Kansas City Royals take 3-1 series lead over Toronto Blue Jays in ALCS
By Kris Daly
The Kansas City Royals may have put the final nail in the proverbial coffin of the Toronto Blue Jays with a 14-2 thumping in Game 4 of the ALCS early Tuesday night.
The Royals’ attack early and often
In a game that featured two journeyman type starters in Chris Young and R.A. Dickey no one knew what quite to expect.
Let’s just say the knuckleball wasn’t fooling anyone.
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Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar, who has been the catalyst and a thorn in the side of Toronto (.600 Avg.) led off the game with a bunt single on the very first pitch and Kansas City never looked back.
Second baseman Ben Zobrist followed up with a two-run blast to right field before the raucous Rogers Centre crowd had settled in their seats.
Two more runs followed as the Royals swung early and often with great success against Dickey who lasted less than 2 innings in what could be his final chance at post-season baseball.
Ex-Blue Jay outfielder Alex Rios hit a solo home run in the top of the 2nd giving the Royals a 5-0 lead and that’d be all for Dickey.
According to FOX, Dickey generated just 5 swing and misses in his 48 pitches thrown. Five.
The Blue Jays were able to scratch together a couple runs in the bottom of the third cutting the lead to 5-2 but were unable to generate any offense the rest of the way.
With the game at 5-2 in the top of the 7th, the Royals exploded for four more runs off reliever LaTroy Hawkins and added three more runs in the 8th and two in the 9th.
Royals Bullpen Dominant
Perhaps the strongest unit of any team left in the post-season, the Royals bullpen shut down the potent ‘Jays lineup over the last 4 2/3 innings led by the strong work of Luke Hochevar, Ryan Madison, Kelvin Herrera and Franklin Morales.
Manager Ned Yost must love the plethora of options at his disposal especially when he can ask a starter to just give him five innings with a bullpen as stacked as this one appears.
This bullpen is scary good and is a testament to the sound moves and patience shown by Royals GM Dayton Moore over the past few years.
Comedy in the 9th
In a ‘yeah, that just happened moment’, it got so ugly for Toronto that utility player 2B/SS Cliff Pennington was asked to pitch in the 9th making him the first official position player to pitch in a post-season game in the history of MLB.
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To be honest I haven’t seen a team up and down the lineup as locked in as the Royals were on Tuesday. Even the pitches hitters missed were hard hit foul balls.
Even during the FOX broadcast of the game announcers Harold Reynolds and Tom Verducci were amazed at the amount of good swings 1-9 in the order had in each at-bat.
Quick Turnaround
With Game 5 on Wednesday (4:07 ET) the Blue Jays will be forced to erase this one from the memory in short order.
In a rematch of Game 1, Toronto sends Marco Estrada to the hill against Edison Volquez who threw six shutout innings last Friday.
Estrada faced similar circumstances against the Texas Rangers staving off elimination down 2-0 in the divisional series. Will he be up to the task?
With a lineup as hot as Kansas City possesses right now it’s hard to imagine that coming to fruition, but it’ll sure be entertaining to watch.