Kansas City Royals complete sweep; are headed to World Series

With a ground ball down the third base line and a perfect throw to first, Kansas City Royals legend George Brett pumped his fists in the air as he watched from a luxury box. His club, which hadn’t reached the World Series since he was a player back in 1985, had just become the first team in MLB history to go 8-0 to open a postseason, topping the Baltimore Orioles, 2-1, and punching their ticket to the Fall Classic.

Once again, the offense did just enough to get by and a combination of pitching and superb defense took care of the rest, including several jaw-dropping plays by longtime Royals staple Alex Gordon, who made one catch, in particular, that brought the crowd of 40,000-plus to its feet in a roar.

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In the top of the fifth, J.J. Hardy lined a ball toward the left field fence. Gordon raced back and made a leaping grab on the warning track before crashing into the wall. After laying on the ground briefly, he raised his glove triumphantly, prompting cheers from the home faithful at Kauffman Stadium.

Kansas City opened the scoring early against Baltimore starter Miguel Gonzalez, who, despite the loss, pitched well for the O’s, allowing two runs – one earned – on four hits, striking out and walking four, as well, across 5 2/3 innings of work.

Alcides Escobar led off the bottom of the first with a high chopper up the middle for an infield single and Norichika Aoki was hit by a pitch to put two men on with nobody out. Lorenzo Cain, who entered play Wednesday with an 8-for-12 clip in the ALCS, laid down a sacrifice bunt, allowing both men to move up 90 feet. First baseman Eric Hosmer followed, grounding a ball to Baltimore first baseman Steve Pearce, who quickly threw home in an effort to nail Escobar.

However, as the speedy Escobar dashed home and slid into the plate, the ball was knocked loose from catcher Caleb Joseph‘s glove, allowing both the Kansas City shortstop and Aoki to score – ultimately accounting for the team’s only runs of the contest.

Escobar led the Royals offense with two of the team’s five hits on the afternoon out of the leadoff spot. No Orioles player managed more than one hit apiece, with four different contributors adding base knocks in the losing effort.

Baltimore answered back in the top of the third when Ryan Flaherty clubbed a mammoth solo home run down the right field line off Royals starter Jason Vargas, pulling the team within 2-1.

Vargas, who was tapped to start Game 4 over ace James Shields, who would have been pitching on short rest, was dominant apart from the lone long ball, allowing just one run on two hits over 5 1/3 innings of work, walking three and striking out six. From there, the Kansas City trio of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland took over, combining for 3 2/3 scoreless frames.

In the ninth, Holland started off shakily, walking leadoff man Adam Jones. Major League Baseball’s regular season home run leader, Nelson Cruz, followed, chopping a ball back to the mound. The Royals closer fielded, getting the sure out at second for the first out of the inning. The right-hander then set down Delmon Young on strikes before retiring Hardy on the groundout to third, clinching the American League pennant for a city that waited 29 years for a World Series appearance.