Royals lose a tough fought game 3

Good game, bad outcome

For the third game in a row, the Royals and Yankees have played a PLAYOFF baseball game. Plate appearances all feel valuable, and runs are really hard to scratch across the plate. The starters were pulled early and then a parade a relievers and eventually pinch hitters were brought on to find any advantage possible. Kansas City had a capacity crowd and then some with as many as 3,000 standing only tickets sold, and they roared, groaned, and booed throughout, especially when Jazz Chisholm was up.

The beginning of the game was three consecutive 1, 2, 3 half innnings. Yuli Gurriel finally got some runners on base by banging a double of the left field wall. He got under it just a touch too much or it would have been gone. Then the Yankees drew first blood in the 4th. Juan Soto lead the inning off with a walk, but Lugo got Judge to pop out and Wells to strike out looking. Giancarlo Stanton then smashed an RBI double to score Soto. They scored again in the next inning on a sac fly from Soto with the bases loaded and one out.

Down two, the Royals came back in the bottom of the fifth. After two quick outs, Frazier singled and Isbel doubled him in as he was running on the pitch. Then Massey tripled because Soto laid out and missed it trying to prevent Isbel from scoring. That was it for Clarke Schmidt and the Yankees bullpen took over.

Over the next couple innings Clay Holmes, Angel Zerpa, John Schreiber, Sam Long, Brady Singer, and Tommy Kahnle maintained the 2 - 2 tie. Brady Singer had not pitched since September 27th, and he had to come in and face Aaron Judge with a runner on and two outs. Judge struck out on ball four, but the first base ump said he swung and rung him up.

That was probably a check swing, but I will take it.

Kris Bubic came in for the 8th inning, and the tie was broken.

He made it through the rest of the inning without any more problems, but the damage had been done. The Yankees kept Kahnle in to face Massey and then Luke Weaver came in for the 5 out save opportunity starting with Bobby Witt Jr.

Bobby Singled and Salvy got him to third, but the tying run never made it home in the 8th. And that was that. MJ and Garcia popped out to start the 9th and Pham pinch hit and bounced out to short. That was that.

It was a hard fought game, but Stanton’s two big knocks were just too much for the Royals to overcome.