TORONTO — Occasionally within the Seattle Mariners clubhouse, the “Prime Gun Anthem,” stuffed with hovering guitar notes and pick-me-up vibes, will randomly blast from inside a locker. Everybody is aware of the wrongdoer. Jorge Polanco, the Mariners’ veteran second baseman, is just not a fan of silencing his telephone.
“However he loves Maverick and Iceman,” Mariners star Cal Raleigh stated.
No person actually minds. When a participant is doing what Polanco has finished this postseason — rescuing the Mariners from the hazard zone seemingly each day, along with his newest trick a go-ahead three-run residence run that paved the way in which for Monday’s 10-3 victory — his ringtone might be Limp Bizkit and no person would utter a peep.
As an alternative, it’s the right soundtrack for this Mariners run, which at the moment sees them up two video games to none towards the Toronto Blue Jays within the American League Championship Collection. The “Prime Gun Anthem” is an epic ballad crammed with the kinds of ups and downs that personify a company that has spent 49 years alternating among the many desolation of mediocrity and the heartbreak of underachievement. The one crew in Main League Baseball to by no means to play in a World Collection, Seattle is 2 wins away from capturing its first American League pennant and is heading residence to T-Cellular Park for Sport 3.
The Mariners’ dominant place is largely because of a 32-year-old infielder whose feats have earned him the correct to be referred to as Iceman himself — and but that’s not the nickname Polanco wears nowadays.
“He’s George Bonds,” M’s catcher Mitch Garver stated.
Sure, Polanco’s alter ego is the anglicized model of his first identify and the surname of Main League Baseball’s all-time residence run chief. He earned it earlier this season, Garver stated, when “all the things he hit was 110 [mph] in a niche or over the fence. It was unbelievable.”
Significantly when contemplating that final winter, Polanco didn’t know whether or not he could be wholesome sufficient to maintain hitting main league pitching. Polanco, who had struggled for years with left knee points, underwent surgical procedure in October 2024 to restore his patellar tendon. A free agent, Polanco drew restricted curiosity available on the market and wound up re-signing with the Mariners for one 12 months and $7.75 million.
“It’s been a journey, man,” Polanco stated. “That’s the way in which I can put it. I wouldn’t say it’s been unhealthy. I wouldn’t say it’s been straightforward. I feel God simply ready me for this 12 months. I’ve been damage slightly bit, so yeah; however now we right here, and I’m glad to be again.
“You simply should have religion. You overcome. Come again stronger.”
Polanco’s energy has been on show all October. It first appeared within the second sport of Seattle’s division collection towards the Detroit Tigers when he hit two residence runs off ace Tarik Skubal, who’s about to win his second consecutive Cy Younger Award. It continued three video games later in a winner-takes-all Sport 5 when he lashed a single into proper subject within the fifteenth inning that superior the Mariners to their first ALCS since 2001. It didn’t cease there, with Polanco’s go-ahead single within the sixth inning of Sport 1 towards the Blue Jays on Sunday.
Then got here Monday’s fifth-inning blast off Toronto reliever Louis Varland, who fed a 98 mph fastball over the plate and watched it go away the bat at 105.2 mph, flying 400 ft to show a 3-3 tie right into a 6-3 Seattle lead.
“He’s all the time been a terrific hitter,” Mariners supervisor Dan Wilson stated. “His swing proper now may be very quick. That ball tonight, I wasn’t positive it was going to exit of the ballpark, however I feel he’s simply getting that form of spin on it proper now the place it stays up.”
That’s no accident. Polanco arrived within the main leagues with the Minnesota Twins in 2014 at age 20, a bat-to-ball savant whose capability to hit from either side of the plate carved him out an everyday position with the crew.
“He wasn’t George Bonds earlier than,” Garver stated. “He was Harry Potter. As a result of he was a wizard. He’d simply make hits seem.”
Polanco discovered energy 5 years into his profession, and he maxed out with 33 residence runs for the Twins in 2021. However the degradation of his knee sapped the juice in his bat and left him flailing too typically at pitches he’d have beforehand spit on. Final 12 months, in his first season with the Mariners, his numbers cratered, however the group appreciated Polanco’s even-keeled demeanor and believed fixing his knee would repair his swing too.
The Mariners have been proper. George Bonds was born throughout a ridiculous first month of the 2025 season when he whacked 9 homers in 80 plate appearances. Polanco had embraced the M’s ethos of pulling the ball within the air. Raleigh led MLB with a 1.594 OPS on balls pulled. Third baseman Eugenio Suarez was second at 1.497. Polanco hit 23 of his 26 residence runs this season to the pull aspect, and each of his homers off Skubal (hit from the correct aspect) and the one towards Varland (left) have been met in entrance of the plate and yanked over the fence.
“All through the years, I hated going to Minnesota simply solely due to him,” stated shortstop J.P. Crawford, the longest-tenured Mariner. “The man single-handedly beat us so many occasions. Everyone knows the kind of participant he’s when he’s wholesome, and it’s clearly exhibiting proper now.”
By no means within the sport’s 150-year historical past had a participant logged three consecutive game-winning hits after the fifth inning within the postseason. It’s the type of efficiency groups have to win pennants — and championships. As sensible as Raleigh has been in a could-be-MVP marketing campaign and as conflagrant as Julio Rodriguez was within the second half and as dominant as Seattle’s pitching has been en route so far, successful playoff baseball takes extra.
Like, say, a man who over the winter was an afterthought hitting cleanup and by no means wavering, even within the highest-leverage conditions.
“What’s most spectacular is bouncing again after a tough 12 months final 12 months,” stated Bryan Woo, who will begin Sport 3 on Wednesday towards Toronto’s Shane Bieber. “Particularly for a man on his second crew, again half of his profession. To do what he’s doing — get wholesome, come again, assist the crew like he has — is much more spectacular than simply enjoying good baseball.”
Enjoying good baseball helps too. Polanco has helped get Seattle in a spot that hardly a month in the past seemed unimaginable to conceive. From mid-August to early September, the Mariners misplaced 13 of 18, trailed Houston by 3½ video games within the AL West and held a half-game lead on Texas for the ultimate wild-card spot. From there, the Mariners went 17-4, gained the West, earned a first-round bye and charted a course for historical past.
They’re not there. And but even Polanco admitted that Mariners gamers can’t ignore the crew’s historical past and acknowledge what it will imply to get to the World Collection.
“Yeah, we give it some thought,” he stated. “We’ve heard it so much. We all know.”
The information hasn’t deterred them. Raleigh is raking. Rodriguez is slugging. Josh Naylor, who grew up in close by Mississauga, blasted a two-run residence run in Sport 2. And George Bonds has proven up in fashion, chilly as Iceman, cool as Maverick, completely joyful to eschew silent mode in favor of loud contact.
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