Blue Jays force Game 7

TORONTO (AP) — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his sixth home run of the postseason, rookie Trey Yesavage struck out seven in 5 2/3 innings and the Toronto Blue Jays forced a Game 7 in the American League Championship Series by beating the Seattle Mariners 6-2 on Sunday night.

The series will be decided Monday night in Toronto, the second Game 7 in Blue Jays history. Toronto lost to Kansas City in the 1985 ALCS.

Seattle, the only big league team without a pennant, will play in a postseason Game 7 for the first time. The winner faces the NL champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series beginning Friday.

“My dad was telling me, ‘Game 7 is give it all you have,'” said Guerrero, the son of Hall of Fame outfielder Vladimir Guerrero.

Addison Barger homered and drove in three early runs, and the Blue Jays turned three double plays behind Yesavage — two of them to escape bases-loaded jams.

That made Toronto the first team to induce consecutive bases-loaded, inning-ending double plays in a postseason game. They’re only the fourth team to turn two in a single postseason game.

“He brings the energy. He’s young. He wants to win so bad,” Guerrero said about Yesavage.

Toronto also took advantage of Seattle’s season-high three errors. By comparison, the Blue Jays have made four errors in 10 playoff games.

“This is a team that has done the little things all season,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “It’s also a team that has bounced back a lot, and this is a chance for us to do that again, and we’ll do it tomorrow night in Game 7.”

Guerrero’s sixth career postseason homer — all this year — tied him with JosÈ Bautista and Joe Carter for the most in Blue Jays history. Bautista threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the game.

Toronto had lost its previous four games when facing postseason elimination. That streak stretched to Game 5 of the 2016 ALCS against Cleveland and included wild-card round losses to Tampa Bay in 2020, Seattle in 2022 and Minnesota in 2023.

Guerrero’s leadoff homer in the fifth made it 5-0 and chased Mariners starter Logan Gilbert. The right-hander allowed four earned runs and seven hits in four innings.

Yesavage took a shutout into the sixth. He was charged with two runs and six hits, five of them singles. Five of his strikeouts came on his split-finger fastball, as did both double-play grounders with the bases loaded.

“I just believed in myself. I know my stuff plays at this level,” Yesavage said. “I know the defense behind me is going to play at the best of their abilities, and getting three double plays in back-to-back-to-back innings was huge.”

The 22-year-old Yesavage threw a season-high 31 splitters. He got 10 whiffs on splitters and five more on sliders.

“I just wanted to compete in the zone, try not to get behind guys and just go out there and let my stuff eat, and I went out there and did that,” he said.

Three of Yesavage’s six major league starts have come in the playoffs. He’s won twice in three starts this postseason after winning one of three outings in the regular season.

Louis Varland got four outs and Jeff Hoffman struck out four over two hitless innings to end it.

The Mariners used two walks and a single to load the bases against Yesavage in the third but were denied when slugger Cal Raleigh grounded into a 3-6-1 double play started by Guerrero and completed by Yesavage covering first base. Raleigh’s first-pitch grounder came off his bat at 101 mph.

Raleigh finished 0 for 4 with three strikeouts.

Seattle came up empty again after another bases-loaded opportunity in the fourth when J.P. Crawford grounded into a 4-6-3 double play.

The Mariners broke through and chased Yesavage in the sixth. Josh Naylor’s solo shot was his third home run of the playoffs. Yesavage exited after Randy Arozarena’s base hit, and Eugenio Su’rez greeted Varland with an RBI single.

Toronto took advantage of fielding errors by Julio RodrÌguez in center field and Su’rez at third base to score twice in the second, when Barger and Isiah Kiner-Falefa had RBI singles.

Ernie Clement hit a two-out triple off the left-field wall in the third and scored when Barger homered, his second of the potseason.

George Springer started at designated hitter for the Blue Jays and went 0 for 4 with a walk. Springer exited in the seventh inning of Friday’s Game 5 loss in Seattle after he was hit on the right kneecap by a 95.6 mph pitch from Bryan Woo.

Guerrero was hit by a pitch from Seattle reliever Matt Brash in the seventh. Guerrero moved to second on Alejandro Kirk’s single and was advancing on a wild pitch when he scored on Raleigh’s throwing error.

Up next

Toronto is expected to start RHP Shane Bieber on Monday. Bieber allowed two runs and four hits over six innings in Game 3, a 13-4 win for the Blue Jays. He struck out eight and walked one as he bounced back from a poor outing against the Yankees in the Division Series.

Seattle RHP George Kirby, who allowed eight runs and eight hits, including three homers, over four innings in Game 3, will start for the Mariners.

Chasing Ohio State

(AP) — Vanderbilt is a top-10 team in college football for the first time since 1947 in an Associated Press poll that got a nearly complete makeover Sunday after a weekend when nine Top 25 teams lost.

Ohio State was the only team to hold its spot, remaining No. 1 for an eighth straight week after shutting out Wisconsin 34-0 on the road.

Beyond the Buckeyes, significant revision was required with four top-10 teams losing in the same week for a third time this season. Nine Top 25 losing teams were the most since Week 5 in 2022, when 10 went down, according to Sportradar. Four of the losses this week were to unranked opponents.

The Buckeyes received 60 first-place votes, 10 more than a week ago. No. 2 Indiana pulled away from Michigan State, improved its program-record ranking by one spot and got the other six first-place votes.

Texas A&M’s one-rung promotion to No. 3 gives the Aggies their highest ranking since 1995. No. 4 Alabama has its highest ranking of the season and No. 5 Georgia returned to the top five after a three-week absence.

Oregon, Georgia Tech, Mississippi, Miami and Vanderbilt round out the top 10.

The Ducks bounced back from their home loss to Indiana with a lopsided road win over Rutgers.

Georgia Tech, which won at Duke, hadn’t been in the top 10 since 2014 or ranked as high since 2009. Mississippi’s loss to Georgia caused it to slip three spots, and Miami fell seven after losing to unranked Louisville.

Vanderbilt rallied from its loss at Alabama two weeks ago with a 31-24 win over then-No. 10 LSU. The Commodores earned a seven-spot promotion for their first win over the Tigers since 1990. At 6-1, Vandy is off to its best start since 1950 with two wins over ranked opponents.

Texas Tech’s first loss came at Arizona State and dropped the Red Raiders seven spots to No. 14.

LSU took the biggest fall, plunging 10 spots to No. 20 for its lowest ranking of the season.

In and out

• No. 19 Louisville makes its season debut in the Top 25. The Cardinals, whose only loss was by three points to Virginia on Oct. 4, were 0-18 all-time against top 10 teams in true road games before knocking off the Hurricanes.

• No. 23 Illinois returned despite being idle. The Illini had dropped out for the first time this season after a home loss to Ohio State.

• No. 24 Arizona State, which fell out of the poll after a 32-point loss at Utah, returned following its first win over a top-10 opponent since 2019.

• No. 25 Michigan’s 17-point home win over Washington returned the Wolverines to the rankings after a one-week absence.

• Southern California (20), Memphis (22), Utah (23) and Nebraska (25) dropped out.

Poll points

• Ohio State’s 10 straight appearances in the top five is the longest active streak.

• Georgia’s 140th consecutive week in the poll is the second-longest active streak to Alabama’s 287.

• Vanderbilt’s top-10 ranking is its fifth in program history. The others were in 1937 (1), 1941 (1) and 1947 (2).

• No. 16 Virginia’s ranking is its highest since 2007.

Conference call

SEC (10) — Nos. 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22.

Big Ten (5) — Nos. 1, 2, 6, 23, 25.

Big 12 (4) — Nos. 11, 14, 21, 24.

ACC (4) — Nos. 7, 9, 16, 19.

American (1) — No. 18.

Independent (1) — No. 12.

Ranked vs. ranked

• No. 3 Texas A&M (7-0) at No. 20 LSU (5-2): The home team has won the last eight meetings. LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier threw three second-half interceptions and Marcel Reed came off the bench to run for three TDs in Aggies’ 38-23 win last year.

• No. 8 Mississippi (6-1) at No. 13 Oklahoma (6-1): Only their third all-time meeting. Rebels recorded nine sacks in 26-14 win last year.

• No. 15 Missouri (6-1) at No. 10 Vanderbilt (6-1): Vandy kicker Brock Taylor has made 17 consecutive field goals since missing 31-yarder that gave the Tigers a 30-27 double-overtime win last year.