Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’ve always hated when leagues let the owner hoist the trophy first after a championship, but it was even worse last night when it was the chairman of the media conglomerate that has the Jays as part of its portfolio. 

In today’s SI:AM: 
🇨🇦 Jays take Game 7
🦁 Lions win big NFC showdown
🏀 NBA season storylines

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Game 7 lived up to the hype

A seven-game series can’t be won or lost in a single moment. But it can sure feel like it. 

The Blue Jays are going to their first World Series in 32 years after a thrilling Game 7 victory over the Mariners on Monday night. It’s an outcome that seemed nearly impossible after Seattle won the first two games of the series in Toronto (including a 10–3 drubbing in Game 2), but the Jays rebounded and took four out of five to win the pennant. 

The Mariners can point to plenty of reasons why they lost those four games (like the three double plays they grounded into in Game 6), and the Jays can point to plenty of reasons why they won them (like the unlikely offensive contributions of Andrés Giménez in Games 3 and 4). But when we look back on this series years from now, there’s one moment and one decision that will be remembered as the one that decided the series. 

Seattle was leading 3–1 in the bottom of the seventh on Monday when Bryan Woo got into a bit of trouble. After sailing through the fifth and sixth innings in relief of George Kirby, Woo walked Addison Barger to lead off the seventh and then allowed a single to Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Giménez laid down a sacrifice bunt to move the tying run into scoring position. 

At that point, Seattle manager Dan Wilson had to go to his bullpen. But who would he call on? All-Star closer Andrés Muñoz? Reliable setup man Matt Brash? No, he went with his third-best option, Eduard Bazardo. 

Bazardo proceeded to allow a go-ahead three-run homer to George Springer on the second pitch he threw. 

Bazardo isn’t some scrub. He’d been one of Wilson’s most effective bullpen arms throughout the regular season (a 2.52 ERA and 1.017 WHIP in 73 appearances). But it was a colossal strategic blunder by Wilson to call on Bazardo in that situation. The Mariners were clinging to a 3–1 lead with runners on second and third and one out in the seventh inning. The top of the Toronto lineup was coming to the plate. The stakes couldn’t get much higher. It’s a situation that calls for your best reliever. 

“Bazardo has been the guy that's gotten us through those situation[s], those tight ones, especially in the pivot role, and that's where we were going at that point,” Wilson said after the game. Asked more directly about whether he considered using Muñoz, Wilson reiterated his belief in Bazardo. 

The impulse to save your closer for the ninth inning is a natural one, but Wilson should have realized that there likely wouldn’t be a bottom of the ninth if the Mariners couldn’t escape the seventh with the lead. Bringing in your closer in the seventh is certainly unorthodox, but you have to manage a Game 7 differently than you manage a Tuesday night in June. No one is saying Wilson should have asked Muñoz to get the final eight outs of the game, but he should have had him face Toronto’s best hitters with the lead hanging in the balance. 

You have to give Springer credit for rising to the occasion, too. The homer was his fourth this October and the 23rd of his postseason career and 23rd of his career, moving him into a tie for third on the all-time postseason home run leaderboard. (He’s tied with Kyle Schwarber and only trails Jose Altuve’s 27 and Manny Ramirez’s 29.)

The 36-year-old Springer has had a remarkable bounceback after the worst offensive season of his career last year. He batted .309 with a .959 OPS and 32 homers in the regular season, his best season at the plate since 2019 with the Astros. 

Adding to the legend of Springer’s clutch homer was the fact that he was playing through pain after getting hit on the kneecap by a 96 mph pitch in Game 5 on Friday. He was forced to leave that game when he was plunked in the seventh inning, but he was back in the lineup for Game 6. When Fox’s Ken Rosenthal asked Springer on air after Game 7 how much pain he was in, Springer deflected. 

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I owe it to these fans, this city, this country to give it my all.”

Springer is one of the greatest postseason players in baseball history. He won the World Series MVP when Houston won the title in 2017, but he had departed for Toronto by the time the Astros won again in ’22. Starting Friday in Toronto, he’ll have a chance to claim a second ring and bring the Commissioner’s Trophy to Canada for the first time in three decades. 

The best of Sports Illustrated

The top five…

… things I saw last night: 
5. The bizarre and hilarious decision by Josh Naylor to jump in the air to try to break up a double play. (The umpires conferred and decided to give the Blue Jays both outs on the play.)
4. A 78-yard touchdown run by Jahmyr Gibbs. 
3. Tez Johnson’s impressive run after the catch to score a touchdown on a wide receiver screen. 
2. Max Scherzer’s reaction to returning to the World Series. 
1. The very polite Canadians who celebrated in the streets of Toronto after the Jays’ win—but only when they had the right of way.


This article was originally published on www.si.com as SI:AM | Blue Jays Seize on Mariners’ Strategic Blunder to Win Game 7.