Baltimore: Kansas City smashed the fewest home runs in Major League Baseball this season, but the Royals found their form Friday to beat the Baltimore Orioles at their own power-hitting game.
Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas blasted 10th-inning homers to lift the Royals over Baltimore 8-6 in their best-of-seven American League finals opener.
“We know we’re capable of hitting home runs,” Gordon said. “We didn’t do it during the regular season but it doesn’t really matter. This is the post-season and we’re starting to swing the bats better now. It’s good to see. Up and down the line-up we’re feeling good about where we’re at.”
Gordon, who also hit a three-run double in the third inning, was hit in the neck by a pitch in the eighth inning but stayed in the game to become the first Royal in 29 years to knock in four runs in a playoff game.
“It was frightening,” said Gordon. “Saw it coming at my head and just for a second turned the back of my head. Luckily it got most of my helmet so it stung a little bit but nothing serious.”
Alcides Escobar added a solo homer to help the Royals down the Orioles, who boasted the most homers in the major leagues this season.
“This is a park that’s a lot more conducive to hitting home runs than our ballpark,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “Put our club in this ballpark, we would have hit a lot more home runs. It showed tonight.”
Baltimore will again host game two Saturday before the scene shifts to Kansas City. The series winner will face either St Louis or San Francisco in the World Series.
The Royals, who ended a 29-year playoff drought this season, seek their first World Series berth since winning the 1985 title while the Orioles, in the league final for the first time since 1997, seek their first World Series berth since winning the crown in 1983.
Baltimore had battled back from a four-run deficit to pull level at 5-5 and escaped trouble in the ninth inning with the bases loaded and none out, using a force play at home plate and a double play to remain deadlocked.
But in the top of the 10th inning, Gordon bashed a leadoff homer off Orioles relief pitcher Darren O’Day into the right-field stands to give Kansas City the lead for good.
After a walk to Salvador Perez, Moustakas followed with a two-run blast into the right-field stands to produce an 8-5 advantage.
In the bottom of the 10th, Royals reliever Greg Holland allowed a two-out Ryan Flaherty single, walked Nick Hundley and surrendered a run-scoring single up the middle to Orioles pinch-hitter Delmon Young, before Nick Markakis grounded out to end the game.
Gordon and Escobar staked Kansas City to a 4-0 edge. The Orioles answered in the third when Markakis doubled and scored on an Adam Jones single, but Lorenzo Cain doubled, advanced on a ground out and scored on a Billy Butler single for a 5-1 Royals advantage.
Baltimore replied in the fifth as Nelson Cruz hit a run-scoring double and Flaherty followed with a two-run single.
The Orioles pulled even in the sixth when Alejandro De Aza’s infield single over the pitcher’s mound scored Jonathan Schoop from third.
“I’m proud of the way our guys battled back,” said Orioles manager Buck Showalter. “We had a lot of good things. We won’t forget that.”
But the veteran bench boss, who has waited 16 seasons to go this deep in the playoffs, lamented seven walks and a hit batter producing extra base runners for the Royals.
“That presented a real challenge for us,” Showalter said. “They are good hitters. You are just picking poison and hoping it works out for you. Sometimes it doesn’t.”
