Yankees To Renew Rivalry With Royals, Who Ousted O's

 

Cole Ragans pitching in Wild Card round Game 1 for Kansas City on Tuesday. @Royals.

The Yankees learned who their opponent will be in the American League Division Series starting Saturday night at Yankee Stadium, and it will be a renewal of one of their biggest rivalries from nearly half a century ago.

The Kansas City Royals completed their two-game sweep of the Baltimore Orioles in the Wild Card round with a 2-1 win on Wednesday evening.

Kansas City jumped out to an early lead against Orioles starting pitcher Zach Eflin in the top of the first inning on a Vinnie Pasquantino RBI single.

That might have been all Royals ace Seth Lugo needed, as kept the Orioles off the board through the first four innings, scattering just three singles and a hit-by-pitch.

Cedric Mullins changed that, as he led off the bottom of the fifth with a home run.

By this point, Eflin - who went four innings, and allowed just that one run on four hits and a walk, with three strikeouts - was out of the game and the Orioles were well into their questionable bullpen.

Kansas City would snatch the lead right back in the sixth, as Kyle Isbel and Michael Massey each got singles off of Cionel Perez, and MVP candidate Bobby Witt Jr. - the main contender to the Yankees' Aaron Judge -got an RBI single off Yennier Cano to make it 2-1 Royals.

Lugo had been pulled with one out in the fifth inning, after he threw 4 1/3 innings, and allowed just one run (earned) on five hits and a walk, with six strikeouts.

Angel Zerpa, John Schreiber, Sam Long, Kris Bubic, and Lucas Erceg combined to go 4 1.2 innings, and allowed just one hit and one walk, with six strikeouts to close out the Orioles.

Zerpa earned the win, and Erceg earned his second save in as many days.

In Game 1 on Tuesday evening, the Royals earned the first-ever road postseason shutout in their franchise history, 1-0, behind a strong start from Cole Ragans.

The left-hander, who went 11-9 in the regular season with a 3.14 ERA (earned run average) and dazzled in his outing at Yankee Stadium on September 11, threw six shutout innings against Baltimore, as he scattered four hits and no walks and struck out eight. 

The winning run came when Witt Jr. got an RBI single in the sixth inning.

YANKEES PATH GETS CLEARER: The Yankees also benefited from a positive development on Wednesday afternoon, as their biggest rival in this era, the Houston Astros, who have eliminated the Bronx Bombers four times in the playoffs since 2015, were swept by the Detroit Tigers in the Wild Card round.

It was a wild game, as Detroit came back from 2-1 down in the eighth inning, when they scored four runs when Kerry Carpenter came in to score on a  Ryan Pressly wild pitch to tie the game, and Andy Ibanez laced a three-run double to left field off Houston closer Josh Hader.

Will Vest closed it out for the Tigers in the ninth when he struck out Victor Caratini, then Meadows made a tremendous running catch in right-center field on a hit by Jeremy Pena, and Mauricio Dubon, grounded out to end it.

Houston had a strange year for them, as they had a brutal start to the season, which was marked by losing six out of seven games to the Yankees, before they went on a run starting in late June that led them to an 88-73 record and another American League West title.

Detroit, whose miracle run to a playoff spot began when they took two of three from the Yankees in late Ausust, will face the Cleveland Guardians in the ALDS, and the winner of that series will face the Yankees or Kansas City. If it's the Yankees, it would be a rematch of two years ago's five-game ALDS with Cleveland, and their first meeting with Detroit in the playoffs since the Tigers eliminated them in 2011 and 2012.