BALTIMORE—Dr. Dre and Ludacris were coming out of the visiting clubhouse at Camden Yards as the boys clapped and slapped shoulders and shouted “Get the punches!” and “Good job, boys!” There was a long table piled high with Baltimore crabs. A celebration fit for a king, or at least for these royals playing with house money after winning Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series on Tuesday.

Kansas City, which won 1-0 against the higher-seeded Baltimore Orioles, entered the day as underdogs. They spent most of the season there, a year after winning just 56 games, and posted the largest year-to-year turnaround in franchise history with 30 wins.

It’s been 10 years since the Royals won a series – any series – at Camden Yards, their own house of horrors. Their visits to Baltimore resulted in nine series losses and a split, including two brutal series defeats in April in which Kansas City blew the lead and endured a five-hour rain delay. Those early games were a wake-up call, the first of many tests for a young team that had already faced plenty of adversity, including two losses in seven games.

“This team is special,” said Tuesday starter Cole Ragans, who pitched six scoreless innings before leg cramps forced him out of the game. “We know what we are capable of. Everyone draws for everyone. Everyone pushes everyone else. … We know what’s at stake and we want to play baseball for another month.”

Even though the Wild Card Series isn’t over yet, history is definitely on the Royals’ side. In the current best-of-three format, the team that wins Game 1 has won 14 out of 16 times.

Momentum could also be on their side. The Royals, who handed the Orioles their ninth straight postseason loss, looked sharper, faster and more energetic in the series opener, often silencing an unsold crowd at Camden Yards.

“Even during the anthem when they yelled ‘O,’ it was loud,” second-year manager Matt Quatraro said, “but keeping them off the board helps keep things under control. “

Quatraro – who has impressively mixed and matched his roster all season – deftly worked around Ragans’ injury, which could have easily derailed a Kansas City team that had just broken through in the sixth inning thanks to Bobby Witt Jr.’s two can leave -out single. Quatraro walked Sam Long for the seventh time and asked closer Lucas Erceg, one of several players Kansas City acquired as part of the aggressive trade deadline push, for four outs to secure his first career playoff win. It was Kansas City’s first postseason W since 2015.

The only person on that team still with it is catcher Salvador Pérez, who said he sees some similarities between the 2014 and 2015 playoff teams — the latter won the World Series — and this current group. The youth. The Moxie.

This team doesn’t have the turbo-charged bullpen that was the hallmark of previous clubs, but the Royals’ relievers had a great final month of the season. It also doesn’t hurt to have Witt Jr. – one of the best players in baseball. This is a group from Kansas City that has surprised people all year long and loved doing so.

When the Royals hosted the San Francisco Giants in late September, pitching coach Brian Sweeney met with his mentor Bryan Price, who has spent more than 20 years in the dugout. You knowPrice said to Sweeney, The teams that have to fight for a place in the playoffs are usually the most dangerous.

That, Sweeney thought, was the perfect way to describe the Royals’ journey. Thanks to the surging Detroit Tigers and their own unfortunate losing streak, Kansas City’s playoff spot was barely assured and they were only able to secure victory on the final Friday of the regular season. The team was inspired by the recent performances of wild-card teams like last year’s champions, the Texas Rangers, who, like the Royals, finished the season on the road only to fly to another city for the postseason. Just get in was the mindset.

There are no points for style. The Royals have won all season the same way they won Tuesday: great pitching and just enough offense. Their substance is their style, as understated as the powder blue T-shirts that adorned the clubhouse on that long road trip, emblazoned with just one word on the front: “Today.”

It’s a favorite Quatraro mantra and a reminder for this group when the crabs are gone and the music is over that there’s still a lot of work to be done, even if that first step, that first playoff win, was huge.

“I 100 percent believe that momentum has a lot to do with how well and how far teams advance in the playoffs,” Erceg said. “As long as we keep our foot on the pedal, I know we will be in a good place.”

(Photo: Greg Fiume/Getty Images)