The Royals are a win away from reaching the World Series.
Lorenzo Cain went 2-for-3 with a run scored and the Kansas City Royals' bullpen tossed four scoreless innings en route to a 2-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series on Tuesday. The Royals lead the series, 3-0.
Cain delivered an infield single in the first, but it was his fourth-inning bloop hit that eventually resulted in a run. Cain sparked the Royals' rally against Orioles starter Wei-Yin Chen with one out, and advanced to third on another bloop hit --this time from Eric Hosmer -- and a walk to Billy Butler. Alex Gordon got the run home with a ground ball to second base, making it a 1-1 game two innings after the Orioles opened the scoring with consecutive doubles from Steve Pearce and J.J. Hardy.
Kansas City scored the go-ahead run on Billy Butler's sacrifice fly in the sixth that was set up by clean singles from Hosmer and Nori Aoki. The Royals' bullpen followed Jeremy Guthrie's five innings of one-run ball with four frames of dominant relief to seal the win.
O's knew what Herrera was throwing, still couldn't hit it
Kelvin Herrera threw 14 pitches in the seventh inning, and every single one of them was a fastball. Herrera worked from 96-to-99 mph while retiring Hardy, Ryan Flaherty and Nick Hundley in order. Two of those at-bats ended in swinging strikeouts, a key development at a time when the Royals needed a shutdown inning after taking the lead in the previous frame.
Moustakas has a knack for big plays
OK, maybe we already knew that. But on Tuesday, Moustakas didn't do it with the bat. Rather, it was the leather that gave Kansas City a boost on two separate occasions. The Royals' third baseman made an impressive diving stab on a line drive off the bat of Pearce in the fourth and fell into the seats while making a tremendous grab in foul territory on a Jonathan Schoop pop-up an inning later.
Guthrie takes advantage of opportunity
Jeremy Guthrie never made a playoff start before Tuesday, but the 35-year-old right-hander didn't show it. Guthrie worked through some trouble in the second inning to keep Baltimore off the board and give the Royals' offense a chance to overcome an early deficit. Ned Yost made the decision to pull Guthrie after 94 pitches, but that didn't matter; the fact that Kansas City came out with a victory and still has James Shields and Yordano Ventura to fall back on makes this series even more difficult for the Orioles to come back and win. Guthrie deserves a ton of credit for that.