Royals were not fazed by deep deficit to Astros: Yost

Dallas Keuchel #60 of the Houston Astros throws a pitch in the first inning against the Kansas City Royals in game three of the American League Division Series at Minute Maid Park on October 11, 2015 in Houston, Texas.

Well, in a just world, we’d be talking about Jacob deGrom’s comprehensive dominance or Noah Syndergaard redrawing the boundaries of what we can expect in terms of velocity from a starting pitcher. His 2012 draft classmate, right-hander Lance McCullers, was sharp in his postseason debut, limiting the Royals to two runs on two hits and two walks with seven strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings.

Yost knows just how good Keuchel is after tapping the lefty to start for the AL in this year’s All-Star Game.

“I didn’t think so”, Rios said. “He’s been great. Had a phenomenal year”.

Designated hitter Kendrys Morales followed an RBI single from first baseman Eric Hosmer with a chopper through the box off left-hander Tony Sipp (0-1), with Sipp and shortstop Carlos Correa whiffing on the grounder to allow second baseman Ben Zobrist and Cain to score. 083 in the playoffs, said their mindset is simple – win on Monday and force a Game 5 in Kansas City.

Game 5 will be back in Kansas City on Wednesday night.

But because baseball is a sport for people who like to suffer, we’re instead going to talk about Chase Utley’s takeout slide in Game 2. Houston took a 6-2 lead into the eighth, but a tough error charged to the 21-year-old rookie keyed the Royals’ comeback to even the matchup at two games apiece.

Carter’s soaring solo homer, which landed on the train tracks atop the wall in left-center, and came on Danny Duffy’s first pitch of the seventh pushed the lead to 4-1. It’s never quit, and the character we showed today. Carlos Gomez, who has a rib muscle strain, started for the first time in the series and had an RBI single in the sixth.

Carter, batting. 199 in the regular season but.

Lorenzo Cain hit a solo homer in the fourth for the Royals, who were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and left 10 on base. “We’ll adjust, and we will be ready to play”, he said.

“Come on, let’s go”. He had swung and missed at five of them, fouled off two and taken one for a ball.

After that, the game remained scoreless until Ross Ohlendorf and LaTroy Hawkins were the pitchers of record, and once things get to that point, you have to stare quite deeply into the abyss indeed in order to draw conclusions. In the eighth inning, the Cardinals got a few insurance in the form of home runs from Tommy Pham and Stephen Piscotty, both of whom were playing in their first postseason game. He finished with a season-high 124 pitches.

Roylas manager Ned Yost could not say enogh about Keuchel’s performance that best his own starter.