post-game remarks, Giménez said he was just trying to make contact and move Clement over. Well, with his first career postseason home run, Giménez moved him all the way over and around and tied the game at two. He erased the Mariners' lead, and by the end of the inning, the Jays would be in front and never look back. Giménez would also go first-to-third on a Springer single in the sixth and score on an infield tapper by Lukes.

This performance was the kind of one we are used to seeing from the Jays. Production up and down the lineup, with the spark coming from the guys at the bottom. They still have a hill to climb, but they’re now one win away from tying the series and will be sending Max Scherzer to the mound for Game 4. He will hope to replicate Bieber’s “this is why they got him” performance, and if he’s not as sharp as the Jays need, they now have a rested bullpen ready to go. Just like that, we’ve got a series on our hands again.