Giancarlo Stanton went 3-for-5 with a home run, double, and a surprising stolen base as the New York Yankees took down the Kansas City Royals 3-2 at Kauffman Stadium to take a 2-1 ALDS lead and guarantee at least a Game 5 at Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium.
To start the game, Clarke Schmidt took the mound for the Yankees in what was his first
career postseason start. For the Royals, Seth Lugo took the mound for his second start of the
postseason. And early on, both pitchers were dealing, with both pitchers trading shutout innings through the first three innings of the game.
It wasn’t until the top of the fourth inning when the Yankees put the first run of the game on the board. After Juan Soto opened the inning with a walk, Stanton came up two batters later and with two outs. He delivered a scorching double into left, scoring Soto and giving the Yankees a 1-0 lead.
One inning later, the Yankees would add another. With two on and one out, Soto sent a sacrifice fly into center, scoring Anthony Volpe, which doubled the Yankees lead.
Their lead wouldn’t even last an inning, as the Royals tied the game in the bottom of the fifth, with the Royals igniting a two out rally. The rally began on an Adam Frazier infield single, which was followed by an RBI double by Kyle Isbel, and an RBI triple by Michael Massey, tying the game at two.
The score remained deadclocked until the top of the eighth, when it was once again Stanton to the rescue, as he connected on a 3-1 Kyle Bubic slider, sending it 417 feet over the left field wall, giving the Yankees a 3-2 lead — a lead they would never relinquish.
Schmidt pitched well up until the end of the fourth inning, finishing his night with 4.2 innings while striking out four and allowing two runs on four total hits. But the story of the game was the Yankees bullpen. In 4.1 innings, Clay Holmes, Tommy Kahnle and, Luke Weaver didn’t allow a run, and only allowed two hits. Kahnle was the winning pitcher with Weaver recording the five-out save.
For the Royals, Lugo pitched the first five innings of the game, allowing two runs on two hits to go along with a pair of strikeouts and four walks. Bubic was the losing pitcher.
