Mariners squander their ALCS lead over Blue Jays with their dumbest loss of 2025

The Seattle Mariners' lead in the American League Championship Series is gone, and how they lost it is so jarring that it's hard to believe it was ever even there in the first place. There are bad losses and there are Bad Losses, and Games 3 and 4 are textbook examples.

Game 3 was a beatdown. And not just any beatdown, but a 13-4 beatdown in which the Toronto Blue Jays hit five home runs and scorched a handful of other balls. The Mariners found themselves on the wrong side of history — one of those losses that sucks but also makes you say, "Eh, it happens."

Even though the final score was "only" 8-2, Game 4 was worse. So, so much worse.

Max Scherzer and inexcusable miscues turned Game 4 into a horrid experience for the Mariners

You have to begin with Max Scherzer, who seemed to have been chosen to start Game 4 as a sort of sacrifice to the Mariners. Yes, he's a legend. But he's also a 41-year-old who got left off Toronto's roster for the ALDS after a September in which he had a 10.20 ERA. The Mariners' offense getting going against him was less "probable" and more "inevitable."

It didn't. Scherzer navigated through 5.2 innings before departing with a 5-1 lead, helped by a 0.6 mph on his average fastball relative to the regular season. But it also helped that the Mariners swung at seemingly every junk offering he threw, highlighted by 10 swings and six whiffs on 10 curveballs.

Joke's on the Mariners we guess, but they didn't have to literally put on a jester's cap and make fools of themselves in front of the T-Mobile Park crowd like they did.

That "literally" is obviously hyperbolic, but here are some of the Mariners' greatest hits from a night that would make Tom Emanski cry:

• Andrés Giménez, he of the 66 OPS+, hit another homer and drove in four runs
• Leo Rivas got picked off first base with Cal Raleigh at the plate
• Allowed a run on a bases-loaded walk
• Allowed another run on a wild pitch
• Josh Naylor got thrown out trying to go first to third on Addison Barger and his cannon

No, no, no. Go past this part. In fact, never play this again. Dark Helmet said it first, but we'll gladly pitch a few bucks to Mel Brooks for permission to use it. Because if this wasn't the single dumbest loss the Mariners have had all year, we're at a loss for a better candidate.

The Mariners can't erase the result of all this, which is that the 2-0 series lead they took out of Toronto on Monday is now a 2-2 tie. They're still only two wins from the World Series, but so are the Blue Jays and they have at least one thing the Mariners don't right now: a fully functional offense.

T-Mobile Park being what it is, anyone could have expected the Mariners to cool down offensively after their 10-run outburst in Game 2. But the extent to which Shane Bieber and then Scherzer were able to downright ice them is hard to fathom. They dared Mariners hitters to chase their pitches by nibbling and expanding the zone. The Mariners just couldn't not oblige, resulting in 11.2 huge innings from a pair of aces who were supposed to be over the hill.

The Mariners, on the other hand, got dud performances from George Kirby and Luis Castillo. This is even though starting them at home was meant to be flexing an advantage, which makes their duds feel more like disasters.

The Blue Jays now get to turn their rotation back over to Kevin Gausman and Trey Yesavage. The Mariners revealed on Thursday that they'll be turning over their own, as All-Star starter Bryan Woo is only ready to pitch out of the bullpen. For Game 5 on Friday, that means asking Bryce Miller to give them more of what he gave them in Game 1, in which he went well above and beyond the call of duty.

The series is already guaranteed to go back to Toronto for Game 6 on Sunday. Whether it does with the Mariners fighting for a World Series berth or for their playoff lives is up to them, with the only comfort being that they can't possibly play worse in Game 5 than they did in Game 4.