AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: MARINERS VS BLUE JAYS

October 12, 2025

Dan Wilson

Rogers Centre

Seattle Mariners

Postgame 1 Press Conference

Mariners 3, Blue Jays 1

Q. Dan, just given all you guys have been through the last 48 hours, pitching, playing 15 innings the other night, flight delay yesterday, getting in so late here, how meaningful is this performance here tonight?

DAN WILSON: Yeah, tremendous. I think we've talked about just how resilient these guys are, and tonight was one of those instances again. Great job all around.

Coming back tonight and getting Game 1 is obviously a big momentum shift for us. And a lot of work to do yet, but the job that Bryce Miller did tonight was phenomenal. Coming back on short rest and getting behind early there with the first pitch of the game, getting a little bit of traffic, even in the first inning the at-bat by Lukes was outstanding, put a lot of pitches on him. And I thought after that first inning, he went into a different gear, and you saw him getting ahead using all his stuff. The fastball kept coming out really good.

It was one of those situations where you knew the bullpen was ready to bail him out at any time, but he just kept coming out, and he kept throwing the ball so well. So to give us six strong innings, especially coming out of that first inning and the ability that he had tonight to kind of close the door was phenomenal, and then the bullpen took it from there. Just an unbelievable job on the mound for us tonight.

Then you look at offensively, Polo, again, two huge knocks to give us the runs there to tie it and put us ahead -- actually to put us ahead, and Cal's homer to tie it was a big step, too. So just some great at-bats up and down.

We had a little bit of traffic, not able to do it a bunch tonight, but I tell you, our guys put up some good at-bats. This was just, again, a good win up and down, and as you said, coming back after that long one and a travel day yesterday, it feels good to get Game 1.

Q. Knowing that he was on short rest for the first time in his career and everything that he's dealt with this season with the bone spurs and everything, what was the best case scenario for him? Was it two times through? And if so, what gave you the conviction to stick with it?

DAN WILSON: Yeah, again, it's postseason, and you have the ability to kind of see and assess as you go.

Again, I think the hope was to get through four, and then we could start working in the bullpen and getting those guys in there and holding the lead if we had it, whatever. But like I said, the way it kept coming out of his hand, the way he kept going out there and throwing up zeros was huge. It was evident that he wasn't wanting to come out of that one, and you didn't want him to come out of the game because he was just attacking, and it was awesome.

Q. How close were you in the first inning to getting the bullpen going there?

DAN WILSON: You have to. That could have exploded pretty quickly. Again, I give Cal and Bryce a lot of credit. Cal, I thought, made a good visit and kind of calmed him down and then able to kind of work that game plan and get out of that. And the two of them from there really took it, and it was outstanding from there on.

Q. How important -- Cal has done that all season in terms of the homer, but you go five innings without a hit, without a base runner. To be able to give you that jolt, and then obviously, you add on from there, but how important was that first spark?

DAN WILSON: Yeah. Huge. I think coming with two outs I think was big, and just kind of getting out there and hooking that ball. We've seen Cal do that so often in a big situation there to get us back tied, I thought that was a big lift in terms of our dugout and getting us back in it.

Again, Bryce going back out there and shutting down that inning and giving us a chance again to come back on offense. And then from there, it was Polo a couple of times to give us the two-run lead, and Gabe just doing what he does, Matt doing what he does, and then Muny doing the same.

Q. Polo has got six hits in the postseason, five have driven in runs. What are you seeing in his at-bats with runners in scoring position?

DAN WILSON: Yeah, just seeing what he's been able to do from both sides has been just outstanding. You look at the at-bats, the two homers against Skubal, the right-handed at-bat tonight again to drive in the go-ahead run. We saw the left-handed at-bat tonight to give us another little insurance run, the left-handed at-bats, especially at home in the 15th there.

But all of his at-bats, he's coming up in situations where he's got a chance to do some damage, and not trying to do too much, and has put together just some huge, huge RBIs for us.

Q. I don't want to take away from the clutch hits and the incredible defense on really -- there were four or five really great plays, but with Miller and the 27 pitches, a home run, a couple of walks in the first inning, was anything said to him? Because you talked about he found something, but he had less than 27 pitches in the next three innings. Did a pitching coach, did Cal say anything?

DAN WILSON: He went back out there. I think they were able to get one more hit there in that second inning, but pitched out of that runner at second jam. I think that gave him a lot of confidence, and from there, he just continued to throw his stuff. I thought his fastball was good and his secondaries were landing.

Again, I don't know if it was anything that was said other than just him gaining the confidence to take a role from there, and that's what he did.

Q. With short rest, that's the case tomorrow with Castillo, too. How much was the work on Friday really coming into play for tomorrow? Is that kind of a normal routine for a pitcher?

DAN WILSON: I think he didn't have to throw in the game on Friday, so that was big. But I think coming back after the Detroit outing and only throwing just over 50 pitches in that, I think may have been a help tonight to where he was still pretty fresh.

But still, as we've talked about, starters are very into their routines, and they have such solid routines between starts, and when that gets disrupted you don't know how it's going to go, and for Bryce, it was outstanding tonight.

Q. Is it Logan tomorrow?

DAN WILSON: Logan Gilbert will be on the mound tomorrow for us, yeah.

Q. What went into that decision?

DAN WILSON: Again, just seeing how he feels, and I think the outing the other night in the 15-inning game was really a good side day for him. The way we're looking at it is he took a side session in the game with 40,000-plus people there. He's ready to go. He's excited. He wants the ball. So it'll be Logan tomorrow.

Q. In the first inning, the contact play with Cal running at the plate, what went into that, and did you think at all about challenging there because it looked like his heel might have gotten in there?

DAN WILSON: Well, we did hold up and thought about challenging, but it didn't seem like there was too much there to go on. Yeah, it's a tough play. The runner at third is looking for a ball on the ground to stay out of the double play and they executed it well. It was actually pretty close, almost closer than we thought.

But fortunately, we were able to kind of come back around, get some more runs after that. But again, this is a game of emotion. This is a game of momentum. Tonight we were able to get that back and due in large part to what Bryce was able to do on the mound.