Mariners pull the Tigers out of their own grave with unbearable ALDS meltdown

For four and a half innings in Detroit, this looked like the kind of businesslike clincher that lets a fan base start scoreboard-watching. Mariners fans were already preparing to take in a glance at Yankees–Blue Jays, trying on “future ALCS opponent” takes, and imagining a tidy handshake line before sunset. Seattle had quieted Comerica Park to a low grumble, stacked quality at-bats, and moved with the calm of a team that’s been here before. You could feel the collective exhale coming.

Front and center was trade deadline acquisition Josh Naylor, who hadn’t recorded a hit all postseason and then chose the biggest stage to wake up. He strung together back-to-back knocks, eventually circled the bases twice, and flashed an outrageous glove at first — capping it with a savvy solo double play that felt like an exclamation point on Seattle’s control of Game 4. Roll the tape and you’ll see a team dictating pace, with Bryce Miller pounding the zone and the Tigers getting booed out of their own ballpark. It was all there.

Mariners’ ALDS meltdown forces Game 5 back in Seattle

And then, history got weird. The Mariners entered October 8 a spotless 4-0 in games where they could clinch a series. That spotless record now has a smudge. Instead of a bow on the ALDS, Seattle took its first franchise loss in that exact situation losing 9-3. A series that should’ve been zipped up is headed to a winner-take-all Game 5 back in Seattle.

The hinge point was the bottom of the fifth. Protecting a 3–0 cushion with Miller cruising, a little traffic turned into a lot of trouble. A sharp Dillon Dingler liner brought home Zach McKinstry after Randy Arozarena took a rough angle in left, one of those split-second reads that becomes a momentum avalanche. Miller was pulled after 4.1 innings and two runs. From there, the mound became quicksand. The bullpen door swung and the Tigers started swinging freely, tagging Gabe Speier for two runs, and Eduard Bazardo for another three, dredging up early season nightmares — the six-spot Detroit hung on March 31 at T-Mobile suddenly didn’t feel so long ago. 

It wasn’t any single mistake so much as the stack of them: the tentative route in the outfield, a couple non-competitive pitches that flipped counts, a missed first-pitch put-away that turned into a rally starter. October punishes hesitation. Seattle had spent four and a half innings playing downhill; in a blink, they were skating uphill in ankle weights.

Now for the split-screen reality. The good news: this is why home-field advantage exists. Game 5 comes to a city starved for October volume, and there aren’t many atmospheres that smother an opponent like a wired Seattle crowd. The bad news: Tarik Skubal is taking the ball for Detroit, and he’s been exactly the kind of ace who shrinks margins for error to a razor’s edge.

So the assignment is simple, not easy. Get back to strike one and stay out of nibble mode. Make Skubal work early and pounce on any first-pitch freebies. Keep the game in the hands of the defense that carried you when the bats couldn’t, and give the bullpen short, defined lanes. The Mariners can absolutely win 27 tidy outs at home. They just have to play the first five innings like the last four and a half never happened, and make sure they aren’t the team packing up for the winter.