Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, postseason edition! We'll keep you up to speed on everything you need to know every weekday throughout the 2025 MLB playoffs. Thanks for being here.

There is nothing quite like a Game 7. 

For the Mariners, there literally had never been a Game 7 … until now. If Seattle fans had their way, there still wouldn’t be. But the Blue Jays came out swinging the bats in Sunday night’s ALCS Game 6 at Rogers Centre, grabbing an early lead and going on to win 6-2 to force tonight’s win-or-go-home showdown, with a ticket to face the Dodgers on the line. 

So, if the Mariners are going to break through and reach the first World Series in franchise history, they will have to do it the hard way: winning a Game 7 on the road. But either way, one of these franchises -- both of which are in their 49th seasons after joining the AL together in 1977 -- will capture its first Game 7 victory tonight (8 p.m. ET, FOX/FS1). 

The Blue Jays’ only Game 7 was an ALCS loss to the Royals in 1985. How long ago was that? The game was played outdoors in Toronto (temp at first pitch? 44 degrees) at Exhibition Stadium, the predecessor to Rogers Centre. Even Max Scherzer was just a 1-year-old at the time. (Blue Jays manager John Schneider was only 5.) Bret Saberhagen and Dave Stieb were the starting pitchers.

The Mariners and Jays aren’t alone, though. The Padres and Rockies also have never participated in a Game 7. Five other teams have gone longer without one than Toronto: the Orioles (last in 1979), Reds (1975), A’s (1973), Tigers (1968) and White Sox (1919).

Before 2025, three of the previous four seasons did not yield any Game 7 at all. (Both LCS went seven games in 2023.) In other words, what we have tonight is something to be savored. 

If you want a deep dive into everything Game 7 related, we have you covered right here. A few nuggets to keep in mind before we descend into chaos tonight:

• Home not-so-sweet home? There have been 61 winner-take-all Game 7s, between the World Series and LCS, counting the 1912 World Series, which required an eighth game but only due to an earlier tie. Leaving out 2020 games played at neutral sites, home teams have gone 30-29, including losses by both the Astros and Phillies in the 2023 LCS. 

• Will nine innings be enough? Six times, including that World Series Game 8 in 1912, a Game 7 has gone into extras -- the most recent being that unforgettable 2016 World Series capper when the Cubs prevailed over Cleveland. Just one LCS Game 7 has gone to a 10th inning: the 2003 ALCS, when the Yankees’ Aaron Boone walked off the Red Sox. 

• Will Joe Carter have company? Eight times, again including that 1912 finale, a Game 7 has ended in walk-off fashion. Two were in the LCS: the aforementioned Boone game in 2003 and the 1992 NLCS, when the Braves staged a ninth-inning rally to beat the Pirates on what is simply known as The Slide. Carter’s famous World Series-ending walk-off homer in 1993 came in Game 6 against the Phillies, but perhaps a present-day Toronto player will come up with another immortal moment tonight.

-- Andrew Simon

As if Game 7 weren't compelling enough, the pitching matchup in tonight's ALCS finale adds some intrigue.

On one side, it's George Kirby, Seattle's homegrown rotation cornerstone who's looking to bounce back from an eight-run outing in Game 3. On the other, there’s Shane Bieber, a back-from-injury former AL Cy Young winner whom Toronto acquired at the Trade Deadline.

Though Game 7 is always an all-hands-on-deck situation, meaning the starters may not go that long, each one has the potential to play a huge role in the outcome.

For Kirby, it's a chance for redemption. But he'll have to overcome some concerning road trends. The 27-year-old posted a 5.16 ERA in 11 road starts this season, compared to a 3.38 ERA in 12 home starts at pitcher-friendly T-Mobile Park. Opponents had a .761 OPS against him on the road, compared to a .627 OPS at home. It should be noted that none of his previous four career postseason starts (three of them this year) came away from Seattle. His first postseason road start coming in Game 7 in Toronto is definitely a baptism by fire.

For Bieber, he'll look to build on a Game 3 performance (6 IP, 2 ER, 8 K's) that mirrored his abbreviated regular season. After debuting Aug. 22, he allowed two earned runs or fewer in five of his seven starts, with the Jays going 5-2 in those games. That bodes well for Toronto as it seeks its first AL pennant since 1993.

But it's possible none of this will matter. Game 7 is its own thing, with a habit of throwing previous narratives out the window and giving us a surprise or two.

-- Jason Foster

When the World Series begins Friday night, either the Mariners or Blue Jays will be laser-focused on figuring out ways to stop Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani after his incomparable performance in Game 4 of the NLCS.

Whichever team is in the opposite dugout also might be thinking about what could have been: There was a very real chance Ohtani could have plied his trade in either the Pacific Northwest or the Great White North at various points in time.

When Ohtani was picking his initial MLB team as a free agent prior to the 2018 season, the Mariners were viewed by many as a potential favorite, given the franchise’s extensive history with Japanese players -- most notably Ichiro Suzuki, whom Ohtani had grown up rooting for and ultimately befriended. The Mariners pulled out all the stops, including amassing the most international pool money of any candidate and guaranteeing Ohtani could be a full-fledged two-way player, but ultimately, they lost out to the Angels for his services.

Though the fans in Seattle still held a flame for Ohtani six years later when he again became a free agent, the Mariners would not be major players this time around. But Toronto very much was.

As detailed in beat reporter Keegan Matheson’s terrific book “The Franchise,” the Blue Jays expressed their willingness to bid more than $700 million, rolled out the red carpet at their spring facility in Dunedin, Fla., and closely adhered to the Ohtani camp’s requests for utmost secrecy throughout the process. They also loaded up Ohtani and his crew with Toronto gear; even his dog, Decoy, got a Blue Jays jacket.

Despite multiple rumors Ohtani was on his way to Toronto -- fans took to refreshing websites that tracked flight patterns -- the Blue Jays finished runner-up to the Dodgers, a bitter pill to swallow.

“You feel like,” manager John Schneider said, poignantly, at the time, “you’re kind of linked to him forever.”

This October, one would-be suitor will have the opportunity to write an epilogue to their saga.

-- Bryan Horowitz

In case you missed it, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been tearing it up at the plate this postseason, on an 18-for-39 (.462) heater with three doubles, six home runs and 12 RBIs. Yet amid all of that hard-hit damage, an eighth-inning bloop single in ALCS Game 6 is somewhat what we want to talk about.

Right off the bat (sorry, we had to), it was pretty obvious something was off with the ball's flight path, given how it sailed without incident over J.P. Crawford at short before veering hard to its right. The slow-motion replay of Guerrero's swing later revealed that as Carlos Vargas' sinker splintered the slugger's bat handle, the unstable barrel actually hit the ball three separate times, explaining how a batted ball could have more spin than the pitch it came against. Guerrero has apparently now strayed so far into "unstoppable force" territory that hitting the ball once isn't cutting it anymore.

To be fair, this isn't unheard of. Twice (...thrice?)-hit balls are total oddities, a subset of broken-bat base hits. Or so we thought, because looking back on his young career, Guerrero seems to have a gift for this -- last night's was his third contribution to our list of twice-hit pitches, which has to raise a few questions about whether this may actually be a hidden skill.

Incredibly, this isn't even the first time in recent memory that someone has hit a ball three times on the same swing in a win-or-go-home LCS game, although we are willing to chalk that purely up to October weirdness.

-- Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru

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