A Grip on Sports: Suárez comes through in a big way as the M’s swing and swing and swing philosophy pays off in crucial ALCS Game Five victory

A GRIP ON SPORTS • One swing. Then another. All that had gone before was washed away. If this is new to you, Friday night’s tense, exhilarating, contentious American League Championship Game Five in Seattle was everything, everywhere, all at once with Mariners’ baseball, circa 2025.

•••••••

• That the M’s 6-2 win was fueled by Eugenio Suárez’s eight-inning grand slam to right field – and to a lesser degree, Cal Raleigh’s game-tying home run 12 minutes earlier and Suárez’s second-inning solo shot – seems so appropriate as to be a cliché.

The Mariners swing and swing and swing. Doesn’t matter where the pitch is – ladies and gentlemen, Julio Rodriguez – or what type of pitch it is. From the top to bottom, it’s a lineup that takes its shots at glory. Every at bat.

Suárez, the bases loaded and no one out, did that on a Seranthony Dominguez breaking ball well out of the strike zone. Just nicked it. And did it again a couple of pitches later, running into a fastball out over the plate and driving it just a few feet beyond the right-field fence. And driving the M’s within one game from the World Series for the first time in the franchise’s 49 seasons.

Close, sure. But as long a trip as everyone in teal – including those at home around the Northwest – will have ever experienced.

The M’s first swing at the Series comes after a 2,500-mile travel day to Toronto, as the teams will meet Sunday night (5, FS1). It is guaranteed not to be their last, though it could be the Jays’.

And one thing is certain. Seattle will take its hacks – and miss. Often.

This is a lineup that struck out 1,446 times in the regular season – sixth-most in baseball. A lineup that has added another 107 Ks in the postseason. A lineup that, seemingly, swings and misses more often than a 2-year-old with a wiffle bat.

That Friday night’s game-winning rally was fueled by Raleigh’s high fly to left, a home run that showed up on Sea-Tac’s radar and hung in the air for 6.7 seconds, and Suárez’s liner just over an am/pm ad, comes as no surprise.

What does is the moments precededing both.

Raleigh, who has obviously expanded his strike zone in this series as the MVP candidate tries to carry the hit-and-miss offense, took two close pitches from lefty reliever Brendon Little, both called balls, before launching his game-tying rainbow. And then Jorge Polanco and Josh Naylor each showed enough plate discipline to earn walks.

Righthander Dominguez replaced Little to face free swinging Randy Arozarena and did the M’s the biggest favor since the Diamondbacks made a couple deadlines trades with them in July. He hit Arozarena with a 2-1 fastball. He didn’t give the slumping leftfielder a chance to strike himself out.

Yep, the deciding runs reached base without a hit. Well, those three freebies did. The true tie-breaker was Suárez’s historic feat, one that our grandchildren would be watching on Root Sports in their dotage – if Root Sports existed any longer.

The Mariners’ World Series hopes still do. Thanks to one swing Suárez took and a handful of others that Polanco, Naylor and Arozarena did not.

That’s 2025 Mariners’ baseball folks. Sort of.

• What is 2025 Washington State football? Cross country travel. Schools that have never appeared on the Cougars’ schedule before. And a pluckiness that has existed since Mel Hein’s day.

All are on the agenda this afternoon – or evening in Charlottesville, Virginia (3:30, The CW). And, yes, retired UVA basketball coach Tony Bennett says he is probably going to be at the game. Though I did not ask who he will be rooting for.

The question on every Coug fans’ mind, though, is will the effort that traveled so well last Saturday show up for a second consecutive foray into the Eastern Time Zone?

In case the hectic past seven days have wiped your memory, WSU went to Oxford, Mississippi and gave then-fourth-ranked Ole Miss a bigger scare than Ghostface ever gave Courteney Cox. But, ultimately fell four-points short of a historic upset.

Virginia is favored by 17.5 points, a little more than half what the Rebels were last Saturday. Still, expecting two weeks of shocking college football’s world is a tough ask of 18-to-24-year-olds making their second consecutive Lewis-and-Clark-like trek.

•••

WSU: Greg Woods has all you need to watch the game today. He has a preview, his keys to the game and his pick. He’s taking the home team, though he believes the visitors will cover. … FYI, we will have a TV Take from The CW broadcast. There is no M’s game to worry about, after all. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, Jon Wilner has a mailbag in the Mercury News along with the weekly recruiting roundup he passes along. … We thought the game between No. 2 Miami and Louisville would be a good one. It was. If you love upsets. There may be more today. … If San Diego State wins out, it wins the Mountain West title in its final season as a member. … This week is about improvement at Colorado.

• Here are the rest of the (current, old and future) Pac-12 games this week, listed chronologically, including the results from Friday night. The schedule below also includes any game in which finding news about turned out to be nearly impossible.

– Utah State 30, San Jose State 25: The Aggies needed the win to keep their bowl hopes alive. They got it with a late rally, including a key fourth-down stop.

– Cal 21, North Carolina 18: Just like everyone expected. The Tar Heels played better and were about to score late to win. Then Paco Austin knocked the ball loose, the Bears recovered the fumble and held on in Berkeley.

– Washington at Michigan (9 a.m., Fox): A lot of what may decide this Big Ten battle will be decided in the training room before the game. Which injured players are available, for both teams, could be the difference.

– Arizona at Houston (9, FS1): The Wildcats are the homecoming opponent today. Does that mean Houston believes this is an easy win? Probably. 

– Texas State at Marshall (12:30 p.m., ESPN+)

– UNLV at Boise State (12:30, FS1): We are guessing the Rebels will not be sad to see the Broncos head to the Pac-12. UNLV has struggled against the Mountain West’s best program over the years.

– No. 7 Texas Tech at Arizona State (1, Fox): Jordyn Tyson is one of the best receivers in the nation. Will he be able to show that against the Red Raider defense? 

– No. 8 Oregon at Rutgers (3:30, Big Ten Network): There are a lot of Big Ten team traveling a long way this week. The Ducks are among them. That should not be as important as the opponent.

– Maryland at UCLA (4, FS1): Is this the new normal for the Bruins? Playing well and winning, I mean.

– Hawaii at Colorado State (4, Mountain West Network): The Rams are coming off a big win.

– No. 20 USC at No. 13 Notre Dame (4:30, NBC): Enough about whether this rivalry will continue. Just play the darn game. 

– No. 23 Utah at No. 15 BYU (5, Fox): This is a rivalry. No doubt about it. It was even when the conferences were different. As such, there is way too much on the line for both BYU and Utah. 

– Lafayette at Oregon State (7, The CW): Maybe the opponent this week is why Trent Bray was fired at this time. Robb Akey has a chance to start with a win. … The starting Beaver tight end is out.

– Florida State at Stanford (7:30, ESPN): The night game in the Bay Area – the first meeting between these ACC members – will probably be attended by hundreds of fans, many worn out from marching earlier in the day.

• In basketball news, we have a story from Boise on the Bronco win over Idaho in a men’s exhibition game. … Utah State and Seattle U will meet in an exhibition game today. … UCLA went to San Diego State and handled the Aztecs in an exhibition. … Selland Arena in Fresno. We hold some not-so-fond memories of covering games there 40 years ago. My ears still hurt. Fresno State is going back downtown for a few games. … No one voting in the Big 12 coaches’ poll expects Arizona State to be very good. … Colorado has a lot of late games this season.

Gonzaga: The news about high school big Sam Funches telling the world he will attend GU next season broke just before we posted out column yesterday. We didn’t see Theo Lawson’s story, nor the socials about it until after deadline. We link Theo’s story today. … Theo also has a story on TV times coming out for the rest of the Zags’ national games. … Elsewhere in the WCC, John Canzano has a column about USF athletic director Larry Williams, who died Thursday. Canzano knew the 62-year-old Williams when he was in charge at the University of Portland.

EWU: Dan Thompson tells us to watch the Vandals’ rushing attack. It will test the Eagle defense front today in Cheney. … Kendrick Bourne is in his second stint with the 49ers. This one is going a lot better. … Elsewhere in the (current and future) Big Sky, UC Davis is trying to get a player another year of eligibility. … Montana State coach Brent Vigen has been named to an NCAA committee. … Both Weber State and Portland State need a win. Badly. Only one can. … Sacramento State is hosting Northern Colorado for homecoming. That did not work out well for Idaho. … Fourth-ranked Montana hosts Sacred Heart. No, not the hospital’s staff. A football team.

Idaho: On the flip side of today’s rivalry game, Idaho’s defensive front hopes to be the driving force behind a Vandals win. Peter Harriman has his things to watch. … The Vandal men played at Boise State last night in an exhibition contest and fell behind by 15 at the half. Behind 18 points and five assists from Lake City High grad Kolton Mitchell, they rallied but couldn’t get over the hump, losing 89-83.

Preps: There hasn’t been a lot of Cheney football success since Tom Oswald walked off the practice field a couple decades ago. But the Blackhawks are back to winning, as Dave Nichols can attest. He was at their 24-14 win over Mead at Union Stadium. …Samantha DiMaio covered West Valley’s 48-3 rout of visiting Deer Park in GSL 2A action. … The other football games? Covered in this roundup. … We can also pass along Cheryl Nichols’ roundup from Friday’s action in other sports.

Seahawks: Are the Hawks going to trade Riq Woolen? … We linked this Athletic story about the offseason success earlier in the week. It is on the S-R site today. … So is this story on blocked field goals. … If you have been watching the Hawks, you might have been wondering who the heck No. 42 is. Here is the answer.

Mariners: Yes, we linked the game story above. And some other stories. We saved Jacob Thorpe’s column on Suárez and how important his pickup at the deadline has been until here. The best for (near) the last. … By the way, I understand why the Jays’ manager was upset about the booing after George Springer’s injury. But what if the booing was coming from the decent contingent of Jays fans, unhappy with the wild Bryan Woo pitch? … After the Mariner game ended, I switched over to the National League game. Boy, was that couple hours worth it. Thanks to Shohei Ohtani, who delivered a game for the ages. The best ever? How the heck would I, or anyone else, know? I did not see Tungsten Arm O’Doyle play a hundred years ago. Neither did anyone else. But Ohtani’s performance was incredible. And the Dodgers are headed to the World Series. Again.

Reign: Lu Barnes’ final regular season match was everything Seattle hoped. The Reign clinched a playoff berth.

Sounders: Seattle closes out its regular season today against New York City FC. 

•••       

• We did not start late today. Quite the opposite. But for some reason time seemed to disappear. We had to post an early draft of the column before deadline without much in the way of links. This is the finished product. Such as it is. Until later …