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    • “Professional bottle openers” after the Orioles swag
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    “Professional bottle openers” after the Orioles swag

    Madoc Meredith Posted on

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    BALTIMORE — The cigar smoke and streams of liquor seeped through the protective shell surrounding the Kansas City Royals’ host clubhouse at Camden Yards on Wednesday night as Tommy Pham, the 36-year-old veteran of five playoff runs, poked 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 of whom are barely old enough to drink.

    “These are professional bottle openers now!” said Pham as the party continued into the night and eventually moved outside again, turning the infield into an impromptu disco.

    This is October’s spoils for the big boys, and to be clear, these royals aren’t quite there yet. A season after losing 106 games, Kansas City brought in the perfect amount of veterans over the winter and at the trade deadline, won 86 games, secured a wild-card berth and now, over the course of two games at Camden Yards, became what everyone had The team strives to be there at this time of year.

    A problem.

    They defeated the 91-win Baltimore Orioles over two thrilling playoff afternoons at Camden Yards and finished the job on 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 is Saturday night, likely a matchup between reigning AL Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole and veteran right-hander Michael Wacha. Aaron Judge and Juan Soto will appear in the middle of the opposing lineup and more than 50,000 championship-hungry fans will be there in full force.

    But they also have a lot to fear.

    Oh, Kansas City didn’t set Statcast on fire those two days in Charm City, but maybe that’s the point. The Royals scored three runs in 18 innings. They went 1-0 in Game 1, had one miserable extra-base hit in two games, and needed a six-man pitching tag team to stifle the talented, powerful, but overly taxing Orioles.

    But it works very well in the playoffs, especially when the outstanding Bobby Witt Jr. can elevate the game with just a few athletic moves.

    He essentially won both games with an RBI single in the sixth inning, the version of Game 2 with two outs in the sixth inning, runners on the corners and 38,698 fans at Camden Yards fearing the worst.

    Witt smashed the ball up the middle, but second baseman Jordan Westburg made a fantastic diving stop. He tried to stand, knowing that the fastest man in the major leagues was running. But Westburg neither reached his feet nor released the ball cleanly.

    Witt did it. Kyle Isbel scored the winning run. The Brewers held it off.

    And Witt’s perfect week continued. It started with an RBI hit in Game 1 and continued with a crucial and largely underrated maneuver in the first inning of Game 2: Michael Massey’s leadoff double followed by landing a ball on second base, allowing Massey to score with one Out to reach third place.

    Vinnie Pasquantino followed with an RBI single. The score was 1-0, and the Camden Yards crowd, already fearing the worst after Baltimore suffered a decade-long nine-game playoff loss, clearly groaned.

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

    The royals don’t care.

    “This is how baseball should be played,” said Pasquantino, who returned after a five-week absence following thumb surgery and will take his usual third spot in the lineup this series. “Talk about Bobby all you want. What he did tonight in the first inning to put the guy on third base and let me do my job is the best baseball play in the world, put the guy on third base.

    “It made my job easier, I was able to do it. Now we’re going on to New York.”

    Even though Witt’s go-ahead shot in Game 1 was just an 88 mph skydive into left field, and his unselfish groundout in Game 2 was just 68 mph at the old exit velocity.

    “Forgive my French, it doesn’t matter,” Pasquantino says, dodging the soapy water in the victorious clubhouse. “What matters is scoring runs. And we succeeded. Who gives a (expletive) about exit pace, something like that?

    “Launch angle? Get that out of my face. We have to score runs. Nothing else matters.

    “I’m sorry for that.”

    “Zelor and Heart”

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

    “As I keep saying, we didn’t come this far just to get this far, so we’re going to keep working at it and keep trying to create our own legacy,” Witt said. “So it’s pretty special to see what this team has done this year compared to what happened last year, and now we just have to keep going.”

    At this point, there is no way we could imagine this group losing 106 games. But the additions of veteran free-agent right-handers Wacha and Seth Lugo rounded out a rotation that has legitimate five-deep and also, as they say, plenty of swing-and-miss.

    In Game 2, Lugo was confusing as always, using nine pitches in his famous 12-pitch mix to earn six strikeouts in the fifth inning. But after Cedric Mullins’ home run tied the game at 1-1, Lugo immediately loaded the bases with a walk, a single and his own fielding error.

    He went out of his way to get 44-home run man Anthony Santander to pop out and gave way to lefty Angel Zerpa.

    The 25-year-old Venezuelan got some luck, hitting Colton Cowser on a pitch that could have hit Cowser and bringing Adleyrutschman to short on a grounder to load the bases, and the game ended in a tie

    Witt’s starting signal would come just a few moments later.

    “It’s kind of the embodiment of our entire season, it’s hustle and passion,” Lugo says. “Just really proud of (Witt) doing what he’s done all year.”

    Still, there was still a lot of work to do: manager Matt Quatraro asked the bullpen for 14 outs. The relievers delivered them all without giving a runner a chance to reach second base.

    This is playoff baseball, too.

    “We put Zerpa in the biggest spot of his life and he gets two big outs to stem the tide there,” Quatraro said. “It’s so impressive that these guys believe in themselves and trust their abilities and just take on some of the best batsmen in the world.”

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

    The royals gathered on the hill, hugging each other, but no dog poop, instead nodding to the road in front of them. The clubhouse bacchanalia was a little less reserved.

    “We probably made it more dramatic than we would have liked,” Pasquantino says. “Offensively, we still have some work to do because you want to be able to get separation and give your pitchers some freedom. We want to do better offensively.

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

    “The bats are coming”

    Pham is ready. He made it to Game 5 of the 2023 World Series with the Arizona Diamondbacks, going 4-for-4.

    These Royals aren’t that skilled offensively yet. But it’s time for it to merge with this outstanding pitching staff, just as the veterans merge with Witt and the other talents of this increasingly formidable group.

    “Pitching. Defense. Timely strike. That’s what it’s about. We have a few guys who can give us some length. Our starters give us innings,” Pham said. “The bats are coming. It’s coming. As soon as we get that done, we’ll hit the ground running.”

    And what about this untested team ready to take on Yankee Stadium?

    “I will definitely give a good speech,” he says.

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    Madoc Meredith
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