Royals rally against David Price and Blue Jays, 6-3

Blue Jays skipper John Gibbons went with veteran LaTroy Hawkins to try and keep it a three run deficit. A Hosmer hit-and-run as Kendry Morales grounded out, taking away a potential double play ball, and it was 3-2. He encountered trouble in the third inning, which led to two runs.

As for Goins’s thinking he heard something: “No, I didn’t hear anything”, said Bautista. Royals RHP Johnny Cueto and Blue Jays RHP Marcus Stroman are the pitching probables for Game 3 on Monday.

“Eddie was superb, had everything going on, had his great fastball, locating well, really good curveball, really nice changeups, on the attack from the first inning on”, Royals manager Ned Yost said.

Davis gave up a leadoff single and walked pinch-hitter Cliff Pennington, but bounced back to strike out leadoff man Ben Revere and MVP candidate Josh Donaldson. And he was heavily involved in the team’s last meeting, an ill-tempered affair August. 2 in Toronto that saw three ejections in a 5-2 Jays’ win. Edwin Encarnacion struck out looking. Kansa City leads the series 1-0. Either way, it’s a reminder that you can’t take one play or one pitch off against the Royals, or they will make you regret it.

Kelvin Herrera and Ryan Madson pitched a clean sheet for the seventh and eighth innings. We’ve still got more of a chance to come out victorious in this series than we did in the same situation in the last series. All but three of the previous 25 teams to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven era have won the series ” though Toronto did rally from the same hole to beat the Rangers in five games in the divisional round.

“This is part of it. You’ve got to be able to live in the moment”.

The Royals added another run in the eighth on three walks and a single off Sanchez and Aaron Loup. Then Escobar doubled to right, and Gordon scored. Escobar, a notorious first-pitch swinger, doubled on the first two Estrada pitches he viewed.

“I don’t look into the advance numbers and stuff like that”, he said. “I elevated it a lot more than I wanted to”.

After his final pitch, Price backed away from the mound in slow, forlorn strides. “Everyone says just continue to swing the bat”. He got off to a bit of rough start, giving up five earned runs in his first start, earning a no-decision. In a way, it was a moral victory for a Royals offense that rarely hit the ball out of the infield against Price, who was dominating like he never had in a postseason game. Then Chris Colabello hit a soft liner to left for the second out. In a 2-for-25 slump and without an RBI this postseason, he pulled a tying double to right field. Something just isn’t right with Price in October, but there’s no time like the present to pitch like an ace. “And it turned into a big inning for us”. “I felt good. That’s a very scrappy team”. Salvador Perez was tracking it the whole way, then adjusted when the ball hit the wire and made the catch with his bare hand. “That’s baseball, a game of inches”. Later in the inning, Morales delivered a sacrifice fly to left, and Zobrist scored.

Kansas City leads the best-of-seven series, 1-0. Price threw 66 pitches in six innings, and 30 in the seventh.

“I know good things are coming”, he had said a day earlier, when asked about his postseason problems. Young guys go through a few tough times up here. “I think his velocity was a little higher than it normally is”. I look for them to bounce back today against Royals ready to put their hitting shoes.

Only problem? The ball hitting the wire is declared a foul. “That’s just the way it goes sometime”.