View From the Press Box: Royals Fall to Yankees 3-2 in Game 3 of ALDS

Giancarlo Stanton’s home run in the eighth inning was the difference as the New York Yankees defeated the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in Game 3 of the American League Division Series at Kauffman Stadium on Wednesday night. The Yankees now lead the best-of-five series, two games to one. 580 Sports Talk’s Dan Lucero was there and has these reactions from the game:

  1. The Royals faithful showed up and got loud tonight. This fanbase was craving playoff baseball and 40,312 people crammed into the K to cheer on the Royals in a playoff game for the first time since the 2015 World Series. It was a savvy baseball crowd that peaked at all the right moments, and a terrific atmosphere for baseball. It’s just a shame there wasn’t much to cheer about, particularly because…
  2. The Royals have totally forgotten how to hit in this ballpark. Remember the final homestand of the season? You’d probably rather have forgotten it, but the Royals scored just four runs in the final five games of their homestand against Detroit and San Francisco. Apparently, those woes followed the Royals all the way into the postseason. The Royals lineup as presently constructed just doesn’t find a lot of gaps, so it’s either long balls or stringing together singles that give the Royals their offense, and that’s hard to do consistently. The Royals scored their runs on back-to-back extra base hits by Kyle Isbel and Michael Massey in the fifth, but the rest of the night was crying out for something up an alley or down a line and the Royals couldn’t deliver.
  3. Seth Lugo was shaky but survived five innings – barely. It was clear from the beginning the Yankees were on him and that he was missing pitches up – both Juan Soto and Aaron Judge hit first-inning rockets that ended up in outs. Lugo also walked four in five innings and wobbled severely in the fifth, but managed to keep the Royals in the game by only allowing a sac fly to Soto after loading the bases with only one out. I thought Matt Quatraro should have been quicker with the hook, but he trusted his 16-game winner and it worked out.
  4. Giancarlo Stanton about won this game himself for the Yankees, driving in two of their three runs and hitting the game-winning dinger off Kris Bubic in the 8th. The batted-ball exit velocities on his four balls in play tonight were 108, 114, 97 and 112 miles per hour – the signature of one of the greatest power hitters of his era. The Yankees will always go as Aaron Judge goes, and his continued struggles mean the Yankees remain gettable in this series, but don’t forget about Stanton, a future Hall of Famer and great postseason player in his career.
  5. Both Royals losses in this series have been by one run, which is agonizing. For the want of one more hit with runners on, the Royals could have finished this series off tonight. But it goes to show how razor thin the margin between these two teams is, even with Yankees ace Gerrit Cole scheduled to start tomorrow night in Game 4. The Royals are going to have to swing the bats better – and nine walks from the pitching staff is unacceptable – but they’re absolutely capable of extending the series tomorrow night.

Watch Dan’s Instant Reaction from Kauffman Stadium: