Royals win ALDS game 2 with one big inning and excellent pitching

And a Salvador Perez home run!

This series was supposed to be a quick and easy one for the New York Yankees. It has not been. New York barely managed to escape the first game with a win, and our very own Kansas City Royals defeated the Yankees in the second game of the ALDS in a 4-2 contest. It was a great evening with lots of contributors on offense, defense, and pitching.

The game began in an ominous fashion for the Royals. Yankees starting pitcher Carlos Rodon was absolutely dominant. He struck out each of the Royals’ first three batters and it took 12 pitches—10 of them strikes—to do it.

Then, Royals ace Cole Ragans proceeded to walk the first two hitters and you started to think “ohhhhh noooooo.” Fortunately, Ragans struck out the next two batters (including one Aaron Judge) and induced a cracked bat grounder to escape unscathed.

But when Rodon continued to go crazy in the second inning, it seemed like the Royals were absolutely done for. That, or the Royals were going to score a bunch of runs in the middle innings for no reason whatsoever. No in between. I fired off this tweet. It turns out that I was one inning and a few runs off, but it was the latter that happened.

Enter one Salvador Perez. In the fourth inning, Perez, the 2015 World Series MVP and playoff hero, crushed a home run to deep left field. It traveled over 400 feet and was completely tattoo’d. Hilariously, Perez’s home run was captured and broadcasted from the umpire’s point of view. Just a glorious, glorious moment.

That gave the Royals their first run, and it opened some (weird) floodgates. Yuli Gurriel singled on a line drive to center. Unraveling Rodon uncorked a wild pitch that Gurriel rightfully took second base on. While Michael Massey struck out, Tommy Pham added a single of his own to score Gurriel and stole second base. After a Hunter Renfroe strikeout, Royals Playoff Hero Garrett Hampson then singled to score Pham. Maikel Garcia wrapped it up with a sharp opposite-field single to score Hampson. Garcia then promptly got thrown out in a rundown.

So, yeah, the go-ahead runs were scored by…Gurriel, Pham, and Hampson. It’s nearly giving me a stroke just reading that and trying to comprehend how the Royals got here.

We know how the Royals got here, really: great pitching. Ragans only managed to get through four innings, but the Kansas City ace struck out five along the way. He was equal parts rocky and brilliant, but as Rany Jazayerli noted on Twitter, the Yankees walk a lot—nearly 11% on the year, which seems wild but it’s true.

But, as ever, going to the bullpen in the fifth inning can be a rocky proposition. When the Royals got through the soft, squishy underbelly of their middle bullpen arms, you started to think the Royals were on the last lap. Angel Zerpa and John Schreiber combined for two scoreless innings, picking up the fifth and sixth innings with little fanfare.

Kris Bubic added two more scoreless innings, the second of which was capped off by a nifty double play by Witt, who while being shut down offensively has been able to make his mark on the game in other ways (unlike one Aaron Judge, tbh).

Now, the ninth inning got a little dicey. Jazz Chisolhm hit a pitch from closer Lucas Erceg hard, and with the short right field porch it turned into a home run. Anthony Volpe crushed a pitch but it was a one-hopper right to Witt. Jon Berti then singled to get the top of the order up to bat again, but fortunately Erceg coaxed another ground out from Gleyber Torres.

The ALDS is even at 1-1, folks. The Yankees are coming to Kansas City for what is bound to be a lit series. Should the Royals win the next two games, they’ll not only clinch a spot in the ALCS—they’ll do it at home.