Royals beat Angels 3-2
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Mike Moustakas homered leading off the 11th inning, and the Kansas City Royals kept rolling in their first postseason in 29 years with a 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels in the AL Division Series opener Thursday night.
Moustakas hit the first extra-inning homer in postseason history for the Royals, a high shot off Fernando Salas that barely reached the elevated right-field stands at Angel Stadium.
Alcides Escobar had an early RBI double for the Royals, and their bullpen repeatedly escaped trouble in Kansas City’s first game since that spectacular, 12-inning comeback victory over Oakland in the wild-card playoff Tuesday night at Kauffman Stadium.
Game 2 in the best-of-five series is Friday night at the Big A, with Angels 16-game winner Matt Shoemaker taking on fellow rookie Yordano Ventura.
Chris Iannetta and David Freese homered early in the Angels’ first playoff game since 2009, but the majors’ most productive offense stranded eight runners in the five innings before Greg Holland’s perfect 11th.
Winning pitcher Danny Duffy worked the 10th for Kansas City, and Holland picked up the save after arriving at the ballpark around the fourth inning. He went to North Carolina on the Royals’ off day to attend his child’s birth.
Mike Trout was 0 for 4 with a walk in his playoff debut. The favorite for AL MVP grounded into a fielder’s choice in the 10th before Albert Pujols popped out to end his 0-for-4 Angels playoff debut. Josh Hamilton popped out to end the game, capping his 0-for-5 return to the lineup.
Jered Weaver, Joe Smith and Huston Street combined to retire Kansas City’s final 15 batters before extra innings — and that’s when the Royals went to work. Kevin Jepsen let two runners on in the 10th, but retired Salvador Perez and Omar Infante to escape.
Salas wasn’t as lucky, giving up a homer to the Royals’ No. 9 hitter. Moustakas grew up in the San Fernando Valley and played at UCLA before making his big league debut and hitting his first homer at the Big A in 2011.
A raucous crowd banged balloons and cheered on the Angels throughout their postseason return after a half-decade away, but the fans got tense while the teams managed just three hits apiece in the first nine innings. Los Angeles earned home-field advantage throughout the postseason with a big league-best 98-64 record in the regular season, winning the AL West while scoring 773 runs.
The Royals can’t match Los Angeles’ offense on paper, but they’ve got some remarkable postseason mojo.
Even before Moustakas’ homer, Nori Aoki made dramatically awkward catches on the right-field warning track to end the sixth and seventh, twice making up for poor routes to the Angels’ drives with a last-instant stab. Lorenzo Cain also made two exceptional plays in center field in the first two innings, underlining Kansas City’s stellar defense.
Weaver yielded three hits over seven strong innings for the Angels while his good friend, Jason Vargas, pitched six innings of three-hit ball for Kansas City.
Weaver and Vargas played together at nearby Long Beach State and again with the Angels last year. They’re taking a vacation together after the season — but first, the former Dirtbags dueled through 6 1/2 tense innings in Orange County.
After Escobar put the Royals ahead, Los Angeles tied it when Iannetta drove a fastball into the bullpens in his first career playoff at-bat. While Trout’s October debut received all the pregame attention, the Angels’ tough catcher also got his first postseason experience after sitting out twice when his Colorado Rockies made the playoffs.
Kansas City went back ahead in the fifth when Alex Gordon doubled and scored on Infante’s sacrifice fly, but Freese tied it again with another drive to the bullpens in left. Freese, the MVP of the 2011 World Series and NLCS for St. Louis, got his 24th postseason extra-base hit and 30th RBI in his Angels playoff debut.
The Angels put two runners on against a tiring Vargas in the sixth, and Royals fans might have had bitter flashbacks to manager Ned Yost’s much-debated, sixth-inning pitching decisions in the wild-card game. But Aoki saved Kansas City when he blindly nabbed Howie Kendrick’s drive to the warning track in right.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Royals: RHP Kelvin Herrera walked Freese on five pitches leading off the seventh and then left the game with right forearm tightness. Herrera is a key member of Kansas City’s vaunted bullpen.
Angels: Hamilton played left field and batted seventh after missing 21 of the Angels’ final 22 regular-season games with upper-body injuries.
UP NEXT
Shoemaker (16-4, 3.04 ERA), the 28-year-old rookie who gets credit from manager Mike Scioscia for saving the Angels’ season, makes his playoff debut. He hasn’t pitched since Sept. 15, when he strained an oblique muscle. Kansas City counters with Ventura (14-10, 3.20), who struggled in the sixth inning of the wild-card game, but possesses a 100 mph fastball.
