SEATTLE -- Jerry Dipoto couldn’t help himself at multiple passes on Thursday morning, succumbing to tears when discussing the Mariners’ heart-wrenching finish to the 2025 season just three days earlier.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried the past few days,” Seattle’s president of baseball operations said.
Dipoto was flanked by general manager Justin Hollander and manager Dan Wilson in separate interview sessions over a 30-minute period at T-Mobile Park -- all of whom discussed what went right and wrong this year, in the wake of Seattle’s loss in Toronto in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.
There was also the natural -- and painful -- reflection on the decision to go with Eduard Bazardo in what wound up being the series-defining moment, when the right-hander surrendered a go-ahead three-run homer to George Springer that put Toronto ahead for good during the seventh inning of Game 7.
“As a manager, you have to make decisions,” Wilson said. “And in terms of, whether it's the Bazardo one, we have a good process in place. But managers have to wear decisions, one way or the other, and I think that that adds to this sting as well.”
The decision has been dissected for days, given that Andrés Muñoz was also available and wound up pitching a scoreless eighth inning after Seattle lost its lead.
Muñoz had not faced Springer all season, while Bazardo had squared off against him twice in the ALCS -- both times inducing a weak groundout, including Game 6, when he threw 15 pitches over two innings.
Muñoz, who had only pitched in Games 1 and 5 to that point, had been primarily deployed in closing situations all season, and even then, mostly to begin a clean inning. But in the biggest game in franchise history and against the best hitters in a loaded Blue Jays lineup, on paper, he looked like a far better matchup. The two-time All-Star also hadn’t surrendered a hit all postseason and allowed just two homers in the regular season.
“We're comfortable with our process,” Dipoto said. “And unsurprisingly, we ran through our baseline management process the same way we do. We went through every imaginable scenario at 7 o'clock. And I will say this, it's easy in hindsight to look back and say, ‘Why?’ And trust me when I tell you, every single one of us has spent some time reviewing the sequence of events as they went.”
Bazardo, who was maybe the Mariners’ most unsung contributor during their run to the AL West title, took over for Bryan Woo after the All-Star ace issued a leadoff walk to Addison Barger, a single in an 0-2 count to Isiah Kiner-Falefa and a sacrifice bunt from No. 9 hitter Andrés Giménez that moved both runners into scoring position and flipped the lineup.
Bazardo then fell into a 1-0 count to Springer on an inside sinker that also hinted at his tactical strategy of trying to use the ground-ball pitch to get a weak out or whiff. But the second one he unleashed leaked over the plate, left Springer’s bat at 99.1 mph and sailed 381 feet into the left-field bleachers.
“Bazardo had an unbelievable year,” Dipoto said. “He was going better than any reliever that we've had. He had been roughly a machine for three months, of strike one. The moment never overtook him. To go to Bazardo in that situation, I thought was justifiable.”
Beyond Muñoz, the only other clear option would have been Matt Brash, who threw 21 pitches the night prior and had thrown first-pitch strikes to just 10 of the 19 batters he faced in the ALCS. Bryce Miller was also in the bullpen, but the Mariners were only going to turn to the starter for a clean inning -- as they did with Woo, who took over for George Kirby to begin the fifth.
“We could paint it in a million different ways,” Dipoto said. “But you had one of the best pitchers in baseball [Kirby] hand the ball to another of the best pitchers in baseball [Woo], hand it to a guy who has been a pivot star for us for months. And the fact that he gave up a home run is just going to be a piece of history that we're going to have to live with.”
Walking Springer with no outs was another option, but an incredibly risky one. No. 2 hitter Nathan Lukes had a 46.5% ground-ball rate in the regular season that made him a prime double-play candidate, but he also had just a 13.7% strikeout rate in that span, meaning there was a strong chance that any ball pitched to him would be put in play -- and potentially lead to damage.
And after Lukes, all that loomed was Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who wound up winning ALCS MVP and who’s been on an otherworldly postseason run.
“The idea that you're going to go to [Muñoz] in that situation is, there are players who are suited to certain things,” Dipoto said. “And Mooney, in the role that he played at the end, he was perfectly situated to throw the ninth inning, or come in as a one-plus [inning option] at the end. ... The guy that gets up and gets ready the quickest is Zardo. The guy who was ready the inning before going into that inning is Zardo. And the guy we all felt comfortable as a pivot versus [a righty bat] was Zardo.
“It's hard to be a manager, and it's hard to make those decisions in real time, and we do the best we can to collaborate with Dan and the staff, with a menu of different thoughts and options. And I'll never begrudge him for making a move he believed in and trusted.”