Toronto Blue Jays advance to World Series for first time since 1993

The Toronto Blue Jays and the Seattle Mariners entered Monday night with a simple mission: win one game, and you get to play in the World Series.

With Game 7 of the American League Championship Series taking place at the Rogers Centre, two teams that came into MLB together as expansion franchise had a shot to make history for their respective franchises.

But it was the Jays who pulled it off, buoyed by a massive seventh-inning home run from George Springer.

The World Series begins Friday night against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

How did the Blue Jays and Mariners score their runs in Game 7?

The game wasn't exactly the most high-scoring affair, with neither team getting more than a single run in the first six innings.

Daulton Varsho singled on a ground ball up the middle to get the Blue Jays back on the board.

Toronto starter Bieber didn't have the greatest outing, going 3.2 innings while giving up seven hits. But he avoided leaving the game in a disastrous state for reliever Louis Varland, who got Toronto out of the inning down just 2-1.

But after getting out of his first jam, Varland allowed a fifth inning homer to likely American League MVP Cal Raleigh — a playoff nemesis of the Blue Jays — that gave the Mariners a 3-1 lead.

Toronto starters Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt both made relief appearances, keeping the score close.

And then Springer cemented himself as a Jays playoff legend in the seventh inning, launching a three-run bomb to give Toronto a 4-3 lead they would not give up.

How did the rest of the series go?

The seven-game series couldn’t have been much tighter, despite each game entering Monday night being decided by at least two runs. Seattle took the first two games of the series at the Rogers Centre, before Toronto stormed back with two games of their own on the road to even things up. Toronto took a 2-1 lead into the eighth inning of Game 5, but a massive rally from the Mariners pushed the Jays to the brink with a 6-2 win.

Toronto won a 6-2 game of their own on Sunday night to force Monday’s winner-take-all Game 7.