With baseball’s top offense coming town, the Royals were hoping to hit just enough to end the game on top.
Throwing a shutout will help.
An outstanding pitching performance led the Royals to a 5-0 win Friday over the Toronto Blue Jays and allowed them to take the first game of the best-of-seven American League Championship Series.
Kansas City starter Edinson Volquez fired bullets through the first five innings, allowing just one Toronto hit. Back-to-back walks to open the sixth caused trouble, but Volquez got himself out of the jam and the Royals never looked back.
Volquez finished with five strikeouts and gave up just two hits over six innings. The bullpen did the rest.
The Royals opened the scoring in the third.
Shortstop Alcides Escobar led off the Royals third-inning with a double. Two batters later, Alex Gordon added a double of his own to break-in the scoring. Outfielder Lorenzo Cain later singled in a second run.
In the fifth, catcher Salvador Perez hit a long bomb to the left-field stands to tack on another run. Eric Hosmer doubled-in Escobar in the eighth, and Kendrys Morales added a sacrifice fly to tack on extra insurance runs.
It’s an afternoon game on Saturday with a 3:07pm first pitch. Kansas City’s Yordano Ventura will take the hill and match-up against Toronto’s David Price.
Jeremy Bernfeld is the editor of KCUR's Harvest Public Media. Find him on Twitter @JeremyHPM.
