SEATTLE — Humbled at home, the top-seeded Toronto Blue Jays revived on the road.
And not a moment too soon to avoid the danger of a 3-0 deficit in the American League Championship Series.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer woke up at the plate as the Blue Jays hit five home runs to rebound from an early deficit, routing the second-seeded Seattle Mariners 13-4 on Wednesday night at T-Mobile Park and closing to 2-1 in the best-of-seven ALCS.
Toronto had 18 hits, all within the first three pitches of each at-bat.
“If they give us a first pitch, the pitch that we’re looking for, we’re going to attack and we’re going to be aggressive,” Guerrero said.
Seattle starter George Kirby gave up eight of the hits.
“I wasn’t really executing when they got the guys on base,” Kirby said. “And they’re really aggressive when that happens. They made some good swings.”
Julio Rodríguez’s two-run homer off 2020 AL Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber put Seattle ahead 2-0 in the bottom of the first inning and stirred thoughts of a possible sweep by a team seeking its first World Series appearance but riding high after winning 3-1 on Sunday and 10-3 on Monday at Toronto’s Rogers Centre.
Andrés Giménez then sparked the comeback with a tying, two-run homer in a five-run third against Kirby. Springer, Guerrero, Alejandro Kirk and Addison Barger also went deep Wednesday as the Blue Jays totaled 2,004 feet of homers.
Guerrero had four hits, falling a triple short of the cycle, after going 0-for-7 at home over the first two games.
“No one expected us to win the division, no one expected us to be here, and I think the guys take that to heart,” said Toronto manager John Schneider, whose team went 94-68 as the AL East Division champion. “I said it when we left Toronto: I hope we find some slug in the air out here. Maybe we did.”
In the 2-3-2 format, teams that lost the first two games at home and won Game 3 on the road have captured the series three of 11 times.
A crowd of 46,471 for Seattle’s first home ALCS game since 2001 saw the teams combine to match the MLB postseason record of eight combined home runs, set by the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 3 of their 2015 NL Division Series and matched by the the American League’s Houston Astros and the NL’s Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 2 of the 2017 World Series.
Giménez hadn’t homered since Aug. 27 before his drive off a Kirby fastball.
“Definitely something changed for our offense,” Giménez said. “We come tonight with a mentality to attack.”
Kirby allowed eight runs, eight hits and two walks while taking the loss.
“The first couple innings I thought he was dynamite,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “This is a team that’s going to hurt you if you make mistakes on the plate. It looked like there were a couple that they were able to get to.”
Kirby’s run-scoring wild pitch put Toronto ahead 3-2, and Daulton Varsho followed with a two-run double.
Springer homered in the fourth, tying Bernie Williams for fourth on the career list with his 22nd postseason homer. Guerrero hit his fourth of the postseason for a 7-2 lead on the first pitch of the fifth.
Kirk added a three-run homer in the sixth and is hitting .413 (19-for-46) with eight RBIs in 14 games at T-Mobile Park.
Bieber, who got the win, did not allow a run after the first and wound up allowing four hits in six innings — the longest outing by a Blue Jays starter in seven postseason games this year.
“Obviously didn’t start the way he would have wanted to, but that’s pretty much who he is,” Springer said. “He can battle back from anything.”
After the Blue Jays built a 12-2 lead, Seattle’s Randy Arozarena connected in the eighth against Yariel Rodríguez for his first home run since Sept. 9, and teammate Cal Raleigh, who led the major leagues with 60 home runs during the regular season, followed three pitches later with his third of the postseason.
“If there’s one thing we’ve done since I’ve been here, we bounce back together well as a team,” Mariners reliever Caleb Ferguson said. “We respond well when we kind of get smacked in the face a little bit.”
That chance comes in Game 4 on Thursday night, when both teams are scheduled to send right-handed starters to the mound.
Luis Castillo, who pitched 1 1/3 innings of relief against the Detroit Tigers in Game 5 of their AL Division Series, gets the ball for Seattle.
Toronto counters with 41-year-old Max Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young Award winner who is 0-3 over eight postseason starts since the 2019 World Series opener and hasn’t started since Sept. 24 during the regular season.