TORONTO — Julio Rodriguez spent time soaking in an ice bath inside the visitors’ locker room after the Mariners’ 4-0 victory over the Blue Jays in Game 1 of the American League Wild Card Series.
Then he chilled some more in front of his locker with Luis Castillo, laughing and soaking in the Mariners’ first playoff victory since 2001.
Rodriguez and Castillo, the two Dominican stars, have grown close since Castillo’s midseason arrival from Cincinnati in a blockbuster trade.
Playing center field, Rodriguez might have had the best view of anyone of Castillo’s masterful pitching performance Friday night, in which the right-hander scattered six singles over 7 1/3 shutout innings against perhaps the AL’s most formidable lineup.
Wild card series Game 1
Mariners 4, Blue Jays 0
Rodriguez said he almost (almost) felt sorry for the Blue Jays hitters.
“Louie was amazing. Amazing,” Rodriguez told The Seattle Times after the game. “I was just out there thinking, ‘I would not want to be those guys today.’ Honestly, I know they’re really good hitters, but Louie was on his stuff today. I know it was tough at-bats for them. He was cranking it up a little bit more today.”
In his playoff debut, Rodriguez was 1 for 3 with two runs scored — both coming after he reached base when he was hit by a pitch from Toronto starter Alek Manoah.
Leading off the game, Rodriguez was hit on his left hand on an 0-2 pitch. Manager Scott Servais feared the worst initially.
“Yeah, I was scared at first,” Servais said. “Thank God for the pad.”
Rodriguez, hit several times in his hand this season, has been wearing extra padding on his left hand lately — a small shield, really — and he said the pitch hit him directly on it.
The second hit-by-pitch, he said, grazed his right forearm in the fifth inning.
“They’re a little sore,” he said, “but it’s nothing to be concerned about.”
Andres Munoz stellar in his playoff debut, too
As the crowd of 47,402 lustily booed Castillo as he walked off the mound, not for dominating their team for 7 1/3 scoreless innings, but for hitting George Springer in the hand with a 98-mph fastball, Andres Munoz jogged in from the bullpen in right field.
“I was nervous,” Munoz said through interpreter Freddy Llanos. “I’m not going to lie, I was very nervous, but I think the nerves and the pressure did help me kind of focus and get into the game and I did my job.”
His job was to protect a 4-0 lead by retiring the two hitters everyone knew he would face in a high-leverage situation for this series — Bo Bichette and Vlad Guerrero Jr.
Using his fastball for show and his slider to mow down hitters all season, Munoz didn’t deviate.
“Obviously, I knew that I had to be a little more careful with the placement of some of my pitches,” Munoz said. “I knew I couldn’t leave anything down the middle. And apart from, I think it was a first pitch, I think that I did a really good job.”
That first pitch came to Guerrero. He disposed of Bichette first.
He threw a first-pitch 93-mph slider in the dirt and then another at 93 mph that Bichette swung through. A third slider got a fly ball to Rodriguez in center field for the second out.
The first pitch to Guerrero was supposed to be a fastball in to set him up for the slider. Instead, it stayed right down the middle. But since it was also thrown at 103 mph, Guerrero just watched it go by without swing.
There would be no more fastballs to Guerrero. Munoz threw three sliders, and eventually got Guerrero to ground out to shortstop.
Munoz came back to pitch the ninth, allowing a two-out double to Matt Chapman. But Munoz got Raimel Tapia to ground out to second to end the game.
Will Munoz be able to pitch Saturday, likely against Bichette and Guerrero, if needed?
“Yes,” he said. “I’m ready to go every day.”
NOTE: Ken Griffey Jr. flew in from Florida to attend Game 1 on Friday, along with his oldest son, Trey. Griffey is playing in a golf tournament in the Bahamas early next week, but after that, he hopes to follow the Mariners to Houston, should they advance to the divisional round.