Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh had a home run against the Blue Jays in Game 1 of the ALCS.

Milwaukee Brewers first baseman Andrew Vaughn at bat against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Major League Baseball postseason is down to its American and National League Championship Series.

The surprising Seattle Mariners, making their first postseason appearance since 2022, are the top story as of this writing, thanks to their two convincing victories over the home team Blue Jays in Toronto, with the best-of-7 ALCS now moving west to Seattle.

The Mariners had to survive a 15-inning winner-take-all Game 5 against the Detroit Tigers, with the game-winning hit coming off the bat of Jorge Polanco. After their divisional play triumph, they flew across the country to take on the Blue Jays, who had demolished the New York Yankees in four games of their best-of-five series.

Everything seemed to favor the Jays going into Game 1 of the ALCS, especially after Jays leadoff hitter George Springer blasted the first pitch of the contest for a home run off Mariners starting pitcher Bryce Miller, giving the home team a quick 1-0 lead. But something happened after that moment as the Jays’ bats went silent for the rest of the night.

The visitors tied the game at 1 on a solo home run by Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh in the 6th inning. Polanco would drive in two more runs as Seattle took Game 1 by the final score of 3-1.

The Mariners’ bats stayed hot in Game 2 while the Jays’ bats remained cold.

Julio Rodriguez hit a 3-run homer in the top of the first inning to get his team off to a flying start. The Jays were able to even the score at 3 in the 2nd inning before the Mariners pulled away on a 3-run homer by Polanco in the 5th inning and a 2-run round-tripper by Josh Naylor, part of a 3-run outburst in the 7th, to extend the Seattle lead to a 10-3 advantage.

The Blue Jays offered little resistance with just one hit after the 2nd inning as the Mariners’ pitchers continued to mow down the Blue Jays’ hitters.

The series shifts to Seattle with the Mariners just two wins away from their first trip to Major League Baseball’s World Series.

A 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven postseason series nearly guarantees victory, with teams converting the lead 78 of 93 times (83.9%). Winning Games 1 and 2 on the road under the current 2-3-2 format makes a series win even more likely (24 of 27 times, or 88.9%). While teams have rallied from a 2-0 deficit (most recently the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2023 NLCS), the specific challenge of recovering after losing the first two games at home has only been overcome once since 1996 (Yankees vs. Braves).

In the National League Championship Series, Blake Snell pitched 1-hit baseball for eight innings and struck out 10 (postseason career high) to help the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers edge the Milwaukee Brewers 2-1 in Game 1 of the best-of-7 series.

Snell, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, was the show as he handcuffed the Brewers bats and protected a slim 1-0 lead while facing the minimum of 24 batters, picking off the only hitter to reach base against him.

The only two other pitchers to face the minimum were Don Larsen of the N.Y. Yankees during his perfect game against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series and Roy Halladay of the Philadelphia Phillies in his postseason no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds in 2010.

Freddy Freeman’s home run in the 6th inning provided the slimmest of margins for Snell. The Dodgers would add an insurance run at the top of the 9th inning before stymying a rally by the home team in their last atbat. Snell: “I was able to locate my fastball, which set up my other pitches.”

Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts: “Blake was very special tonight.” Brewers Manager Pat Murphy concurred: Snell pitched a brilliant game.”

It should be remembered that Snell no-hit the Dodgers for five innings in the deciding game of the 2020 World Series before being taken out of the game by Tampa Bay Rays Manager Kevin Cash.

Following his untimely exit, the Dodgers rallied to win the game and the series, their first World Series title since 1988.

Snell came to the Dodgers through free agency, just for moments like this — and he delivered “Big Time” as the Dodgers won the opening road game of the National League Championship Series since 2008.

And they did this despite a 4th inning bases-loaded base running gaffe that resulted in an 8-6-2 unassisted double play, one of those unique and rare plays that make baseball the magical game that it is — a game that produces “once-ina-lifetime” plays that need a voluminous rule book to explain.