Kansas City Royals win again in extra innings, take ALCS game 1
The chant in Baltimore may be “We won’t stop,” but the Kansas City Royals see the number of innings role past the ninth and they are the ones that won’t stop.
On Friday night the Royals became the first team in Major League Baseball history to have four extra inning postseason victories as they needed ten innings to take game one of the American League Division Series from the Baltimore Orioles by the score of 8-6. They did in pretty grand fashion too.
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One of their extra-inning wins was been scrapped out, like their 12th inninng win over the Oakland Athletics in the A.L. Wild Card game. In a back and forth game, the Royals won on a walk off base hit by catcher Salvador Perez.
In the ALDS the Royals swept the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim with two of the three games being won on late night home runs in extra innings.
Known for their speed the Royals have been on a postseason power surge. Friday night was no different. They hit three home runs in the game. The first came off the bat of Alcides Escobar for the first run of the game, during the Royals’ four-run third inning.
The other two, a solo shot and a two-run blast, came in the top of the tenth inning courtesy of Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas silencing the racous Baltimore crowd and sending the Royals back to their hotel rooms with an 8-6 win.
Even though the Royals took game one the Orioles didn’t sit down and let them. The “We won’t stop” chant really does apply to the Orioles but their efforts were just not enough on Friday night.
Each time the Orioles were down in the game they came back and scored at least one run. They didn’t let the Royals take the game without at fight.
Down 4-0 going into the bottom of the third the Orioles scored a run in the bottom of the inning. When the Royals added another run in the fifth making the score 5-1, the Orioles answered back in the bottom of the inning scoring three runs of their own.
Oct 10, 2014; Baltimore, MD, USA; Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas (8) celebrates with catcher Salvador Perez (13) after Moustakas hit a two-run home run in the 10th inning in game one of the 2014 ALCS playoff at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: H. Darr Beiser-USA TODAY Sports
After tying the game with a run in the sixth, neither the Orioles nor the Royals scored again until the ninth inning came and went. Bring on the the tenth. We already know that the Royals scored three runs making the score 8-5.
Even though they couldn’t come up with three runs in the bottom of the tenth the Orioles fought back, scoring a run with two outs on a pinch-hit single by Delmon Young.
Unfortunately for Baltimore that was all the offense they could muster in the tenth as the next batter, Nick Markakis hit a grounder to second to end the game.
This year’s ALCS already appears as though it’s going to be a gritty one as both teams truly do refuse to stop.