All week the conversation was about star power and inevitability. Toronto’s lineup, we were told, would stretch a game thin; Seattle would have to hang on for dear life and pray for a mistake. Instead, Game 1 flipped the script. The Mariners didn’t survive the Blue Jays — they disarmed them. It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t cinematic. It was a plan, executed with the kind of cold precision that turns a series opener into a message: you don’t get to dictate terms here.
At the center of that message was a choice. Seattle decided this series would not be about Vladimir Guerrero Jr.