'Professional bottle poppers': Royals keep up wild ride from 106 losses to the ALDS

BALTIMORE – The cigar smoke and rivers of booze made their way through the protective covering enclosing the Kansas City Royals’ visiting clubhouse at Camden Yards Wednesday night as Tommy Pham, the 36-year-old veteran of five playoff runs, popped his head out.

Six days, two champagne celebrations – and the promise of more to come - and Pham couldn’t be prouder of his young teammates, some barely old enough to imbibe.

“They’re some professional bottle poppers, now!” Pham said, as the party rolled on into the night and eventually back outside, turning the infield into an impromptu disco.

These are the spoils for October’s greats, and to be clear, these Royals aren’t quite there yet. One season after losing 106 games, Kansas City injected the perfect amount of veterans over the winter and at the trade deadline, won 86 games, claimed a wild-card spot and now, over the course of two games at Camden Yards, became what every team aspires to be this time of year.

A problem.

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They knocked out the 91-win Baltimore Orioles across two taut playoff afternoons at Camden Yards, finishing the job Wednesday with a 2-1 victory that catapulted them to the American League Division Series for the first time since 2015.

Next stop: Yankee Stadium.

Game 1 of the ALDS will be Saturday night, likely a matchup of reigning AL Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole and veteran right-hander Michael Wacha. Aaron Judge and Juan Soto will loom in the middle of the opposing lineup and more than 50,000 championship-starved fans will be in full throat.

Yet they also have plenty to fear.

Oh, Kansas City didn’t set Statcast on fire during these two days in Charm City, but perhaps that’s the point. The Royals scored three runs in 18 innings. They prevailed 1-0 in Game 1, pecked out one lousy extra-base hit in two games and needed a six-man pitching tag-team to suppress the talented, powerful but try-too-hard Orioles.

But that plays, very well, in the playoffs, especially when the transcendent Bobby Witt Jr. can lift up the whole operation with just a few athletic movements.

He won both games, in essence, with sixth-inning RBI singles, the Game 2 version coming with two outs in the sixth inning, runners at the corners and 38,698 fans at Camden Yards fearing the very worst.

Witt smashed the ball up the middle, but second baseman Jordan Westburg made a fantastic diving stop. He tried scrambling to his feet knowing that the fastest man in the major leagues was running. Yet Westburg did not reach his feet nor release the ball cleanly.

Witt beat it out. Kyle Isbel scored the winning run. The Brewers held it down.

And Witt’s perfect week continued. It started with an RBI hit in Game 1 and continued with a crucial and largely underappreciated maneuver in the first inning of Game 2: Following Michael Massey’s leadoff double by grounding a ball to second base, enabling Massey to reach third with one out.

Vinnie Pasquantino followed with an RBI single. It was 1-0, and a Camden Yards crowd already fearing the worst with Baltimore on a decadelong, nine-game playoff losing streak palpably groaned.

Witt is an All-Star because of his 32 home runs, his major league-leading .332 batting average, his sterling defense. The Royals are a playoff team – and moving on – for so many other reasons, even if Witt’s greatest contributions here won’t inspire anyone to put “instant” and “classic” in the same sentence.

That doesn’t much matter to the Royals.

“That’s how baseball should be played,” says Pasquantino, who returned from a five-week absence after thumb surgery to assume his usual No. 3 spot in the lineup this series. “Talk about Bobby all you want. What he did in the first inning tonight to get the guy to third and let me do my job, that is the best baseball play in the world, getting the guy to third base.

“It made my job easy, I was able to get it done. Now we’re on to New York.”

Even if Witt’s go-ahead single in Game 1 was just an 88-mph parachute to left field, and his selfless groundout in Game 2 measured just 68 mph on the ol’ exit velocity.

“Pardon my French, that does not (expletive) matter,” says Pasquantino, dodging suds in the victorious clubhouse. “What matters is scoring runs. And we were able to do that. Who gives a (expletive) about the exit velo, anything like that.

“Launch angle? Get that outta my face. We gotta score runs. That’s all that matters.

“Sorry about that.”

'Hustle and heart'

No apologies necessary. The Royals, along with their AL Central brethren Detroit Tigers, are on the verge of becoming these playoffs’ greatest story. And you can’t blame them if they believe they already are.

“Like I keep saying, we didn't come this far just to come this far, so we're going to keep getting after it, keep trying to create our own legacy,” says Witt. “So, it's pretty special to see what this team has done this year from what happened last year, and so now we've just got to keep doing it.”

At this point, it’s difficult to imagine this group losing 106 games, under any circumstances. But the additions of free agent veteran right-handers Wacha and Seth Lugo rounded out a rotation that’s a legitimate five deep and also gets, as they say, plenty of swing-and-miss.

In Game 2, Lugo was his usual befuddling self, deploying nine pitches in his famous 12-pitch mix to strike out six into the fifth inning. But after Cedric Mullins’ home run tied the game 1-1, Lugo promptly loaded the bases, on a walk, single and his own fielding error.

He buckled down to get 44-home run man Anthony Santander to pop out, and yielded to lefty reliever Angel Zerpa.

The 25-year-old Venezuelan found some good fortune, striking out Colton Cowser on a pitch that could’ve struck Cowser, and getting Adley Rutschman on a grounder to short to leave the bases loaded, and the game tied

Witt’s go-ahead hit would come moments later.

“It’s kind of the embodiment of our entire season, is hustle and heart,” says Lugo. “Just really proud for (Witt) to do what he's done all year.”

Still, there was plenty of work left: Manager Matt Quatraro asked the bullpen for 14 outs. The relievers delivered all of them, without so much as allowing a runner to second base.

That, too, is playoff baseball.

“We're bringing Zerpa into the biggest spot of his life and he gets two huge outs to stem the tide there,” says Quatraro. “These guys, it's so impressive that they believe in themselves and they trust their stuff and they just come after some of the best hitters in the world.”

Zerpa was followed to the mound by John Schreiber, Sammy Long, Kris Bubic and closer Lucas Erceg, who saved both games and closed this one with a strikeout of Gunnar Henderson.

The Royals converged on the mound, dispensing hugs but no dogpiles, a nod to the road ahead. The clubhouse bacchanalia was a little less reserved.

“We probably made it more dramatic than we would have liked,” says Pasquantino. “As an offense, we’ve got some work to do, because you want to be able to separate and give your pitchers some freedom. We would like to do a better job offensively.

“But it was enough this series. We just want to keep working and get ready for Saturday night.”

'The bats are coming'

Pham is ready. He got all the way to Game 5 of the 2023 World Series with the Arizona Diamondbacks, popping a 4-for-4 game along the way.

These Royals aren’t yet so offensively proficient. But there’s time for it to come, to fuse with this stellar pitching staff, just as the vets mesh with Witt and the other talents on this increasingly imposing squad.

“Pitching. Defense. Timely hitting. That’s what it’s about. We’ve got some guys that can give us some length. Our starters are giving us innings,” says Pham. “The bats are coming. It’s coming. Once we get that going, we’re going to take off.”

And as for this untested squad ready to take on Yankee Stadium?

“I’ll be sure,” he says, “to put in a good speech.”

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