Vladimir Guerrero Jr. showed his true weakness in ALCS Game 1 vs. Mariners

All week the conversation was about star power and inevitability. Toronto’s lineup, we were told, would stretch a game thin; Seattle would have to hang on for dear life and pray for a mistake. Instead, Game 1 flipped the script. The Mariners didn’t survive the Blue Jays — they disarmed them. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t cinematic. It was a plan, executed with the kind of cold precision that turns a series opener into a message: you don’t get to dictate terms here.

At the center of that message was a choice. Seattle decided this series would not be about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. getting comfortable. They took away his airspace, denied the easy damage zones, and made him play in the margins where slugger confidence turns into guesswork. That approach doesn’t guarantee whiffs or fireworks; it produces bad contact, longer counts, and, for the Mariners, exactly the tempo they wanted on the road in a Game 1 that many figured they couldn’t win.

Mariners show why Vladimir Guerrero Jr. isn’t the same outside the AL East

It helped that Bryce Miller showed up like a gamer with a grudge. After coughing up a leadoff homer to George Springer in the first, he slammed the door for five scoreless frames, stacking quick outs and stranding belief along the way. This was Miller’s first career start on short rest, while pitching through a bone spur in his elbow, and the first time all season he’d gotten through six full innings. On a night that begged for soft landings and bullpen triage, he attacked instead, buying Dan Wilson the matchups he wanted later and setting the tone for how Seattle would challenge Toronto’s core.

From there, the plan zeroed in on Guerrero Jr.’s least-talked-about vulnerability: he’s a different hitter outside the AL East comfort loop.

For his career, Guerrero owns a .914 OPS against AL East opponents but an .822 OPS against everyone else. That’s still an All-Star bat, just not the Bronx-boosted, Fenway-forged terror that warps game plans. Expecting the version of Vladdy who feasts on familiar divisions to teleport into a new series is lazy analysis — and Seattle treated it that way. At least in Game 1, the Mariners didn’t get the 9-for-17, three-homer, nine-RBI version everyone just watched against the Yankees.

Narrow the focus to this specific matchup and the pattern hardens. Against the Mariners this season, Guerrero has sat right in line with those non-AL East numbers: an .830 OPS and a 143 wRC+. Productive? Sure. Back-breaking? Not if you choke off the lift. Last night’s 0-for-4 wasn’t just a box-score blip; it was a proof of concept. Seattle’s game plan has kept his power muted all year — no home runs, no RBIs, six hits in 34 plate appearances including the postseason, and Game 1 honored that script.

The Jays will counter. They’ll try to re-center Vladdy’s at-bats, ambush heaters, and hunt something he can pull with loft. But the Mariners don’t have to overthink it. Keep the ball in the yard against Guerrero Jr., make Toronto’s depth do the heavy lifting, and you tilt these games toward your run prevention machine — the same unit that, even with a down year and health dings, still knows how to suffocate rallies.

Game 1 wasn’t an upset; it was a blueprint. Seattle didn’t expose Guerrero Jr. as overrated, they exposed the gap between his AL East dominance and the version you face when you refuse to feed his strengths.