MLB Playoffs: How Jorge Polanco put the Seattle Mariners on the brink
TORONTO – Every now and then in the Seattle Mariners clubhouse, the song “Top Gun Anthem,” full of soaring guitar riffs and catchy vibes, randomly bursts from inside the closet. Everyone knows the culprit. Jorge Polanco, the Mariners’ veteran second baseman, is not a fan of silencing his phone.
“But he loves Maverick and Iceman,” Mariners star Cal Raleigh said.
Nobody really thinks. When a player does what Polanco did in the postseason — bailing the Mariners out of the danger zone seemingly daily, with his final trick a go-ahead three-run home run that set the stage for a 10-3 win on Monday — his ringtone can be Limp Bizkit and no one will utter a peep.
Instead, it’s the perfect soundtrack to this Mariners’ run, which currently sees them two games to none against the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series. “Top Gun Anthem” is an epic song filled with the kind of ups and downs that embodies an organization that has spent 49 years alternating between the devastation of mediocrity and the heartbreak of underachievement. The only team in Major League Baseball to have never played in a World Series, Seattle is two wins away from capturing its first American League pennant and heads home to T-Mobile Park for Game 3.
The Mariners’ dominant position is thanks in large part to a 32-year-old whose accomplishments have earned him the right to be called the Iceman himself — yet that’s not a nickname Polanco wears these days.
“It’s George Bonds,” Mitch Garver, M’s catcher, said.
Yes, Polanco’s alter ego is the Anglicized version of his first name and the title of Major League Baseball’s all-time leader. He got it earlier this season, when “all he hit was 110,” Garver said [mph] In a gap or over a fence. “It was unbelievable.”
Especially considering that last winter, Polanco didn’t know if he would be healthy enough to continue playing in the major league. Polanco, who has struggled for years with left knee problems, underwent surgery in October 2024 to repair the patellar tendon. A free agent, Polanco attracted limited interest on the market and ended up re-signing with the Mariners for one year and $7.75 million.
“It’s been a ride, man,” Polanco said. “That’s the way I would put it. I’m not going to say it was bad. I’m not going to say it was easy. I think God prepared me for this year. I was hurt a little bit, so yeah; but now we’re here, and I’m happy to be back.”
“You just have to have faith. You will overcome. And you will come back stronger.”
Polanco’s power has been on display throughout October. He made his debut in Game 2 of Seattle’s division series against the Detroit Tigers when he hit a two-run home run off ace Tarik Skubal, who is on the verge of winning his second straight Cy Young Award. It continued three games later in a winner-take-all Game 5 when he hit a single to right field in the 15th inning that propelled the Mariners to their first ALCS berth since 2001. And it didn’t stop there, with Polanco’s walk-off single in the sixth inning of Game 1 against the Blue Jays on Sunday.
Then came a fifth-inning blast from Toronto reliever Louis Farland, who fed a 98 mph fastball over the plate and watched it leave the bat at 105.2 mph, flying 400 feet to turn a 3-3 tie into a 6-3 Seattle lead.
“He’s always been a great hitter,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “His shot right now is pretty short. That ball tonight, I wasn’t sure it was going to go out, but I think he’s doing that kind of spin on it now where it stays up.”
This is no coincidence. Polanco reached the major leagues with the Minnesota Twins at the age of 20, a bat-to-ball expert whose ability to hit from both sides of the plate gave him a regular role with the team.
“He was never George Bonds,” Garver said. “It was Harry Potter. Because he was a wizard. He just made hits happen.”
Polanco found strength five years into his career and maxed out with 33 home runs in 2021, but a deteriorating knee sapped the juice from his bat and left him swinging more often at pitches he had previously spit on. Last year, in his first season with the Mariners, his numbers diminished, but the organization appreciated Polanco’s balanced demeanor and believed fixing his knee would fix his swing as well.
They are the sailors right. George Bonds was born during the ridiculous first month of the 2025 season, when he struck out nine homers in 80 games. Polanco embraced the Mariners’ ethos of pulling the ball into the air. Raleigh led MLB with a 1.594 OPS on pulled balls. Third baseman Eugenio Suarez was second with 1,497. Polanco has hit 23 of his 26 home runs this season to the pulling side, and both Skubal’s homers (hit from the right side) and Farland’s (left) have both been faced off in front of the plate and clinched over the fence.
“Over the years, I hated going to Minnesota just because of him,” said J.B. Crawford, the longest serving sailor. “We’ve beaten the guy on his own a few times. We all know the type of player he is when he’s healthy, and it’s showing right now.”
Never in the game’s 150-year history has a player recorded three consecutive game-winning hits after the fifth inning in the postseason. It’s the kind of performance teams need to win pennants and championships. As brilliant as Raleigh has been in what could be an MVP campaign, and as brilliant as Julio Rodriguez was in the second inning and as dominant as Seattle’s pitching has been en route to this point, winning a playoff game in baseball requires more.
Like, for example, the man who during the winter was doing a late clean-up and never hesitated, even in higher-leverage situations.
“The most impressive thing is bouncing back after a tough year last year,” said Brian Waugh, who will start Wednesday’s third game against Toronto’s Shane Bieber. “Especially for a guy on his second team, in the back half of his career. To do what he does — get healthy, come back, and help the team like he did — is more impressive than just playing good baseball.”
Playing good baseball helps too. He helped Polanco get to Seattle in a place that seemed unimaginable just a month ago. From mid-August to early September, the Mariners lost 13 of 18, trailed Houston by 3 1/2 games in the AL West and maintained a half-game lead over the Texans for the final wild-card spot. From there, the Mariners went 17-4, won the West, earned a first-round bye and set a course for history.
They are not there. However, Polanco acknowledged that the Mariners’ players cannot ignore the team’s history and realize what it means to reach the World Series.
“Yes, we are thinking about that,” he said. “We’ve heard that a lot. We know.”
Science did not deter them. Raleigh shovels. Rodriguez is slowing down. Josh Naylor, who grew up in nearby Mississauga, hit a two-run home run in Game 2. George Bonds showed up in style, cool as a snowman, cool as Maverick, and perfectly happy to eschew silent mode in favor of loud calling.