And no bat flip or winning blast from Jose Bautista.
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Price is scheduled to pitch Game 2 against Kansas City on Saturday. The free-swinging Jays were shut out just five times during the regular season. He scored on Edwin Encarnacion’s single as the Blue Jays took a 3-0 lead behind a few superb pitching from David Price.
“That’s baseball”, Price said of the Royals’ rally. Punish mistakes, spray balls around the big outfield and use team speed to accelerate the offence. He’s got a great fastball, if his breaking ball is on he’s that much tougher. Manager John Gibbons used Price in relief in Game 4. He set down Revere on a grounder to short, Donaldson a fly to center and struck out Bautista looking, which was greatly appreciated by almost all of the 40,357 in attendance. He pumped first-pitch strikes to 11 of the 13 hitters he faced through four innings. “It’s one game. We would have liked to be up 1-0, but we seem to do pretty good when we get behind”.
But Volquez kept flinging, and locating, and manager Ned Yost resisted the opportunity to pull him for Kelvin Herrera, who was getting warm in the pen.
Volquez was Kansas City’s man with a plan. He had not thrown more than 14 pitches in any of the first six innings.
Madson gave up a single and walk with one in the eighth but escaped further damage. But he gave up a home run to hard-hitting All-Star catcher Salvador Perez, and it hurt his line. 183 after the all-star break. First baseman Chris Colabello worked Volquez for eight pitches before lining out on a fastball at 95.
Crunch time arrived in the sixth inning, with Kansas City leading 3-0 and the heart of the order due up for Toronto. 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.
“Seriously, the first six innings was really tough to see”, he said. The right-hander’s performance certainly belied his 0-3 record and 8.76 ERA in three previous playoff starts with Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and the Royals. After a groundout scored Cain to make it a one run deficit for Kansas City, Mike Moustakas knocked an RBI single to make it a tie ball game. Lorenzo Cain hit a single and so did Eric Hosmer to score a run.
To get his six shutout innings, however, Volquez needed to survive a 37-pitch 6th when he strolled the initial two hitters. At this point in the season you know where home plate is. That was it for Estrada, who was replaced by Aaron Loup. Encarnacion ducked while running and the ball shot over him, but Escobar made a splendid diving catch and flipped to Zobrist for the double play.
Gibbons said it was simply a matter of circumstances, and while he acknowledged Price pitched longer than most people thought he would, “that was a little bit of strategy, too”.
The sellout crowd at Kauffman Stadium, which had been very quiet to that point, finally had something to cheer about. But overall he didn’t give up a lot of hits. “But we need him, so he’s in there”. Toronto SS Troy Tulowitzki was hitless in four at-bats in Game 1 and is 2-for-25 in the postseason. The opponent: Kansas City. “But right now you can’t take any days off. You’ve got to be out there for your team”.
Price’s earned-run average is 7.02 this post-season, compared to 2.30 in the regular season with Toronto. Baseball’s playoff format, which will send Toronto home for three straight beginning on Monday, makes that second game all the more important.
Since 1985, teams that have won the second game in the ALCS have advanced to the World Series in 23 of 29 series (79 percent).
The Royals lost 4-3 to San Francisco in the 2014 World Series.
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This Blue Jays team prides itself on its unflappable nature and outright refusal to hit the panic button.
