Royals: SS Alcides Escobar (.257, 4, 32), 2B Ben Zobrist (.276, 13, 56 with Athletics and Royals), CF Lorenzo Cain (.307, 16, 72), 1B Eric Hosmer (.297, 18, 93), DH Kendrys Morales (.290, 22, 106), 3B Mike Moustakas (.284, 22, 82), C Salvador Perez (.260, 21, 70), LF Alex Gordon (.271, 13, 48), RF Alex Rios (.255, 4, 32).
Advertisement
They met once before in the ALCS, with the Royals rallying from a 3-1 deficit in the first year of seven-game series.
Kansas City has been winning ever since. The Blue Jays rallied from a seven-run deficit with an eight-run sixth in the series finale on July 12, only to lose 11-10….
Benches cleared after Bautista’s homer, as Dyson took exception to Edwin Encarnacion’s hand gestures to the crowd before he entered the batters’ box.
Although there might be a tendency to have a heated rival within the division (like the Orioles or Yankees), the Blue Jays biggest rival this season has arguably been the Kansas City Royals.
The Royals will try to take a 2-0 series lead when they send Yordano Ventura to the mound on Saturday. He earned a win with a three-inning relief stint in Game 4 at Texas….
Price is scheduled to pitch Game 2 against Kansas City on Saturday. Toronto hit. 266 against righties this season, tied with Kansas City for fourth-best in the majors…. But Toronto was also favoured in the ALDS and they barely escaped that five game set. The deals beefed up an already-prolific offense, overhauled the shaky bullpen and added a true ace to the top of the rotation. “He was tremendous”, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. Both are plucky, driven teams that have recently vanquished long playoff droughts.
Bautista hit the biggest home run of his life, in the biggest game of his career and he enjoyed it. It’s easy to forget, but baseball is a sport, a game, even at the professional level. Both those clubs went on to reach the World Series….
Gibbons’ strategy paid off when Stroman kept the Rangers at bay through six innings in the deciding game. Toronto scored four runs in the bottom of the inning and went on to win 6-3. Encarnacion had a tying homer in the sixth….
“We all know Toronto is a better team than Houston”. “We’re going to play our game”.
The Royals are playing from ahead in the postseason for a change. It was the third home run of the post-season for the star catcher. Saying he was unhappy with how Toronto’s power hitters had been getting over on Kansas City pitching earlier in the series, and with how Donaldson had been acting when he had success, Volquez made it a point to pitch inside from the get-go. Cain was fourth in the AL in wins above replacement (WAR) behind the Angels’ Mike Trout, Donaldson, and the Rays’ Kevin Kiermaier….
Royals manager Ned Yost acknowledges that the past is the past and that his pitchers will work in the inside portion of the zone. The last of those games Wednesday was as tense as they come. And he was heavily involved in the team’s last meeting, an ill-tempered affair August. 2 in Toronto that saw three ejections in a 5-2 Jays’ win.
What did Volquez say about Donaldson back then? Madson also threw high and tight to Donaldson, and hit Tulowitzki on the arm. Tensions escalated as the game went on, with Toronto reliever Aaron Sanchez returning the favor by hitting Escobar to trigger the first of two benches-clearing scuffles.
“He’s a little baby”, he said of Donaldson.
Advertisement
That was a big reason why they were able to down the Astros in their divisional series.
