TV ratings for Tigers-Mariners epic ALDS Game 5 showdown put an end to inane debate

Now that we're about a week out from the Tigers' heartbreaking ALDS Game 5 loss to the Mariners, it's a little easier to recognize that game for what it was: baseball at its best. That doesn't erase the five hours and 15 innings of pure agony that both teams put their fans through, but what else could keep millions of people so tuned in and white-knuckled for so long — and ultimately so disappointed or so elated by the end?

It was 8.72 million people, to be exact, on top of the sold-out 47,000 strong who were at T-Mobile for that game. The millions tuning in at home made the Tigers and Mariners' ALDS the highest-viewed division series since the Tigers-Yankees ALDS Game 5 in 2011.

And it makes sense. Even baseball fans who didn't have an affinity for either team were tuned into that game, hanging onto every pitch just as much as everyone else. At least, the majority of them were.

Bill Plaschke, a longtime columnist for the LA Times who Dodgers fans don't even like, chimed in with an unpopular opinion before promptly being roasted and ratio'd by fans on Twitter.

Tigers-Mariners ALDS Game 5 viewership shut down any complaints about the lack of ghost runners in the postseason

As the FOX broadcast reminded fans multiple times through six extra innings, the ghost runner rule instituted in 2020 doesn't apply to postseason games. If it did, the Mariners would have walked things off after Victor Robles' double.

But clearly, no one cared how long it actually took for the game to end — if anything, it only attracted even more eyes. Watching both teams trot out two starting pitchers each from the bullpen, hanging onto every ball that dropped into the outfield and hoping it would turn into a run, feeling the margin of error shrinking down to nothing, while two teams fought to keep their seasons alive? It was classic baseball, even if it was gut-wrenching.

Commissioner Rob Manfred's attempts to make baseball quicker and more watchable will remain divisive, but at least we're almost all in agreement that no one should get a free pass at anything in the postseason. Both teams had to exhaust every resource and play their hearts out, and that's how it should be in October.