Kansas City is a baseball City, but starved of success. Last night was their first play off game for 29 years.
A mixture of bad management and the difficulties of winning in baseball as a small market team in a sport without a salary cap meant success was rare
They hosted another small market team, the Oakland Athletics, of "Moneyball" book and film fame, in the American League wildcard last night. This year the A's had eschewed their parsimonious principles and sensing an opportunity to win the World Series had invested heavy in short term signings notably one of the best post-season pitchers around, Jon Lester, who started last night
This was a heavy duty pitching match up, as for KC "Big Game James" James Shields was pitching. Expectations were for a tight low scoring game, with both teams pitching and defense heavy and strugglnig to hit
Oakland went into a 2-0 lead but by the end of the 5th KC had recovered to lead 3-2
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Veteran Royals manager Ned Yost then made a surprising move. With Shields only 88 pitches into his start, and with 2 Oakland runners on base and no outs in the sixth, he pulled Shields and inserted rookie starter Yordano Ventura in relief. This was both controversial and unconventional. Starters are not normally used in relief, a specialist task and especially not rookies.
At this point, the passionate crowd of 40,000 Royals fans booed. Actually booed the manager who had led them to the play-offs
Yost had got it wrong. Brandon Moss hit a three run homer and a single followed to leave the Athletics 6-3 up going to the 7th. Ventura was pulled and trudged back to the dug-out.
It was an incredible scene. A crowd that had to a man and woman stood from the start and shouted themselves hoarse were completely silent. The commentators remarked on it and themselves were quiet for a moment. You could hear a pin drop. Not sure I have ever seen anything like it.
Oakland added a further run and in the 8th were 7-3 up. The Royals were dead and buried. They were 20-1 to win in the markets
Back they came, tying the game up at 7-7 with no fewer than seven stolen bases and a bunting strategy that is very unfashionable these days and the game went into extra innings. The crowd was by now going nuts
The 10th and 11th innings passed scoreless until Oakland went ahead again 8-7 in the 12th
It was now or never, the Royals were three runs away from elimination
Hosmer brought it to 8-8
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and Colon made his way to second base with a single and another steal
Up stepped Salvador Perez. In the second half of the season Perez could hardly hit the ball. His defense was superb, but he was batting way down the order, a walking out
He connected, squibbing a line drive just inside the foul line past third base. Colon scored and the Royals won 9-8 from 7-3 down
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The place went mental. The Royals became the first team to ever come back from 4+ runs in 8th or later to win a winner-take-all playoff game.
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Sitting in bed watching on a buffering stream I had goosebumps and I was shaking. It had been the most electrifying few hours of sport had seen in ages
In the stadium strangers hugged strangers, stewards cavorted with hot-dog vendors. The commentators' voice cracked.
Terrific stuff
The Royals now travel to Anaheim to play the four game American League Divisional Series starting Thursday. Baltimore play Detroit in the other game, basically semi-finals to win the American League and get to the World Series
Our 18-1 ticket is alive.
a few videos of the game are at
http://m.mlb.com/video/v36715251/al-wc-royals-advance-to-alds-on-perezs-walkoff-hit/?partnerId=as_mlb_20141001_32629426Recommended viewing!
Great write up that Rich.
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