MLB's championship series will shift venues heading into the new week. Home-field advantage didn't matter much during the wild card and divisional bouts, but both hosts stormed out to early leads.
After cementing the American League's premier record on the season's final day, the Kansas City Royals utilized the benefit with two home victories over the Toronto Blue Jays. Awarded a dubious advantage due to division seeding, the New York Mets also jumped to a 2-0 lead over the Chicago Cubs.
The Blue Jays and Royals will return to action on Monday, where a young hurler must sustain his remarkable comeback against an ace coming off a sensational start. While the Mets and Cubs travel to Chicago, let's take a closer look at the American League Championship Series' Game 3 showdown.
Monday Preview: Kansas City Royals at Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays aren't making this easy. For the second time this postseason, they face a 2-0 deficit. This time, however, they can pull ahead at home in a best-of-seven slate.
David Price looked set to snap his playoff blues, taking a 3-0 lead into the seventh. Then a defensive miscommunication opened the floodgates for a five-run inning, all charged to the ace. Once again, the AL East champions will turn to Marcus Stroman to save their season.
After manager John Gibbons bizarrely inserted Price into Game 4 despite possessing a 7-1 lead, Stroman instead pitched an elimination game. The 24-year-old, who wasn't supposed to pitch at all this year after tearing his ACL, held the Texas Rangers to two runs through six frames, giving baseball's best offense time to explode.
Former ace and current TBS analyst Pedro Martinez tipped his cap to the young hurler:
Since returning above his timetable in September, Stroman has submitted a 2.25 ERA through six starts. In those outings, Toronto has scored 7.5 runs per game to win five of six. Crossing home plate rarely proved a problem throughout a 162-game season, but thus lies the cruelty of postseason baseball. In Games 1 and 2, the best lineup on the planet scored three times.
Even the 1927 New York Yankees had a bad game or two. It's not a matter of ice-cold bats, but rather some poor cluster luck. The Blue Jays drew five walks in Game 1 but couldn't convert any into runs. In Game 2, they turned 10 hits and three few passes into an underwhelming three scores.
Along with stranding nine baserunners in each defeat, they're 3-for-23 with runners in scoring position this series. Perhaps even more discouraging, a team loaded with sluggers didn't belt any long balls.
With the series shifting to Canada, Kansas City can't count on sustaining its opponent's home run drought. The Blue Jays clobbered 123 home runs at the Rogers Centre, 21 more than the Colorado Rockies collected at the notoriously hitter-friendly Coors Field. They recorded a .485 slugging percentage at home, so best of luck to Johnny Cueto in Game 3.
A week ago, this would have looked like a catastrophe waiting to happen. The deadline pickup limped into the postseason, but he quickly shifted the storyline on Wednesday. During a winner-take-all Game 5 of the American League Division Series, he retired 19 straight Houston Astros, allowing only two baserunners through eight bounce-back innings.
“He showed up,” pitching coach Dave Eiland said, per Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star. “He showed up and came up big. He did exactly what we got him to do. He showed up in the biggest moment, and for me, that erases everything else.”
He'll need to show up again against another potent adversary, this time in a treacherous road environment. As Yahoo Sports' Jeff Passan explained Cueto's dominant outing, the righty came out firing with a mission. The determined pitcher flew out of the gate throwing harder than usual:
And to do this, Cueto vowed, he was going to throw as hard as he could from the first pitch. No more first-inning procrastination, starting with fastballs at 91 and 89 and 90 and 91 and 90 miles per hour, like he had his last five starts. The Astros were going to see why the Royals traded for him. The Royals were going to see why they traded for him.
And out he came, 92 mph and then 93 and finishing the first inning at 94 and climbing later to 95 and even 96, the velocity a bellwether for the rest of the evening.
If he has enough in the tank for one more beauty, Toronto will fall into deep jeopardy. Still, the Blue Jays showed in the ALDS why nobody should count them out. No lead is too big for an offense capable of scoring in bunches. With an able starter on the mound, beating them becomes even more difficult.
Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Troy Tulowitzki won't all stay quiet for long. An offense this good will eventually hit some baseballs with runners already on base.
Prediction: Blue Jays 5, Royals 3
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