Royals’ Volquez has rough history in playoffs

He’ll be missed. The only other lefty in the pen is Aaron Loup and he’s had a pretty lousy season (though he was good in the ALDS). They can cause a lot of trouble for pitcher, whenever they have runners on base.

After squandering a scoring chance in the first inning, the Royals jumped ahead in the third. And to nobody’s surprise, Donaldson was booed lustily by the Kansas City crowd on Friday night.

The Royals will try to take a 2-0 series lead when they send Yordano Ventura to the mound on Saturday. Estrada lost his only start against the Royals this season, surrendering two runs and nine hits in 6 2/3 innings in a July setback.

Jose Bautista went down looking in the fourth inning, while Encarnacion struck out looking in the sixth.

Yost said after the game that his pitchers were just trying to keep the ball inside and he pointed the finger at the Jays.

“It doesn’t matter”, Price said on Friday.

Royals manager Ned Yost wishes he had listened a bit more to John Gibbons when his Toronto counterpart was on his staff a few years ago. The Blue Jays won two World Series in the early 1990s, but those are the last WS wins for either of these teams.

Estrada got two strikeouts in the fourth before Perez hit a 392-foot homer over the left-field wall. When the time came for Volquez to execute in Game 1 of the ALCS, he flipped the original plan on its head at the suggestion of catcher Salvador Perez.

Royals Review: We all know how great the Jays offense has been this year, particularly at home.

Lead-off batter Alcides Escobar (2-for-3 with one RBI) set the tone for the Royals by smacking a double off the first pitch he faced from Toronto starter Marco Estrada, who took the loss despite a solid 5 1/3 innings.

“They got Game 1”, Tulowitzki said, “but it’s no time to press the panic button”. They throw a lot of innings…

LaTroy Hawkins hit Escobar to open the eighth but, unlike the game in August, there were no fireworks.

Ben Zobrist, Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer and Kendrys Morales are next, with Sal Perez, Alex Gordon and Alex Rios at the bottom of the order.

The series matches the American League’s top teams, with the Royals (95-67) and Jays (93-69) finishing 1-2 in the standings.

The six-foot-six left-hander has a career record of 104-56 with a 3.09 earned-run average in the regular season.