Kansas City Royals fans on the hunt for a blue October

One that knew what it took to play winning baseball. The five-game average is $250.68 between the two teams from opposite coasts. Kansas City clinched a spot while taking on the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field on the 25th of September. “The Royals had our number here at Target Field, but it was a fun day to see all the kids out there running around”.

We all know about the Blue Jays’ juggernaut offense, but don’t sleep on Houston’s lineup, which showed its firepower in the AL wild-card game. After avoiding bringing him up until June (for super two reasons I’m sure), Correa has taken off. If you would spread his numbers out over a full Major League Baseball season he would have hit 33 homers and 111 RBI’s in his ROOKIE season. But the Astros find other ways to make things happen.

-CF Carlos Gomez returned to the starting lineup, even though he was not 100 percent, and he wound up hitting his second career postseason home run. The average age of Houston for its wild-card game was 28 years, 343 days.

The Royals certainly accomplished that 12 months ago.

June 29: Astros 6, Royals 1.

The Royals struggled against the Astros in the regular season, but there’s plenty to inspire confidence as the team heads into the ALDS. By any definition, the Astros are now officially in the playoffs, starting Thursday night in Kansas City to kick off the American League Division Series.

Collin McHugh, who will get the Game 1 start, becomes one of the most important players in the series; the 28-year-old righthander was much better in the second half for Houston (3.11 ERA after the break, 4.50 before). During the regular season, the Astros won the season series 4-2, including winning the first four match ups between the two teams.

David Kohl/AP Al Leiter, right, pitched a two-hit shutout in a 5-0 Mets win over the Cincinnati Reds.

The New York Times noted, “Kansas City has lined up Yordano Ventura to start Game 1, with Johnny Cueto in Game 2 and Edinson Volquez in Game 3″.

“Ventura’s really been excellent in his last five or six or seven starts”, Yost said. It’s hard imagining the Royals making a deep run without Cueto making big postseason starts. If the Royals wanted to focus on the positives to come out of their season series, they could not have made a better choice. Three of the four starters in the losing efforts are no longer in the Royals’ rotation: Joe Blanton was shipped to Pittsburgh, while Danny Duffy and Jeremy Guthrie were shuttled to the bullpen.

Bullpen:The Royals have a better ERA (2.72 to 3.27) and more strikeouts (502 to 463), but Houston allowed fewer inherited runners to score (24 percent to 27 percent). Per the Kansas City Star, the Wild Card game will be played at Yankee Stadium.

Madson has moved into the seventh-inning role, while Herrera has been handling the eighth and Davis the ninth. But it was the Royals’ dramatic, extra-inning victory over the Oakland Athletics in their AL wild-card game that instilled in them a belief that they could play with anybody in baseball.