Royals Hustle Back to the World Series, Where the Mets Await
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A single, as defined by any other team, is a manageable and often acceptable outcome. It can be compensated for or worked around. But for the Kansas City Royals, who collect singles as eagerly as they might collect shells on the beach, those base hits that leave the hitter anchored at first base are the ones that can unspool a big inning.
On Friday night, it unraveled the Toronto Blue Jays’ season.
When the Royals’ Eric Hosmer lined a single down the right-field line in the eighth inning, Jose Bautista retrieved the ball and fired to second base, which served its purpose in keeping Hosmer at first. But the throw also allowed Lorenzo Cain, who never hesitated, to race all the way home from first with the decisive run as the Royals beat the Blue Jays, 4-3, to clinch a berth in their second consecutive World Series.
The closer Wade Davis, with the tying and go-ahead runs at second and third, struck out the pinch-hitter Dioner Navarro and Ben Revere and got Josh Donaldson to ground out, setting off a celebration.
The Royals, who won the series, four games to two, will host the Mets in Game 1 on Tuesday night.
Cain’s charge around the bases, of a kind that has come to typify the Royals’ hustle-and-brimstone attack, electrified a sold-out crowd at Kauffman Stadium who had been quieted by a 45-minute rain delay and a two-run homer by Bautista that had tied the score in the top of the eighth.
As soon Bautista made the throw to shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, near second base, he realized the consequences of his decision and stared home in disbelief.
Until then, Bautista had taken another heroic turn in another playoff game, with two homers accounting for the Blue Jays’ runs.
Bautista, who punctuated his series-clinching home run against the Texas Rangers with a defiant bat flip, was serene while observing his homers. There was little doubt about the first, a 431-foot blast off Yordani Ventura in the fourth, and the only hesitation around his game-tying drive was whether it would hook foul. It did not, tucking about 15 feet inside the foul pole.
When it did, Bautista dropped his bat and jogged around the bases.
Cain’s run, if it haunts Bautista and the Blue Jays, also bailed out Royals Manager Ned Yost.
Yost, whose unconventional moves have generated criticism from the baseball cognoscenti (and plenty of Royals fans) in the regular season but have worked seamlessly in the postseason, may rue his decision not to summon Davis earlier.
Davis had pitched just once in the series, retiring Bautista, who was the tying run, on a fly ball to end Game 2.
But after Kelvin Herrera pitched one and two-thirds scoreless innings, Yost turned to his setup man, Ryan Madson, whose inspiring return from elbow surgery has been tempered by some shaky playoff outings, to begin the eighth.
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After Revere singled, Madson struck out Donaldson before Bautista homered.
Once Davis arrived, after Bautista’s home run and a walk to Edwin Encarnacion, he retired Chris Colabello on a pop-up and struck out Tulowitzki to end the inning after Encarnacion had reached second on a passed ball. But the damage had been done.
The Royals’ return to the World Series has not been as smooth as last year’s trip, when their rousing wild-card win over the Oakland Athletics gave way to sweeps of the Los Angeles Angels and the Baltimore Orioles. They trailed the Houston Astros by four runs in the eighth inning while facing elimination in Game 4 of a division series and could not easily shake the Blue Jays.
The Royals’ successes came when they were able to shackle Toronto’s offense, which led the major leagues in just about every offensive metric: runs, home runs, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.
In the Royals’ four victories, the Blue Jays managed zero, three, two and three runs.
David Price, owner of one Cy Young Award (and perhaps another) and soon to become one of baseball’s highest-paid pitchers, had lost seven consecutive starts in the playoffs. In reference his playoff shortcomings, which have been a potpourri of poor pitching and poor luck, he has a sign in his locker, a pet phrase one of his former teammates used to parrot: If you don’t like it, pitch better.
Price was good — just not good enough.
He allowed early solo home runs to Ben Zobrist and Mike Moustakas, and one more in the seventh, which was indicative of his playoff fortunes. Moustakas led off with a broken-bat single, and when the left fielder, Revere, leapt at the wall to catch Salvador Perez’s deep drive, Moustakas would have been doubled off first except that the first baseman, Colabello, could not cleanly scoop up the relay throw. One out later, Price was gone, and Aaron Sanchez gave up a run-scoring single to Alex Rios.
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