Game Notes, 10/15/2025 – LCS Day 4

At the end of their spectacular journey in 1970, the World Champion Baltimore Orioles could look at their collective postseason work (a sweep against the Twins in the ALCS, a five-game hold over the Reds in the Fall Classic) and point to and acknowledge a few standout individual batting performances:  Brooks Robinson (1.258 OPS), Boog Powell (1.186) and Davey Johnson (1.100).  That club became the first team to see three of its players in a postseason accumulate at least 30 plate appearances and generate an OPS of at least 1.000 (it helps to have that extra round, as the LCS was introduced only the year before the Orioles managed the feat).  Since then, a club having three to fit the bill at the end of the postseason comes around every so often.  The 1980 Royals (with Willie Mays Aikens, George Brett and Amos Otis) followed the ’70 Orioles and then, as rounds expanded and more series were added, it’s become a little more common:  the 1989 Athletics, the 1995 Braves, the 1999 Red Sox, the 2002 Angels, the 2003 Red Sox, the 2007 Red Sox (with four!), the 2009 Phillies, the 2011 Cardinals, the 2021 Red Sox and the 2023 Phillies have all done the work.  There’s still plenty of work to be done, and much to untangle and unfurl, but the 2025 Blue Jays might become the newest magnet to stick on this particular refrigerator.   

*Mariners v. Blue Jays, ALCS Game 3*

Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. played the lead in a Blue Jays’ offensive attack that used 18 hits to help craft a 13-4 win.

~Guerrero went 4-for-4 with a home run, two doubles, a single and a walk, tallied nine bases and scored three runs.

→Guerrero tied team postseason single-game records for hits and times on base.  His runs, total bases and extra-base hits fell just shy of matching the best a Blue Jay has done in the postseason, coming up short of what Daulton Varsho provided in Game 2 of this year’s ALDS.  

Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. (G3, 2025 ALCS) v. Daulton Varsho (Game 2, 2025 ALDS)

Guerrero, Jr:   4-for-4, two doubles, one homer, 3 runs, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 9 TB, 5 ToB

Varsho:           4-for-5, two doubles, two homers, 4 runs, 4 RBI, 0 BB, 12 TB, 4 ToB      

→There are – now – just six players in LCS history who’ve reached base safely five times and generated at least three extra-base hits.

G3, 1969 ALCS    Baltimore’s Paul Blair goes 5-for-6 with two doubles and a home run

G1, 1989 NLCS    San Francisco’s Will Clark goes 4-for-4 with a double, two homers and a walk

G5, 1996 NLCS    Atlanta’s Javy López goes 4-for-5 with two doubles, a homer and a walk

G3, 2004 ALCS    New York’s Hideki Matsui goes 5-for-6 with two doubles and two homers

G4, 2008 ALCS    Tampa Bay’s Carl Crawford goes 5-for-5 with two doubles and a triple

G3, 2025 ALCS    Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. goes 4-for-4 with two doubles, a homer and a walk

→The home run gave Guerrero his fourth of the 2025 postseason, tying him with José Bautista (2015) for the most in any single postseason for any Blue Jay.

~The Blue Jays tied team postseason records for hits (18) and home runs (five) and established new highs for extra-base hits (9) and total bases (37).  In the hits category, they matched the output from Game 4 of the 1993 World Series.  For the homers, they equaled the Game 2, 2025 ALDS bar.

George Springer added a homer, two singles, two runs scored and one RBI to his expanding and deepening postseason imprint.  His 22nd career postseason longball tied him with Bernie Williams for fourth all-time; his 82 hits have him within one of tying Tino Martinez for 19th; his 51st run scored tied him with David Ortiz for 13th all-time; his 42 RBI match him with Jorge Posada, Jim Edmonds, Carlos Beltrán, Shane Victorino and Justin Turner for 14th all-time; his 40 extra-base hits have him within one of tying David Ortiz for fifth.

Alejandro Kirk drove in three runs with a sixth-inning home run, increasing his postseason numbers to three round-trippers and seven RBI.  Among postseason catchers (at least 75% of games at catcher), his three homers tie him with many for the eighth most* and his seven RBI with a lot of folks for 35th.  In both cases, Sandy Alomar’s 1997 campaign is the standard, when the Indians’ backstop carried five home runs and 19 RBI.

*Seattle’s Cal Raleigh also homered in this Game 3, also the backstop’s third home run of the 2025 postseason.

After having his run-scoring streak stopped in Game 1 of the 2025 ALCS, Blue Jays infielder Ernie Clement is back at it, having scored a run on two hits in this Game 3 (after scoring one run in Game 2).  In his seven career postseason contests, the 29-year-old has crossed the plate seven times.  The tally is not – in the context of all postseason performers – otherworldly, tying for the 17th most for any player through his first seven games*, but it does stand out for the Blue Jays, matching Daulton Varsho for the most.

*Carlos Beltrán (12), Charlie Keller (11) and Ken Griffey, Jr. (10) own the three highest tallies.

There are 51 players in this year’s postseason that can account for at least 25 plate appearances, with 13 of them having an OPS of at least .900.  Toronto has significant representation among this baker’s dozen.  

1.479   Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.  (highest OPS among the 51)

1.118   Ernie Clement (fourth highest)

1.023   Daulton Varsho (sixth highest)

.959     George Springer (11th highest)

*Seattle’s Cal Raleigh comes in between Clement and Varsho, with a 1.104.

With the Blue Jays taking this Game 3 in Seattle after dropping the first two contests at home, this sequence marked the sixth time since 1985 (when the LCS expanded to a best-of-seven format) that the road team won the first three games (we’re going to leave out the 2020 NLCS between the Braves and Dodgers, when the “road” team won the first three, but all games of the series were played in the same ballpark, in Texas).

1993:  Blue Jays open up 2-0 on road, White Sox win Games 3 and 4 on the road

2000:  Mets open up 2-0 on the road; Cardinals win Game 3 on the road

2001:  Yankees open 2-0 on the road; Mariners win Game 3 on the road

2002:  Giants open up 2-0 on the road; Cardinals win Game 3 on the road

2023:  All seven games between the Rangers and Astros are won on the road

2025:  Mariners open up 2-0 on the road; Blue Jays win Game 3 on the road

In the loss, the Mariners’ first three hitters in the starting lineup – Randy Arozarena, Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez – went deep.

~The last team before this Mariners club to have the top three batters in the starting lineup all homer was the Phillies, in Game 4 of the 2022 NLCS, when Kyle Schwarber, Rhys Hoskins and J.T. Realmuto did the deed.  That performance came in a victory.  In all other previous occasions when a team’s top three in the starting lineup went yard, that team won, making the 2025 Mariners in Game 3 of the ALCS a one of one.

~Arozarena also stole a base, thus becoming the 33rd leadoff hitter in postseason history to have a steal and a home run in a game (and the first to do this since Jose Altuve in 2021).  Arozarena himself also did this in 2021 (a few days before Altuve, in Game 1 of the ALDS while playing for the Rays).  He’s one of four to have done this one and one thing as a leadoff hitter multiple times, joining Lou Brock (3), Davey Lopes (2) and Lenny Dykstra (2).  

~Arozarena has four steals in the 2025 postseason, one behind Vince Coleman (1995) for the most in any one year for a Mariner.  Rickey Henderson (1989) and Kenny Lofton (1995) share the high mark for the most by any player, with 11. 

Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.