AL earns World Series home field for 11th time in 14 years

The heroics by Harris kept the AL in the lead by two runs. In addition to Hosmer and Pérez’s homers, Kelvin Herrera pitched a ideal inning and AL manager Ned Yost earned high, high praise from Pete Rose.

Drew Pomeranz allowed a hit in a scoreless fourth inning, and Julio Teheran joined Max Scherzer to throw two immaculate frames.

“We face All-Stars all the time”, Harris said.

Cleveland right-hander Corey Kluber was the winning pitcher and Baltimore left-hander Zach Britton collected the save. This year, the entire National League infield were Chicago Cubs.

The damage was done in the bottom of the second inning. Their 96.6% chance at the playoffs is the best in the bigs, and their 8.6% chance at a World Series win ranks sixth. Hosmer bashed an opposite-field solo homer to tie the score. “Honestly, I was just happy to be a part of all this”. “Now I can kind of calm down and just enjoy the ride”.

Of the AL’s final five pitchers in the game, only one – Betances at 2.66 – has an ERA this season over 2.00. Boston’s Mookie Betts followed with a single and up came the World Series MVP, Salvy Perez.

Youth baseball participation declined 4.3 percent from 2009 to 2014, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, and some argue that the game is just too slow for today’s young people. “I said, ‘No, I’m going to take it'”. As he did with his home run in the previous inning, Hosmer hit the ball hard to the opposite field, this time blasting a one-hopper 110 miles per hour at NL third baseman Bryant. Marcell Ozuna capitalized on a fourth-inning rally for the NL, singling home Buster Posey with no outs.

Last year, the Royals had seven players on the All-Star squad, including third baseman Mike Moustakas, who was a victor on the final fans’ ballot for the 34th player. The mammoth man has announced that at age 40 this will be his final season. Gwynn’s family was present and received a standing ovation, as did Carew.

The Royals won in five games for their first title since 1985.

For the third time in his career, Madison Bumgarner took a no-hitter into the eighth inning. Perez is batting.283 with a.818 OPS, getting 14 home runs and 41 RBIs. But it was also Mike who showed off his scouting skills when telling Kris beforehand that Sale would throw him a first-pitch fastball.

“I was supposed to hit a home run in my second at-bat”.

He gave a pregame pep talk to his teammates, hit a smash down the first-base line that Anthony Rizzo snagged to rob him of a potential RBI double in the first and walked against Jose Fernandez in the third.

Hosmer was visibly pumped, yelling at his manager, Ned Yost.

“That was planned ahead of time”, Yost said.

The most buzzworthy moment of the night actually happened well before the game, when Juno-based group The Tenors performed “O Canada” and one of the members chose to alter the song’s lyrics to say “All Lives Matter”, which has emerged as a counter-hashtag to “Black Lives Matter”. “You think it can’t get much better, but every year it does”.

Hosmer got his call up to the big leagues during the 2011 season, where he exceeded the expectations. He told me it was the catcher’s fault – he called it. What he could do on the football field – as a hated Oakland Raider, mind you – was one thing. But when you see a player bounce from team to team year after year, or wind up playing in Japan because no one in the USA wants him, there’s usually a reason; the player’s worn out his welcome and his team decides to let him go.