caulfield12

They won because of their offensive balance, ten guys on the roster at 87 or higher ops+, including six at 120-130 in Cain, Moustakas, Hosmer, Gordon, Morales and Zobrist. That leaves Escobar (Mvp for the series), Perez and Rios, all three of them former All-Stars. And Escobar in two seasons in the playoffs already has 36 hits in 26 games...not bad for your seventh or eighth best hitter. The last two ALCS mvps in Greinke and Escobar came for Greinke, by the way, along with Odorizzi. That's good scouting. The Odorizzi was packaged with Myers for Shields and Wade Davis. They had just enough starting pitching in key moments, and then Herrera and Davis covering for Holland's absence. Other than that, it's all about speed, defense, execution and persistence in the face of adversity.

Last year it was luck. This year the umpiring. Next year will be...? Price didn't pitch poorly at all, but he was one fat Madson pitch to Bautista from being 0-8 in all 8 of his post-season starts. He has a tendency to be very streaky within a start...no way I'd give that dude $200 million.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 10:28 PM) What about on Navarro? Whatever I hope the Mets steamroll them. f*** THE ROYALS KC has the advantage in every area but starting pitching. NY maybe more classic home run hitters but KC also has nine guys in a row that are offensive threats if you include Alex Rios.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 10:21 PM) Who? Josh Donaldson. Of course, he figured into last year's wild card game as well with the A's. Pretty sure he made the final out in that game and Perez's huge go ahead hit went past him. Escobar already has 36 post season hits in 26 games. Second all-time for KC to Brett's 56.

Now the Royals can start Cueto at home Tuesday and either Volquez or Ventura Wednesday. Probably Ventura. Don't have to worry about Cueto on the road until Game 4/5. Another approach would be hold Cueto for Game 2 and then potential Game 6. That would mean Volquez, Cueto, Ventura, C. Young, Volquez, Cueto and Ventura. Lots of different permutations. Assuming Chris Young would get a second post-season start. Yost might want to get Cueto back out on the mound as quickly as possible. Coast to coast from Game 1 onwards this year.

Wow. Shades of El Duque against the Red Sox extricating himself from that situation after sitting nearly an hour in the dugout.

Osuna was down 3-0 against Moustakas and recovered to keep from getting blown out of the inning completely. The Royals with the best pen in the game will have to blow two saves in one game in order not to get to the World Series.

Bautista had a brain cramp...threw to second instead of Goins down the line. Jirschele was going to hold up the runner, Cain.

Resilient. They always find a way to fight back, seemingly.

The excuse was that Yost was warned of the impending rain and wanted to get through the 8th and not burn Davis, holding him for the 9th after the anticipated delay. Obviously that didn't work out as planned. 45 min delay.

Yeah, Sanchez is going to be out of there, too. Basically, that only leaves Osuna. Six out versus three, Royals still have the slight advantage. Knowing Davis, he'll try to convince Yost to leave him in, especially if the Royals manage to score in the bottom of the 8th. Cain, Hosmer, Morales....heart of KC order due up.

The Little Prince was also excellent...

QUOTE (nitetrain8601 @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 08:40 PM) Gibbons made a mistake taking out Price too early. He was at 99 pitches and Rios had a good at-bat earlier in the game against Price and two career homers in 33 abs against him.

Would love to see what the Royals could do with a brilliant tactical manager. Moving Davis to closer with the Holland injury opened up this possibility. Of course, an injured Holland wasn't going to be effective, either. 1.01 era for Davis in 27 post season innings. 3 earned runs total. Madson already got rocked once this series, but the Royals rallied to win. Not the time to give Madson his "feel good" comeback from being injured 3-4 years moment. Inexcusable.

Between the Revere play and bring in Madson instead of Davis, that inning just might have decided the series. And it's not like Yost hasn't used Davis a few times in full two-inning saves before. Just knew that Madson wasn't going to make it through the teeth of the line-up. Not to mention Davis hasn't pitched since the first two games in the series. Even Ventura would have gone with his best pitcher there. I'm sure the excuse will be the extra insurance run made him confident to try Madson.

Ventura getting more movement with two seam and cutters and throwing out of the stretch to increase control. Blue Jays not picking up his curve...two Ks on balls way out of the strike zone. Bautista homers on a fb count and it's now 2-1.

Hard to provide clear and convincing evidence it wasn't going out. The railing isn't that close to the wall actually. 24-36 inches behind to prevent that from happening. The glove came down and hit the wall in the follow through. Optical illusion looking straight out.

Impressive for Moustakas to take a lefty of Price's quality deep. Wouldn't have happened last season. Morales almost homered the previous at-bat. Fan interference?

He sucked in the NL. We have a hr park and we're decreasing our power even more... Hamilton would actually be a pretty decent low candidate if we could consistently expect pop from RF, DH, 3b, C and at least one of the two middle infield positions. Or in Old Comiskey Park, where his range would be even more of a factor.

Cueing Balta response in 3, 2, 1...

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 06:14 PM) Can you even fathom how excited J4L and AustinIllini would have been if the Cubs just pounded the Mets in 4 games? I can fathom how depressed Fathom would have been. He was still worried about jinxing the Mets when the Mets were up two games to nothing and Game 3 was still in doubt.

Basically all he can say is our pitching staff has the foundation in place for greatness, we have a great hitter in Abreu, a really exciting/dynamic player in Eaton, an experienced closer in Robertson and about fifteen question marks. Well, other than the fact Cabrera, Danks and LaRoche will all return.

QUOTE (flavum @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 03:37 PM) I won't be right, but my gut is telling me the Jays bring out the bats the next two nights, and move on. Which would practically guarantee the Royals would destroy the AL in revenge next year. After 2016, their window starts to close pretty dramatically.

Classic moving of the goalposts and hoping fans only focus on 2005 rather than a lost decade since when the Cubs came roaring back to make the Sox largely irrelevant. With the Cardinals, Tigers before this season, Twins trending back up, Royals, Indians with Lindor/Kipnis/Brantley/Gomes/Santana and that pitching staff...other than the Brewers sucking we're hemmed in right now regionally by better run organizations. And even the Brewers continue to wallop a lot of teams in attendance despite being terrible.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 23, 2015 -> 09:44 AM) Owwwww https://twitter.com/pimpino/status/657326953620336640 Gordon and Perez are the two toughest players on KC. One or both will homer. Probably Perez vs. Price.