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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2014
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Royals beat A's 9-8 in AL wild-card game
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Kansas City Royals' Greg Holland celebrates after the Royals' 9-8 victory over the Oakland Athletics in 12 innings in the AL wild-card playoff game Tuesday in Kansas City, Mo.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Rain had started to fall at Kauffman Stadium as the echoing roars finally faded into the night. Eric Hosmer popped out of the dugout one last time, looked to the sky and let it soak in.
Salvador Perez singled home the winning run with two outs in the 12th inning, capping two late comebacks that gave Kansas City a thrilling 9-8 victory over the Oakland Athletics in the American League wild-card game.
Quite a start to October baseball — even if this one appeared to be over with plenty of time to spare in September. But in a back-and-forth epic that lasted four hours, 45 minutes, the As lost their seventh straight winner-take-all playoff game since 2000.
"This team showed a lot of character tonight," Hosmer said. "We weren't going to quit."
It was the final collapse in a season that looked so promising this summer.
"This will go down as the craziest game I've ever played," said Hosmer, who sparked the final Royals rally with a one-out triple. "This team showed a lot of character. No one believed in us before the game. No one believed in us before the season."
GROSSROADS KC GRINDERS
It had been 29 years since the Royals played a postseason game — nearly three decades spent mostly as a laughingstock. But on Tuesday night, already drenched in victory champagne, the young first baseman felt as if the whole world had watched their coming-out party.
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Making their first postseason appearance since winning the 1985 World Series, the Royals are sticking around. They'll open their best-of-five Division Series on the road Thursday night against the AL West champion Los Angeles Angels.
After falling behind by four runs, the Royals raced back with their speed on the bases
they led the majors with 153 steals this season. Kansas City swiped seven in this one to tie a postseason record previously shared by the 1907 Chicago Cubs and 1975 Cincinnati Reds, according to STATS.
The biggest one came in the 12th.
Hosmer scored the tying run on a high chopper to third by rookie Christian Colon, who reached safely on the infield single and then stole second with two outs.
Perez, who was 0 for 5 after squandering two late chances to drive in key runs, reached out and pulled a hard one-hopper past diving third baseman Josh Donaldson. Colon scored easily, and the Royals rushed out of the dugout for a mad celebration.
Sitting upstairs in a suite, Royals Hall of Famer George Brett put his hands on his head in near disbelief at the frenzied and jubilant scene that was unfolding below.
said.
"It was unbelievable;" Perez
The A's raced out to a 7-3 lead by the sixth inning, but the Royals countered with three runs in the eighth. Nori Aoki's sacrifice fly off Sean Doolittle in the ninth forced extra innings.
Kansas City squandered chances in the next couple of innings, as midnight came and went on the East Coast and the tension continued to build. Rookie left-hander Brandon Finnegan, just drafted in June, pitched two scoreless innings but walked Josh Reddick to start the 12th.
"They finally got ahead there in the 30th inning or whatever it was," said Brandon Moss, who drove in five runs with two homers for Oakland. "That was definitely the best baseball game I've ever been a part of."
Pinch-hitter Alberto Callaspo delivered an RBI single off winning pitcher Jason Frasor to put the A's ahead 8-7, but Hosmer hit a drive high off the left-center wall against loser Dan Otero for a triple in the bottom half.
Colon drove in Hosmer with a bouncer that barely traveled 50 feet. That set the stage for Perez, who lined a pitch from Jason Hammel down the third-base line.
The long-downtrroden Royals hadn't played in the postseason since beating St. Louis in the 1985 World
Series, and the excitement that permeated the city might best be summed up by a statement posted by the Kansas City Police on Twitter in about the 10th inning: "We really need everyone to not commit crimes and drive safely right now. Wed like to hear the Royals clinch."
"it's kind of a microcosm of the year that we had," Doolittle said.
A much-anticipated pitching showdown between Oakland ace Jon Lester and Kansas City counterpart James Shields instead turned into a high-scoring game and a battle of attrition between bullpens.
For the As, it was a stunning and heartbreaking finish. They had the best record in baseball before wilting in the second half, and needed a victory on the final day of the regular season just to squeeze into the playoffs.
Oakland had chances to put all that in the past. Instead, the season ended abruptly for a team that has failed over and over again in the postseason.
"It was absolutely epic," Shields said. "You don't write a story like that."
Doolittle tried to save it for Oakland in the ninth, but he gave up a bloop single to pinch-hitter Josh Willingham. Pinch-runner Jarrod Dyson was sacrificed to second and then brashly stole third.
allowing him to score on Aoki's deep fly to right field.
Aoki's deep fly to right field.
It was the third time in the last three seasons that Doolittle has blown a postseason save.
"That's the most incredible game I've ever been a part of," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "Our guys never quit. We fell behind there in the fifth inning, sixth inning. They kept battling back. They weren't going to be denied. It was just a great game."
UP NEXT
Yost hadn't picked a starting pitcher for the opener against the Angels. The two best bets are vastly different options: Danny Duffy is a young, hard-throwing lefty who plays on passion, while Jeremy Guthrie is a cerebral right-hander who relies on guile.
TRAINER'S ROOM
Oakland C Geovany Soto left the game after hurting his left thumb tagging Hosmer at the plate to end the first inning.
POSTSEASON BLUES
PUSSEASON BLUES
The A's haven't won a playoff series since sweeping Minnesota in the 2006 ALDS. "We've had our ups and downs," catcher Derek Norris said, "especially in the playoffs."
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COMMENTARY
These Royals never back down from a challenge
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Hope isn't a normal feeling for Royals fans. In the past, a
"(Dt explo said but That ther
Royals team emerging from adversity isn't something in the realm of possibility. However, on Tuesday night, as Salvador Perez stepped up to the plate, a newfound feeling struck Royals fans. This year, this team is different.
The game was essentially over. When Yordano Ventura trotted out from the bullpen to the mound — much to Royals' fans dismay — and surrendered a two-run homer to Brandon Moss, the excitement at Kauffman Stadium was deflated.
The Royals had just scratched Jon Lester for three runs after being down two. Then things took a drastic turn after the Oakland Athletics stretched their lead to 7-3. There wasn't a glimmer of hope.
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There was no way the line-up, that was the first playoff team in MLB history to be last in walks and home runs, must器 a comeback. It foreshadowed doom against one of the best pitchers in baseball who had a cushion to work with.
Baseball, however, is a game of unpredictability and chances. You get 27 outs and it's never over, making it all the more gratifying. And even as the four-run deficit seemed insurmountable, the crowd was still confident in the team that had fought all season long because they remembered how they got here.
The Royals clawed their way back as they had all season, and even with all the managerial blunders and missed opportunities, this team instilled something different. No longer could you turn your attention away from the Royals when the game was seemingly over.
You had to tune in because something legendary could happen.
This is a team that's season was deemed over by many experts when it was eight games back of the division on July 21. The Royals defied all odds and had to have something left because after all, this Royals season has been nothing short of magical.
Manager Ned Yost was berated for saying this was a second-half team. The lineup went through the troughs of getting fooled by subpar pitchers. However, this explains the Royals in a nutshell. When the runs need to come at the most dire moments, sometimes they come in bunches and it's as if you expected it to. If this has happened before, then it's destined to happen again.
The deficit wasn't enough to stifle the Royals' plans of reinforcing the idea that this team is never out of it. And as Christian Colon crossed the plate, the history books can never take this one away.
You have to get some breaks in baseball as the Royals did. However, they never gave in to the idea that the game was out of reach. They knew the fans had waited 29 years for this moment.
Edited by Alyssa Scott
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