Royals go to ALCS with 7-2 win over Astros

Johnny Cueto #47 of the Kansas City Royals gestures from the pitcher’s mound in the first inning against the Houston Astros during game five of the American League Divison Series at Kauffman Stadium on October 14, 2015 in Kansas City, Missouri.

After Johnny Cueto gave up a two-run homer to Luis Valbuena, a pitch Ned Yost told Fox Sports 1 that ‘really wasn’t bad, ‘ the missing piece to the Royals rotation settled in and never gave the Houston Astros a chance to score more. Rios is batting. 286 with a couple RBIs through five ALDS games for Kansas City, Bautista has hit two homers and driven in five runs through five post-season games with the Jays and Encarnacion has a. 333 post-season batting average with three RBIs. After Valbuena’s home run, Cueto retired the final 19 men he faced in a row.

The victory put the Royals into the best-of-seven American League Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays, starting in Kansas City on Friday, with the victor earning a trip to the World Series.

On the other side of the AL bracket, the Royals, led by Lorenzo Cain and Alex Gordon, give the Astors a run for their money and take the lead late in the game to beat the Astors.

When Wade Davis breezed through the ninth, the Royals poured onto the field to celebrate.

The Astros actually seemed poised to bounce back from their meltdown Sunday, when they blew a four-run, eighth-inning lead.

The Astros bullpen was one of their strengths during the regular season, but it proved to be their downfall in this series.

I would have been content with one such game in my lifetime – after all, no team in baseball history had ever been four runs down in the eighth or later of an elimination game and come back to win, and that win propelled a Royals team that otherwise would have been a footnote to the season all the way to Game 7 of the World Series. “We got back here and now we’ve got more business to take care of”. He brought veteran experience and recorded a clutch hit in a critical situation in which Kansas City desperately needed to bust the game open.

Kansas City parlayed that momentum into a game-changing fifth inning.

In the bottom of the second, McHugh allowed three loud fly ball outs but still escaped the inning unscathed.

Cueto’s star turn came after going 0-2 in his first four postseason starts, including a forgettable outing in Game 2 against Houston. In Cueto’s words after the game, the real Johnny Cueto came out tonight. Toronto was forced to come back in every game of the series, highlighted by a wild 53-minute-long seventh inning in the final stanza. He threw me two good breaking pitches that I should have hit out but I missed them.

Morales hit a 3 run home run sending the team to a 7-2 win to the ALCS. Collin McHugh won 19 games. By my book. I thought the crowd got behind him, and he pitches with emotion.

“That’s the reason why we got him, for games like this”, said first baseman Eric Hosmer.