Eugenio Suarez has played in 1,630 regular-season games in the major leagues.
He’s played in another 18 playoff games.
He’s never had a moment like this.
“I have a good amount of beautiful moments in my career,” the Mariners’ Good Vibes Only leader and third baseman said at the end of an unforgettable Friday.
“But today is something else.
“The emotions are very high right now.”
Not good. Incredible vibes only.
In Seattle sports lore there’s Edgar’s Double. There’s Sherman’s Tip.
And now: Geno’s Slam.
After Cal Raleigh tied this intense Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, the pivotal game toward a title, at 2 with yet another home run earlier in the eighth inning, Eugenio Suarez joined Pacific Northwest sports royalty. Forever.
Bases loaded, no outs. A packed T-Mobile Park as loud, as Raleigh would say later, as he’s ever heard it. Or louder.
Suarez, who earlier homered, got the count to 2-2. Then he hit the sweetest sounding swing this baseball team has heard in a generation. Or ever.
Suarez launched Toronto reliever Seranthony Dominguez’s blazing, 99-mph fastball way up into the bleachers beyond right field. Grand slam. Grand time.
The yard went absolutely bonkers. The steel stadium shook.
“Yeah, that was incredible,” Raleigh said. “Yeah, I mean, honestly, the fans and the stadium, they were waiting 26 innings (through Seattle’s dreary, blowout losses in Games 3 and 4 by a combined 21-6) for something like that. Obviously, we didn’t deliver the first two games.
“They just exploded. They have been waiting for that, so that was a huge moment,” said the man who in September 2022 hit the home run in this park that ended the Mariners’ 21-year postseason drought.
“That was probably one of the loudest moments I’ve ever heard here,” Raleigh said.
Seattle Mariners third baseman Eugenio Suárez (28) rounds the bases after hitting a grand slam home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the eighth inning of Game 5 in the AL Championship Series at T-Mobile Park, on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, in Seattle. Brian Hayes [email protected]
After he crossed home plate, Suarez stood and made a heart gesture with his hands. He pointed into the lower stands behind the plate at his wife Genesis, and their young daughters Nicolle and Melanie. His gals had flown in just for this game. To see Dad do this.
Nicolle was asked later in the cutest postgame press conference imaginable: What makes you proud that Papi does?
“Hit home runs,” the little girl said.
Mariners 6, Blue Jays 2.
Closer Andres Munoz watched Suarez’s slam clear the right-field fence from the bullpen beyond left-center field. He said it took his breath away. He had to settle himself down just to continue throwing warmup tosses in the bullpen.
He did. Munoz finished a perfect top of the ninth.
Matt Brash was in the Mariners dugout, having already pitched the fifth inning in relief of effective but shortened started Bryce Miller. Brash said he was telling teammates all the M’s needed was a fly ball from Suarez for a sacrifice fly and one run.
When he saw Suarez’s drive leave the yard, Brash had one reaction: “Oh my God!”
When it ended, teammate Julio Rodriguez dumped the entire Gatorade bucket of ice water on Suarez’s head.
The fans roared some more. And the Mariners got off the deck of losing two straight to pull within one more win of the World Series for the first time in the 48 years Seattle’s franchise has played.
The M’s lead the best-of-seven league championship three games to two. Game 6 is Sunday night in Toronto.
Suarez, 34, was near tears as he spoke after this game, his daughters sitting to his left. Some people seated in front of him listening to him speak with such emotion were crying.
“Today was very special, not only because I hit the grand slam, but I give the opportunity to my daughters and my wife watching” Suarez said. “And they came here last night for this type of game.
“And I’ve been waiting for this. I just feel so grateful right now and feel so good because we’re going to Toronto with an opportunity in front of us to go to a World Series.”
Suarez was asked: Is this the most emotional he’s been on a baseball field?
“To be honest,” he said, “I want to say yes.
“I have a good amount of beautiful moments in my career. But today is something else. Hit that grand slam and help my team win games in the postseason. Big game here in front of our fans. “They have been waiting for a long time, and myself, too. I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole career.
“God is good, and I got to glorify Him because he gave me the opportunity to put everything on the field. I’m doing it for Him and doing it for me, for my family, and for our city.
“Seattle really deserved this.”
Seattle’s Eugenio Suarez celebrates after hitting a solo home run in the second inning of the American League Championship Series on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. Brian Hayes [email protected]
Cal Raleigh does it again
Raleigh had done it so many times. Sixty-three times, in fact, this season.
To begin the bottom of the eighth inning, with his Mariners down 2-1 and starting at a 3-2 series deficit heading to Toronto for Game 6 Sunday, Raleigh grabbed the top, barrel end of his torpedo bat, the one that set a major-league record for home runs by catchers and by switch-hitters this season. The packed house chanted “M-V-P!”
Toronto reliever Brendon Little fell behind in the count to Raleigh 2-0. That’s not a great idea.
Unless you are a Mariner.
Batting right-handed against the lefty reliever, Raleigh dropped the barrel of that torpedo bat to the pitch. He golfed it like an iron shot.
“It felt like Cal’s ball was in the air for, like, an hour,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said later.
Left fielder Myles Straw ran to the wall, leaped — and couldn’t catch the ball. It landed into the glove of a fan standing in the first row behind the wall, under the line-score board.
Home run number four of this postseason, number 64 all year. The Mariners, Raleigh, had tied this taut thriller at 2.
“When I hit the ball, I thought I got it,” Raleigh said. “And then obviously realized it went so high, and I looked at the Straw. But he was kind of at the fence kind of waiting up and I was like, I wasn’t sure.
“Then obviously it got enough. So the roof open, you know, maybe a different result, I don’t know. But glad I got enough of that one.
The crowd was as loud as it’s been this week, perhaps as loud as in the last 25 years since Seattle’s baseball team has won a league championship series game at home. The packed yard kept roaring as Little walked the next two Mariners. That got him out of the game.
Toronto brought in Dominguez, he of the 1.21 career ERA in the postseason. With two on, no outs and the count 2-0, Randy Arozarena swung so hard the breeze of the bat missing ball blew up to the 300 level. Then Dominguez’s next pitch hit Arozarena.
That brought up Suarez for Seattle history.
“It makes you emotional just thinking about that and just how loud it was at that moment,” the often-stoic Wilson said.
“Talking to a lot of people who have been around here since the (AL-record 116-win) 2001 days, they don’t remember a time that it was this loud before. So just an incredible moment, I think, at T-Mobile Park.
“And you can’t say enough about the support we’ve received from these fans this year.”
Seattle’s Eugenio Suarez celebrates after hitting a solo home run in the second inning of the American League Championship Series on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. Brian Hayes [email protected]
Eugenio Suarez early HR, too
For the major league-leading ninth time in 10 games this postseason, the Mariners scored first. For only the fifth time in those nine games with an early lead, they won.
Way back in the second inning, Suarez golfed Toronto starter Kevin Gausman’s high, 95-mph fastball deep beyond Seattle’s bullpen past left-center field with one out in the second inning. Suarez looked up to the closed roof as he crossed home plate on his second home run of the playoffs. The Mariners led 1-0.
Seattle’s Eugenio Suarez celebrates after hitting a solo home run in the second inning of the American League Championship Series on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. Brian Hayes [email protected]
But like all this week against the Blue Jays in Seattle, that didn’t last.
M’s starters’ short leash
For the second consecutive pregame, Wilson talked about how “aggressive,” his word, the Mariners could be with their bullpen well-rested considering they are two weeks into the postseason.
For the second consecutive game, Wilson took out his starting pitcher far earlier than he normally would have, while he was in trouble but not yet battered.
It was Luis Castillo in a 2-1 game in the third inning of Game 4; Seattle’s bullpen allowed six runs to score after that decision.
Friday in Game 5, Wilson came out to the mound to replace Miller after he allowed Addison Barger’s lined single leading off the fifth inning. Four-plus innings, four hits, no runs, two walks and four strikeouts, his second strong start against Toronto in this series. He had started the game extra-amped, throwing the fastest pitch of his career in the first inning, 98.3 mph, to strike out George Springer, who later left the game when Bryan Woo (more on that in a minute) drilled a 96-mph fastball off Springer’s knee.
Yet after just four innings and 56 pitches, Miller was done.
Mariners starting pitcher Bryce Miller reacts after striking out Toronto’s Addison Barger in the second inning of Game 5 of the American League Championship Series on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. Brian Hayes [email protected]
Brash entered. He got two outs, to the eight and nine batters. But then George Springer lined a double off the wall in deep left-center field. That scored Barger to tie the game. The run was charged to Miller.
Miller had held the Blue Jays scoreless through the first three innings. That’s the first time that’s happened to Toronto this postseason. A big reason was Josh Naylor.
The Mariners first baseman caught a line drive by ninth hitter and recent thorn Andres Gimenez just off the infield dirt in one motion, while on one knee.
The Blue Jays started the fourth aggressive again. Nathan Lukes sent Miller’s pitch inside first base down the right-field line for a double. Wilson and pitching coach Pete Woodworth wanted none of lethal Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who had doubled in his first at bat. They intentionally walked him for the first of two time Friday. But then Miller unintentionally walked Alejandro Kirk. Toronto had the bases loaded and no outs, down 1-0.
You could feel the tension throughout the packed house.
Miller then struck out Daulton Varsho on a split-fingered fastball in the dirt for the first out. Ernie Clement was next, with the bases still loaded. He swung awkwardly at Miller’s low, 83-mph splitter and squibbed it into the dirt at home plate. The ball was barely fair.
Raleigh, a Platinum Glove award winner last season but not even a finalist for a 2025 Gold Glove on a list announced this week, quickly got out of his crouch and grabbed the ball before it squibbed foul. Raleigh stepped on home plate for the force out there. Then he threw to Naylor, leaning inside Clement running down the line. Naylor caught the ball as he fell down for a mammoth, 2-3 double play.
Just like they drew it up, the Mariners still led 1-0.
“To be honest, we dodged a lot of bullets today,” Raleigh said. “Getting that double play, and then the weird one there at home when Ernie hit it.”
Toronto’s Alejandro Kirk runs past Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh as he scores on a single by Ernie Clement during the sixth inning of Game 5 of the American League Championship Series on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. Brian Hayes [email protected]
Bryan Woo, unprecedented
The roof was closed. The lights went off. So did the sirens.
The sellout crowd stood — well, almost all the 46,758 fans were standing the entire game, anyway. Woo was jogging out of the bullpen, the starting pitcher and Mariners All-Star’s first relief appearance of his career.
The first pitch he threw in a game since Sept. 19, after recovering from pectoral inflammation, was a fastball. Toronto’s Kirk ripped it on a line to the right-center field wall for a double.
One out later, Clement hit a soft line drive into right field. That scored Kirk, because right field Dominic Canzone’s throw was woeful, short, late and skipping up the third-base line. The Blue Jays had the Mariners down for the third straight game, 2-1.
The Mariners got two men on in the bottom of the sixth on back to back walks to Arozarena and Suarez, and got Gausman (5 2-3 innings, three hits, one run, three walks, four strikeouts) out of the game. J.P. Crawford shortened his swing compared to his huge, looping cuts in this series and game. But him slapping the ball the other way in search of a game-tying single became a hopper to shortstop Gimenez and the inning’s final out.
The Mariners still trailed 2-1. At that point, Seattle was 2 for 30 with runners on base in the ALCS games at T-Mobile Park. That ultimately changed. In a grand way.
Seattle pitcher Bryan Woo walks to the mound during the sixth inning of Game 5 of the American League Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. Brian Hayes [email protected]
Woo pitched two innings. He allowed that one hit and run. He threw 28 pitches, making it a question whether he will be available for Game 6 Sunday in Toronto, too.
Gabe Speier replaced Woo to begin the top of the eighth, with Seattle still trailing 2-1.
Arozarena kept it 2-1 in the top of the eighth. He leaped to the top of the wall in deep left field to catch a drive by Clement that likely would have gone over for a home run. It was the second out of the inning instead, part of Speier’s scoreless eighth.
“I knew he’d made a good swing on it,” Arozarena said through an interpeter. “I just went back there trying to make that catch. You don’t know what’s going to happen. Could hit the wall. Could go over and come back. No one knows.”
This story was originally published October 17, 2025 at 6:14 PM.
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Gregg Bell
The News Tribune
Gregg Bell is the Seahawks and NFL writer for The News Tribune. He is a two-time Washington state sportswriter of the year, voted by the National Sports Media Association in January 2023 and January 2019. He started covering the NFL in 2002 as the Oakland Raiders beat writer for The Sacramento Bee. The Ohio native began covering the Seahawks in their first Super Bowl season of 2005. In a prior life he graduated from West Point and served as a tactical intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, so he may ask you to drop and give him 10.
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