Luis Castillo, Mariners Get Pulverized by Blue Jays 8-2 in Game 4, ALCS Tied at Two Games Apiece
SEATTLE, Wash. — It was a whole lot of Blue Jays for the second straight night in Seattle, as the Mariners once again crumbled on their home stage on the mound and at the plate.
In a season that has been filled with a whole lot of broken expectations and bizarre turns of events, the last two games ended up being about as predictable as a Hallmark movie. A far better offense with a revolutionary new-old school way of doing things has mashed the ball in T-Mobile, and just two games after riding high out of Canada, the Northwest has been pushed to the same crass five-word catchphrase that has held true since 1977.
For everyone except Josh Naylor (and even including Josh Naylor for one bizarre moment), the moment was far too big for the man. Unlike in Game 3, the M’s had real chances to get back into Game 4. Max Scherzer brought back the legend of old, even screaming at John Schneider the first time the Jays manager tried to pull him, but he only went into the sixth inning. Toronto’s bullpen isn’t exactly star-studded, but the M’s had already mentally thrown in the towel.
“Rock” and the relievers get rocked, but the train wreck is slower in Game 4.
Coming into Game 4, Luis Castillo had been nails throughout his five playoff appearances, with a 1.40 ERA in 25 ⅔ innings pitched. He got through two innings with ease, getting a host of weak contact from the aggressive Blue Jays.
But it was déjà vu all over again for the Mariners once the game reached the third inning: the eight-hole hitter cracked a leadoff double before Andrés Giménez changed the game with an unlikely homer as he was trying for something less. Nathan Lukes, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Alejandro Kirk loaded the bases with one out, threatening to blow it open in the first third of the game. Castillo, like Kirby in Game 3, was leaving all sorts of cheese out in the belt-high third of the zone, and the Jays were punishing it just like they had punished Kirby.
Mariners manager Dan Wilson pulled Luis Castillo at that point. The starting pitcher had been leaving a whole lot of stuff out over the plate, and trying to avoid a crooked number, Wilson brought in Gabe Speier to try to put out the fire. Speier walked in a run, extending Toronto’s lead to 3-1, but he managed to blow down Ernie Clement and Addison Barger to keep the game close.
Unfortunately for Seattle, they could never manage to fully stem the bleeding. There were a couple of clean innings scattered about, but the fourth—when the Jays most needed to twist the knife—saw two more Toronto runs, one on an RBI double and the other on a Matt Brash wild pitch. Eduard Bazardo gave up a seventh-inning homer to the red-hot Vladimir Guerrero Jr. for Toronto’s sixth run before the game turned into a blowout in the eighth on a rough Emerson Hancock outing.
“Mad Max” returns to form for almost six innings, turning back the clock to his glory days in a playoff win.
He has played in 18 Major League seasons for seven big league clubs. He has struck out 3,489 batters, won 221 games, has three Cy Young Awards in his possession, and has played in the All-Star Game eight times. He has won the World Series twice, in the process breaking a combined 112 years of failure between the Washington Nationals and Texas Rangers (though an injury during the latter Fall Classic prevented him from notching a World Series win in 2023). The Toronto Blue Jays are the sixth team he is starting for in the postseason, the most of any pitcher in history.
Max Scherzer has more than earned the title “Mad Max” over his illustrious career, one that will make him a first-ballot Hall of Famer. But in 2025, his twilight struggles have been worse than ever, with a career-worst 5.19 ERA over 17 starts in the regular season resulting in his absence from the ALDS roster.
There were some worrying signs for Scherzer early in Thursday’s game, as he threw nine of 10 pitches for balls after going up 0-2 on Cal Raleigh. The jam dissipated as soon as it gathered, however, as Jorge Polanco grounded into a double play.
Seattle’s only damage against Scherzer, however, came on his changeup. That pitch was once one of the deadliest deliveries during his prime, but over the past few years, it hasn’t had the killer fade it once did. Josh Naylor punished a changeup that lingered out over the plate in the bottom of the second and brought Seattle out to a 1-0 lead.
Like all excellent pitchers do, however, Scherzer adjusted. He was helped out by the desperate mentality that Seattle’s hole produced in their offense, sure, but he largely shelved the changeup from that point on and went to his curveball to get big outs. Not only did the Mariners players help Scherzer out with their desperation, the Mariners dugout helped him out by giving them take signs on most of the zero-strike and one-strike counts when he threw quite a few unpunished meatballs.
Leo Rivas gets his first postseason start and becomes Max Scherzer’s first pickoff in nearly a decade, despite an otherwise solid game for Rivas.
Wilson gave the starting order the first shakeup of the playoffs on Thursday, tapping Leo Rivas as the starting second baseman for the first time in the postseason. Usual second baseman Jorge Polanco played as the designated hitter, while Dominic Canzone moved from DH to right field and Victor Robles got a rest day. Rivas, who had just 111 plate appearances during the regular season, was one of the team’s biggest heroes during Game 5 of the ALDS.
He put together some solid at-bats on Thursday night, working a third-inning walk against Scherzer to become one of four the Mariners to put together a free pass against the Blue Jays’ starter. But he had a lapse on the basepaths soon after, getting picked off on first base to end any pressure on Scherzer in that inning. Two other solid strokes into right met the glove of Addison Barger as Rivas went a respectable but quiet 1-3.
Josh Naylor makes a rare mistake on the basepaths, cutting down a potential Mariners rally in the sixth inning.
There are moments during baseball games that tell you a team is in a bad collective headspace. Players who normally lay off junk in the dirt swing away at it, for example, or a guy with excellent situational awareness makes a boneheaded play.
A lot of that was happening on Thursday up and down the Mariners lineup, but one player who had a mostly good game was Josh Naylor, who followed up his second-inning blast with two singles down the left field line. But even he fell victim to the pressure during Seattle’s one opportunity to take advantage of Toronto’s biggest weakness
Naylor’s sixth-inning single came on the heels of a two-out walk from Jorge Polanco, and though they were still down four, the Jays’ bullpen had squandered greater advantages throughout the season. Eugenio Suárez—who seems to have escaped the deepest throes of his slump—shot a ball into right that brought Polanco home.
Three runs is a far easier hole than four runs, especially with two guys on. The tying run would have been at the plate in Dominic Canzone, a guy with more than enough pop to knot the score (though as the Blue Jays showed, hunting more singles would have been the more productive strategy). But Naylor, seemingly unaware of how quickly Addison Barger had fielded the ball in right, dashed for third. He was easily thrown out, an unusual occurrence for a guy who has shown an incredible intelligence on the basepaths.
And so ended the last real chance for Seattle to get back into the game, as the team showed no life beyond that point. Hitters started to check out in the later innings, walking up to the plate with shame and fear in their eyes and walking back soon after having taken strike three without a swing.
