By Cody Stavenhagen, Tyler Kepner and Chandler Rome
SEATTLE — In a 15-inning game for the ages, the Seattle Mariners prevailed, and now they have a chance to fill the gaping void in their franchise’s history.
The Mariners are MLB’s only team to never reach the World Series. That fact has been repeated over and over again this October, and you are about to hear it even more. The Mariners beat the Detroit Tigers 3-2 on Friday night at T-Mobile Park, emptying their bullpen, testing their wills and winning a game that stretched deep into the night. The Mariners emerged victorious from a game that became baseball’s ultimate battle of wills. Now they advance to face the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series.
At the conclusion of a tension-filled 15 innings, the game ended on a walk-off single from Jorge Polanco, a flashpoint moment that sent players spilling onto the field and a seismic shock through a pulsating T-Mobile Park crowd.
To get that far, Seattle overcame six dominant innings from Detroit starter Tarik Skubal, who made postseason history as he dispatched batter after batter via strikeout. Seattle still scraped across one run against Skubal and struck again when the Tigers had to turn to their bullpen. From there, the game turned into spellbinding, scoreless theater that at times felt like it would never end.
By the 15th inning, J.P. Crawford led off with a single against Detroit reliever Tommy Kahnle. He advanced to second on a hit by pitch, advanced to third on a Cal Raleigh fly ball and eventually scored on Polanco’s full-count line drive into right field.
The Mariners move on to the ALCS for only the fourth time in franchise history, joining 1995, 2000 and 2001. Meanwhile, a Tigers team that was the American League’s best for much of the regular season enters an odd winter after a September and October of valiant effort but ultimately unfulfilled expectations.
That was an absolute postseason classic
We just witnessed the longest winner-take-all game in MLB postseason history. In extra innings, both teams turned to starters out of the bullpen. Both teams had runners on base and favorable chances to take the lead or win the game. But baseball’s fates had other things in mind. Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo, Keider Montero and Jack Flaherty, kept escaping jams. By the end, these two teams combined to leave 22 runners on base.
For the Mariners and most of the fans at T-Mobile Park, it had to evoke memories of the last elimination game played inside this ballpark: an 18-inning marathon against the Houston Astros during Game 3 of the 2022 ALDS. Houston won 1-0 en route to the World Series title.
That game took 6 hours and 22 minutes — then the third-longest in playoff history — and the 18 innings matched the longest game in postseason history. Friday’s game took 4 hours and 58 minutes to complete.
Wilson’s quick hook was a by-the-book move
Only three times in his career had George Kirby thrown 66 pitches or fewer in a start: once this summer when he was getting shelled, and twice as a rookie, one of those times because of a rain delay. Then came Game 5 on Friday.
Kirby was rolling through five shutout innings, pumping strike after strike past the Tigers. He’d allowed one hit batter and two hits — but both were to Kerry Carpenter, bringing Carpenter’s career stats to 7-for-13 with five homers off Kirby.
The Mariners are terrified of the Carpenter versus Kirby matchup. There may have been no chance that Kirby faced him three times under any circumstances, let alone in a one-run game. So after Javier Báez doubled to lead off the sixth, Dan Wilson did what modern managers do — he reached for a different arm. In theory, Kirby could have pitched carefully to Carpenter, and if he walked him, gone after Gleyber Torres, whom he had struck out twice.
But Wilson trusts Gabe Speier, who had retired Carpenter three times in this series. But Speier had been shelled in Game 4, and perhaps all those looks in the last week helped Carpenter, who launched Speier’s 1-0 fastball — right down the middle at 95.4 mph — into the center field seats for a two-run homer.
KERRY CARPENTER GIVES THE @TIGERS THE LEAD! #ALDS pic.twitter.com/5RTVcgF2NA
— MLB (@MLB) October 11, 2025
It was a by-the-book move by Wilson, who’d been burned in Game 1 when Carpenter smoked a two-run homer off Kirby with two outs in the fifth. But one of the Mariners’ strengths is their starting pitching, and by yanking his starter when he did, Wilson turned things over to a middle reliever, familiar to Carpenter, who was coming off a bad outing.
And he got burned again.
But bringing in Leo Rivas was perfect gamesmanship
The Mariners love to play matchup with their DH spot, seeking opportunities for Mitch Garver against lefties and Dom Canzone against righties. In the seventh inning of Game 5, with Kyle Finnegan on the mound, Seattle announced Canzone to bat for Garver. Tigers manager A.J. Hinch countered with lefty Tyler Holton. Wilson then pulled back Canzone for righty Rivas, the 5-foot-8 utility man who turned 28 on Friday. Rivas, who had not come to bat in the series, celebrated in style by lashing Holton’s second pitch for a game-tying single to left — and the fans here made this ballpark shake.
Carpenter’s October legend grows, but it’s not enough
Carpenter entered his sixth-inning at-bat against Mariners left-hander Gabe Speier with a .207 career batting average and only seven home runs against left-handed pitching. For the bulk of his MLB career, manager A.J. Hinch has pinch-hit for him against lefties in key spots.
Here in the sixth, with Jahmai Jones on the top rail of the dugout as a decoy, Hinch let Carpenter hit with an eye on the right-handers in the back of the Mariners bullpen. It’s unlikely Hinch could have predicted what happened: Carpenter smashing a fastball high under this retractable roof and smashing a two-run, go-ahead homer off Seattle’s best left-handed weapon. Carpenter keeps growing his legend as a postseason hero.
He went 4-for-5 with two walks Friday night, and his home run off Speier might have passed last season’s ALDS home run off Emmanuel Clase as his signature October moment. The problem? The Tigers mustered only four hits from the rest of their lineup. Carpenter became the first player to reach base five times and hit a home run in a decisive playoff game since Babe Ruth in Game 7 of the 1926 World Series, per OptaStats.
The Mariners intentionally walked Carpenter to load the bases with two outs in the 11th and escaped one of the game’s biggest situations when Gleyber Torres flied out to right field.
So does Skubal’s
Game 5 was another imposing and electric outing from the American League’s best pitcher and a man who will likely be the winner of back to back Cy Young Awards. Skubal struck out 13 Mariners batters, setting a record for the most in a winner-take-all postseason game. He set another postseason record when he struck out seven consecutive batters, starting in the second inning and ending in the fourth.
Skubal pitched with his team trailing until his sixth and final inning. The Mariners battled him hard enough to raise his pitch count to 99, forcing Hinch to turn to his bullpen an inning earlier than he might have liked. Rather than cruise to a victory, Kyle Finnegan — pitching for the fourth time in this five-game series — walked a batter and surrendered a single, and left-hander Tyler Holton gave up another hit to lose the lead.
Skubal still finished with a signature October performance: 6 innings, two hits, one earned run, no walks and 13 strikeouts. In two ALDS starts, Tarik Skubal had 22 strikeouts, a 0.62 WHIP and a 2.08 ERA. But with run support sparse, the Tigers lost both games.
