By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Salvador Perez homered in the fourth inning to tie the game and from there the Royals never looked back, on way to a 4-2 victory over the New York Yankees and evening the ALDS up at one game apiece.
The game started off shaky for Royals starting pitcher Cole Ragans, who walked Gleyber Torres and Juan Soto to open the bottom of the first inning, but would then strike out Aaron Judge and Austin Wells before getting Giancarlo Stanton to ground out to Michael Massey to end the inning.
Both teams would combine for just two hits through the first two innings before New York would finally strike for the first run in the third inning, starting with Ragans walking Torres for a second time. Torres would advance to second on a single from Wells, before scoring on a single by Stanton.
The lead would not last long though as Salvador Perez led off the fourth inning for the Royals, and on a 2-0 count would blast a tying home run 402 feet to left field, starting what would turn into a four run inning for Kansas City.
Following Perez's home run, Yuli Gurriel would single, and then advance to second base on a wild pitch from Yankees starter Carlos Rodon, later coming around to score on a single by Tommy Pham. With Hunter Renfroe batting, Pham stole second base, before Renfroe struck, where the next batter Garrett Hampson singled to score Pham, and would then advance to second as left fielder Alex Verdugo attempted to throw out Pham.
The Yankees would pull Rodon off the mound and bring on reliever Ian Hamilton to face Maikel Garcia, who would single on a line drive to Soto in right field, scoring Hampson, however Garcia would be thrown out trying to advance to second base ending the fourth inning.
Ragans would walk Athony Volpe to start the bottom of the fourth, his fourth walk of the game, before getting the next three outs. Ragans day would be done after the fourth though as manager Matt Quatraro would bring on Angel Zerpa to pitch the fifth.
Zerpa, John Schreiber, and Kris Bubic would combine over the next four innings to give up just two hits, both given up by Bubic, and striking out two, also both recorded by Bubic, before Lucas Erceg would come on in the ninth, seeking his third postseason save.
The inning wouldn't start out ideal for Erceg, as Jazz Chisolm Jr would hit a solo home run sailing 375 feet to right field on a 1-1 count. But Erceg would settle down, getting groundouts from Volpe and Verdugo, before giving up a single to Jon Berti. With the tying run at the plate though, Erceg would prompt Torres to ground out to end the game.
Zerpa was the pitcher on record that earned the win, improving to 2-0 in the postseason, walking one and striking out one batter. Garcia was the leading hitter going 4-for-5 at the plate with one RBI and one strikeout.
Now the ALDS will come to Kansas City for game three of the series on Wednesday. The Royals will send Seth Lugo to the mound, while the Yankees will send Clarke Schmidt to start. First pitch is at 6:08pm. The game will be aired on KFEQ, televised on TBS, and streamed on Max.