'Best day ever': Rivas celebrates birthday with clutch pinch-hit

SEATTLE -- Leo Rivas went to bed Thursday night a 27-year-old.

He woke up Friday a 28-year-old.

He’ll go to bed a hero.

The 28-year-old utilityman, born Oct. 10, 1997, in Maracay, Venezuela, gave a packed house at T-Mobile Park a gift of his own in the seventh inning of Game 5 of the ALDS on Friday night, delivering a clutch RBI single off the bench to tie the game and set the stage for the Mariners’ dramatic 3-2 win in 15 innings.

“When I woke up, I said, ‘Today’s going to be a good day. Today’s going to be a great day to celebrate my birthday,’” Rivas said. “I just kept that mentality through the game.”

Rivas wasn’t even the first pinch-hitter manager Dan Wilson opted for in Mitch Garver’s spot in the order in the inning. Garver, who drove in the Mariners’ first run of the night with a sacrifice fly in the second inning, came out to the on-deck circle in the seventh with right-hander Kyle Finnegan on the mound.

But when his spot came up with two on and two outs, Wilson pulled him back in favor of lefty Dominic Canzone. The next move in the chess match went to Tigers manager A.J. Hinch, who pulled Finnegan in favor of left-hander Tyler Holton as soon as Canzone was announced. Wilson said that the Mariners’ staff discussed leaving Canzone in. He had entered 2025 with a paltry .135 average vs. southpaws but has hit .271 against them this year, including the playoffs. But the final argument came from bench coach Manny Acta.

“Manny, he's always got good ideas, and that was a good one,” Wilson said.

When Acta first went to Rivas in the dugout, Rivas thought he was about to pinch-run for Polanco at second base. Instead, Acta told him to grab a bat.

“Manny told me, ‘Come here, papa. Go get this guy, go get us a line drive,’” Rivas said.

He made it count, turning on a 1-0 changeup and dropping into left field to allow Polanco to trot home. It was the third game-tying or go-ahead pinch-hit RBI in the seventh inning or later in Mariners history, and the first since Carlos Guillén’s walk-off bunt single in Game 3 of the 2001 ALDS.

He became just the third player in postseason history to record a pinch-hit knock on his birthday, joining Swede Risberg (1917) and Francisco Cabrera (1993).

“He’s little, but he’s huge,” Julio Rodríguez said. “He came up huge today. That was awesome.”

And it was the first career postseason at-bat for Rivas, who played eight full seasons in the Minor Leagues before getting his callup last year. After spending two months in the spring with the Mariners, he was optioned back to Tacoma, but was recalled when rosters expanded on Sept. 1.

That gave him 776 games -- 2,661 at-bats -- in the Minor Leagues before he got to step to the plate in the playoffs.

“When you're not there regularly, that's a difficult task,” Wilson said. “But he was up to the task tonight. It was a huge hit.”

Rivas already had one defining moment during the stretch run, drilling a walk-off home run in the 13th inning of Seattle’s Sept. 10 game against the Cardinals to keep the Mariners’ season-defining surge alive. Since that dramatic swing, though, he’d gone 1-for-17 at the plate.

The rally started with Polanco drawing a one-out walk, before Eugenio Suárez drilled a soaring fly ball that died on the warning track in right field for the second out of the inning. But Josh Naylor, who scored the first run of the night, stung a single through the right side of the infield -- just missing Polanco’s foot -- to set the stage for the chess match, and Rivas’ moment.

And eight innings later -- after three more plate appearances for the man who pinch-hit in the seventh -- Rivas finally got a champagne-sodden birthday celebration in the clubhouse.

“Best day ever,” he said. “Just awesome.”