The visiting Seattle Mariners aim to square their three-game series with the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon and avoid falling farther back in the chase for a postseason berth.
The Blue Jays recorded an 8-1 win in the series opener on Friday to even the season series between the teams at 2-2.
The Mariners are four games out of first in the American League West and four games in back of the third wild-card spot.
The Blue Jays moved to within 2 1/2 games of the third AL wild-card slot.
The win in the series opener was a big turnaround from Toronto’s 13-2 loss to the Kansas City Royals on Thursday. The home crowd booed the Blue Jays out of the building.
On Friday, Toronto answered Dominic Canzone’s homer in the first with three runs in the bottom of the inning.
“That’s a really good bounce-back win,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “It was nice to answer right back in the first inning. We talked to the guys today. We’ve got 26 games left, hopefully more. Let’s worry about one day at a time and leave it all out there.”
Dylan Cease struck out eight batters in six innings for the Blue Jays to strengthen his case at the American League Cy Young Award.
“They all feel like must-wins at this point,” Cease said. “We didn’t play as well against Kansas City and now we’re trying to gain ground and set the tone. It’s crunch time and there are not a lot of games left.”
George Springer homered among his four hits for Toronto.
Right-hander Jose Soriano (10-7, 3.43 ERA) is Toronto’s expected starter on Saturday. He is 2-1 with a 3.46 ERA in 11 career games (six starts) against the Mariners and 0-1 with a 5.40 ERA in one start this season.
Rookie left-hander Kade Anderson (0-0, 4.76) is listed to make his second career start for the Mariners. In his major league debut, he allowed three runs and five hits in 5 2/3 innings last Saturday. He did not factor into the decision in Seattle’s 5-4 victory.
Mariners manager Dan Wilson said on Friday that right-hander Bryce Miller will move to the bullpen.
“It’s definitely on a short-term basis, and a chance for him to go down, and make some adjustments and get back on track in some way,” Wilson said. “Bryce is going to be a pitcher for us for a long time, win a lot of games for us.”
Seattle starter Emerson Hancock limped slightly after making a tag on Nathan Lukes’s grounder in the first inning on Friday. After being checked by a trainer the right-hander continued and allowed five runs in five innings.
“He kind of tweaked his groin a bit,” Wilson said.
“It felt weird,” Hancock said. “Just something that I feel like I needed to be able to kind of get through to be able to try and get as many outs and innings as I could. We’ll kind of see tomorrow how everything’s feeling.”
Toronto recalled CJ Van Eyk on Friday and he pitched around a walk in the ninth. Fellow right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson was designated for assignment.
Seattle infielder Brendan Donovan is with the team and is eligible to leave the seven-day concussion injured list on Saturday. Wilson, however, said that he does not feel Donovan will be ready to return that soon.
–Field Level Media
