J.J. Hardy's two-out, down-to-the-Orioles-last-strike hopper caught Mike Moustakas right where Moustakas wanted it on the third base line. Moustakas's high throw across the infield caught first baseman Eric Hosmer right where he wanted it. Okay, a little bit high, but nothing to it. We do this kinda stuff to 'em all throughout the picture.
Just like the only two runs the Royals would need to put on the board all day long scored on a pair of grounders and a sacrifice. Big deal. We do this kinda stuff to 'em all throughout the picture.
Just like the stare-em-down, shoot-em-down bullpen gave the Orioles nothing but headaches for four innings with a little help from the Royal defense as per usual, including another would-be gut-busting catch somewhere out of nowhere. Meh. We do this kinda stuff to 'em all through out the picture.
Kansas City's cockroaches hitched up their roach coach and rode to their first World Series since the Reagan Administration Wednesday afternoon with the kind of power the Orioles, with their big bats, couldn't bring to bear if they'd brought bats wired into hand-held nuclear weapons.
They made manager Ned Yost the first in baseball history to have an 8-0 record in the first eight postseason games he's ever managed. Not even John McGraw, Connie Mack, Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, Tony La Russa, or Terry Francona brought that one off.
Everything an Oriole hit somehow seemed to find its way to a Royal glove, when every Royal with a glove wasn't finding his way to anything and just about everything any Oriole hit, that is. Everything an Oriole threw seemed to find a smooch from a Royal bat. And everything an Oriole could think of to cross up these pests proved to be nothing for the Orioles except a Royal pain.
Maybe you and even the Orioles knew it was the beginning of the end in the first inning by way of Hosmer's 2-run ground out, with lead runner Alcides Escobar shoving the ball just about out of Oriole catcher Caleb Joseph's grasp as he crossed the plate, enabling Nori Aoki to score behind him.
Maybe you and even the Orioles knew it was the middle of the end when Alex Gordon ran Hardy's fifth-inning extra base hit to be down, caught it as he hit a chain-link fence embedded in front of a scoreboard, and hit the track holding the ball aloft.
But when did it really seem apparent during this American League Championship Series that the Orioles, this year's beasts of the American League East, with more long distance power than the ancient Strategic Air Command, everybody said, were badly, badly overmatched by this gang of pests who seem able to survive everything short of a terrorist attack? (And who's to say these Royals couldn't?)
* When the Royals showed their own power surprises in Game 1, hitting 2 home runs in the top of the 10th to smash a five-all tie?
* When they bushwhacked Oriole starter Chris Tillman for 4 early runs in that game — by way of Escobar's (of all people) third inning liner over the left field fence and Gordon's broken bat 3-run double in the fourth?
* When Gordon took advantage of Buck Showalter's 10th-inning gambit, leaving in right-handed submariner Darren O'Day to face the portsides Gordon to open, and thanked the Oriole manager by hitting a 1-1 offering four rows up the right field bleachers?
* When they left Showalter to grouse after Game 2, "A swinging bunt, a bunt, a groundball down the right field line and a groundball in the hole," which is how he described the swinging-out-of-a-bunt (Infante), the followup sacrifice bunt (Moustakas), the double down the right field line (Escobar, swinging late on Zach Britton's fastball), and the RBI single in the hole (Lorenzo Cain) that took care of the game-winning rally?
* When they roached their way out of a bases-loaded seventh-inning jam in Game 2, beginning when Gordon's charge off Nelson Cruz's single compelled third base coach Bobby Dickerson to halt lead runner Nick Markakis at third, and ending when Cain — the ALCS MVP, though almost half the roster could have claimed the prize — stepped into an outfield phone booth, came out as a 1969 Met, and ran down Hardy's high liner toward the line in a run-and-tumble catch?
* When they kept the Orioles quiet other than Hardy's second-inning double in Game 3 and scored the only two runs they'd need then on an RBI groundout and a sacrifice fly?
* When oft-second-guessed roachmaster Yost hooked his Game 3 starter Jeremy Guthrie after the fifth after retiring the side in order, reached out for Jason Frasor as the possible sacrificial lamb with the heart of the Oriole lineup due up ... and Frasor shook off the implications to get Adam Jones (foul out to third), Cruz (fly out to right), and Steve Pearce (followup fly out to right) in order?
* When Moustakas went Derek Jeter on Jones's lead-off foul pop in that third and bent over the rail and maybe onto his head to haul it down, maybe giving Frasor the idea that these Orioles really weren't as tough as their pre-series notices?
* When they tied it at one in that game with two bloop singles, a walk, and a bases-loaded ground out in the third?
* When Showalter stayed with his Game 3 starter, Wei-Yin Chen, figuring he had two lefties out of three hitters to open against him, only to see Aoki single and pinch runner Jarrod Dyson help himself to third on Hosmer's drill hit, before Showalter went to the pen at last and Billy Butler launched the sacrifice fly?
* When Escobar crossed the plate on his none-too-ample fanny Wednesday afternoon and, as he slid toward it, his bent left leg gave the ball just hard enough of a push past Joseph to let Aoki score practically walking? Not to mention Jason Vargas pitching five and a third worth of one run, two hit, three walk, six strikeout ball?
* Or, when Kelvim Herrera got out of the sixth Wednesday with Orioles on the corners by way of second baseman Infante being right there to turn Cruz's bullet off the pipe into the third out?
"Today, same old story," Gordon said almost laconically after the game. "Good pitching, good defense and scratch out a win."
Scratch out a win? The Royals led the American League in contact hitting percentage on the season, the Orioles starting rotation was beaten out only by the Royals for the lowest strikeout rate among postseason teams. The Royals have 15 infield hits in the postseason; all other 2014 postseason teams have had 16 combined through this writing.
We do this kinda stuff to 'em all through the picture!
You can point to lots of moments in which you might have known in your gut of hearts that the Royals were going to go to the World Series, that the Orioles didn't have anything resembling the 2004 Red Sox in them, and that Kansas City was going to go nuts the moment the high throw across reached Hosmer in the ninth.
Never before in 20 previous postseason visits had the Orioles been swept in four straight. They'd opened their streak with a 1966 World Series sweep of the Dodgers. (As in, the Sandy Koufax-Don Drysdale Dodgers.) The closest they got to going down in four? Dropping four straight to the Miracle Mets after winning Game 1 of the 1969 World Series.
As Hall of Famer George Brett joined in the celebration, the Kaufmann Stadium PA system couldn't resist cranking out the Beatles' exuberant version of Wilbert Harrison's "Kansas City" when the Royals hit the field celebrating. Interesting choice, that.
Fifty years earlier, the Beatles were all but strong-armed into performing at ancient Municipal Stadium by Charlie Finley, owner of the then-Kansas City Athletics. The Beatles earned a then-record $150,000 for their night's work on a date they later said they originally planned to visit New Orleans as tourists, not working musicians.
Wednesday afternoon, so far as the Kaufmann audience was concerned, it was Mardi Gras Midwest. Not even John, Paul, George, and Ringo could have out-partied that.
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