ANAHEIM, Calif. — With three extra-inning wins in four remarkable days, the long-downtrodden Kansas City Royals have climbed from the depths of a 29-year playoff absence to the brink of the AL Championship Series.
Eric Hosmer hit a two-run homer in the 11th inning, and the Royals took a 2-0 lead in the AL Division Series with a 4-1 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night.
Alex Gordon had an early run-scoring single and Salvador Perez added an RBI infield single in the 11th for the Royals, who became the first team in major league history to win three straight extra-inning playoff games.
“We’re going to try to figure out nine next time,” said Hosmer, handed the souvenir home run ball during a postgame television interview. “I know these games have been exciting, they’ve been taking a long time, but we’ll take a win any way we can get it.”
In its first postseason appearance since 1985, Kansas City is on a playoff roll — and the majors’ best regular-season team has not been able to stop it. Hosmer had three hits and scored two runs as the Royals moved within one win of the AL Championship Series.
Game 3 in the best-of-five series is Sunday in Kansas City, where Angels left-hander C.J. Wilson faces James Shields.
Strong defense again was a huge factor for the Royals.
After C.J. Cron’s leadoff double against Wade Davis in the eighth, Angels pinch-runner Collin Cowgill decided to test the arm of center fielder Jarrod Dyson, who had just entered the game. Dyson threw out Cowgill at third after catching Chris Iannetta’s fly to left-center.
“That’s huge. That changes momentum, that changes everything in a game right there,” Hosmer said.
Two innings later, shortstop Alcides Escobar turned a tough double play after stretching high to glove an off-target throw.
After 10 innings of intense, pitching-dominated baseball, the Royals broke out. Lorenzo Cain beat out a one-out infield single off losing pitcher Kevin Jepsen, and Hosmer smacked a no-doubt homer to right field, setting off a celebration for several dozen blue-clad fans in a sea of red at the Big A.
Albert Pujols had a tying RBI single in the sixth for the Angels, but the majors’ most productive offense has been mostly helpless against the Royals. Los Angeles, which led the big leagues with 98 wins, has just 10 hits and three runs in 22 innings.
Orioles 7, Tigers 6
BALTIMORE — Delmon Young drove in three runs with a pinch-hit double, and the Baltimore Orioles picked apart Detroit’s shoddy bullpen once again during a four-run rally in the eighth inning to beat the Tigers for a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five AL Division Series.
Baltimore will try for a sweep in Game 3 Sunday at Detroit, when Miguel Gonzalez starts against the Tigers’ third straight Cy Young winner in David Price.
A day after the Orioles battered Detroit relievers while scoring eight runs in the eighth for a 12-3 win, they came back from a three-run deficit.
It was 6-3 with one out in the eighth when reliever Joba Chamberlain hit Adam Jones with a pitch and gave up a single to Nelson Cruz before Steve Pearce singled in a run.
Joakim Soria (0-1) entered and walked J.J. Hardy to load the bases for Young, who cleared the bases with a liner into the left-field corner.
“We did it yesterday, we’ve been doing it all year against teams in our own division,” Young said. “So any time we have an opportunity and get guys on, we think we can win.”
Young went 10 for 20 as a pinch-hitter during the regular season. He also was the AL championship series MVP in 2012 — for the Tigers — when they swept the Yankees.
“It’s very hard to sit around and not know where the consistent at-bats are coming,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. “He has done the things that you need to do to give yourself a chance to be successful.”
In the top of the eighth, baserunning was a key point. Miguel Cabrera was thrown out at the plate when he tried to score right behind Torii Hunter on Victor Martinez’s double with no outs.
“I was watching the play develop and hoping they both would make it,” Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said.
Zach Britton got three straight outs for the save.
Soria wound up with the loss, but Chamberlain took the blame.
“This one is on me. There’s no getting around it,” he said. “Obviously, if I don’t put us in that situation, then we’re having a different conversation.”
By wire sources