Well outside of a bunch of college football going the way towards the state of Mississippi, we had quite a night on the diamond. We had one really long drawn out ballgame, to a quick slick game with another gem by MadBum.
Let me start off by saying this Royals ball club has some serious spark to them and they haven't lost a game all of October heading into Game 2 of the ALCS. Well, they kept that trend going after tonight.
This was a long, and I mean really long, 4 1/2 ballgame that felt like an 8 hour ballgame. This game felt longer than the 18 inning game from last Saturday and this went only 9 innings. Just don't tell that to Bud Norris and Yordano Ventura who pitched good enough on a night where both offenses came to mash. Yes, if you consider mashing scoring 4+ runs, that's what the MLB has turned into this decade where we are truly now in a new dead ball era.
Royals started off the ball game with a bloop 2 RBI double by Eric Hosmer to give the young 23 Ventura a 2-0 nothing lead early in Camden Yards. He would need it considering the Orioles responded in the 2nd inning with a bases loaded sacrifice fly to make it 2-1 Royals and fortunately no more than that heading into the 3rd inning. The Royals responded scratching across another run with a 2 out RBI double by Billy Butler to hand back a 2 run lead for Ventura at 3-1 Kansas City heading into the bottom of the 3rd. Well, the Orioles decided to make it a brand new ballgame with literally a bloop by De Aza and a blast by Adam Jones making it 3-3 at the end of 3.
Royals again respond in the top of the 4th inning getting another 2 out run in Mike Moustakas hitting a solo homerun with 2 strikes making it 4-3 Royals. Baltimore again responded as the game trudged to the 5th inning and the Orioles tied it back up at 4-4 with a Nelson Cruz RBI Fielders Choice.
This is where Lorenzo Cain stole the show. He made one of the most spectacular grabs with his outstanding strides heading towards a ball in the gap that saved an extra base hit for the Orioles. There was no major significance towards the play other then that it was that incredible. The sad part was when in the same inning, Yordano Ventura was pulled shortly after because of tightness in his right arm. That's never a good sign as a pitcher. Hopefully he'll be ok and won't have to miss much time.
The game trudged again from the bottom of the 6th when Lorenzo Cain made that amazing catch to the top of the 9th and that's where the Royals put their foot down once again. The Royals put together a two run inning to seal the deal for the Royals grabbing a 2-0 series lead in the ALCS winning 6-4 in Baltimore. They head back to Kansas City and play Monday afternoon where they could ultimately end the series and head to the World Series!
The other game on Saturday, the one that was highly anticipated because it was on FOX with Joe Buck and the gang, became a quick game to forget as a Cardinals fan.
This was a rather pedestrian 3 1/2 hour game with very little action as Madison Bumgarner lulled me to sleep as he absolutely shut down the Cardinals. Adam Wainwright wasn't himself on this day but he also wasn't awful. MadBum was just that spectacular once again!
The Giants did what they seem to usually do in the postseason which is put together some runs, and steal a win. That's exactly how this game went.
The 2nd inning is where all the action took place as the Giants loaded the bases rather quickly and grabbed 2 runs to take a 2-0 lead heading into the 3rd inning, where they again grabbed one more run on a Brandon Belt Sacrifice Fly to knock in Buster Posey giving the Giants a 3-0 lead early. That was all they would need, because that's all Madison Bumgarner seemed to care about as he went into the 8th inning with a shutout, handed it off to the bullpen in the 9th, and walked away with another historically silly performance in the postseason. The Giants have a 1-0 series lead in the NLCS and it feels as though they robbed a bank because that's what it looked like in that game and it looked rather quick too.
The NLCS will continue tomorrow, I'll be looking forward to hopefully a more entertaining game than tonight.
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