Gerrit Cole pitched as a postseason ace on Thursday night, holding the Kansas City Royals to one run in seven innings and sending the New York Yankees to a 3-1 victory that put them back in the American League Championship Series.
The six-time All-Star scattered six hits and struck out four before handing the ball to the New York bullpen, which dominated a close AL Division Series. Clay Holmes pitched a perfect eighth inning and Luke Weaver blazed through the ninth, extending the scoreless streak among Yankees relievers to 15 and two-thirds innings this postseason.
New York will play either Cleveland or Detroit of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium starting Monday evening.
“Proud of these guys,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We now get to play for it and we are excited about that.”
Juan Soto, Gleyber Torres and Game 3 star Giancarlo Stanton drove in runs for the Yankees, who fittingly clinched a spot in their fourth ALCS in eight years on the road. They won 50 games away from home in the regular season, the most in 21 years.
Michael Wacha failed to get through five innings for Kansas City, allowing two runs, six hits and a walk. He didn’t get much help from a prolonged offense that saw just five runs total in the final three games of the series.
“In 2023 our season ended here, you know? We failed to reach the postseason,” said Aaron Judge, who secured the final clean sheet for New York. “I remember a lot of these guys looking at the field, and you know, we all came together and said, ‘It won’t happen again.’”
Kansas City did not win a home game after September 8 and lost nine in a row, including the playoffs.
Still, it was a remarkable turnaround for a club that went from a laughing stock with 106 losses a year ago to its first postseason appearance since winning the 2015 World Series. And now young stars like Bobby Witt Jr. signed a long-term contract, there is hope in Kansas City that this was a beginning rather than an end.
“I really feel bad for those guys in the room,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said, “because as you know, these are seven, eight months of the year where they’re just putting everything into it and giving every ounce of effort and energy. they have.”
New York set the tone from the start, attacking Wacha like in the series opener. Torres hit the veteran right-hander’s first pitch of the game for a double, and Soto followed with an RBI single on just the third pitch of the night.
Anthony Volpe kept the pressure on with his single in the fifth. And after Alex Verdugo grounded into a force out and Jon Berti singled to put runners on the corners, Torres lined with two outs to make it 2-0 and end Wacha’s evening.
Meanwhile, Cole only seemed to get stronger as he closed out innings.
The reigning Cy Young Award winner retired his first six batters, worked around a leadoff single in the third and retired eight more before Tommy Pham’s single in the fifth. Cole promptly retired Kyle Isbel on three pitches to end that inning.
“It was a great battle,” Cole said. “Just a great fight.”
Stanton, who hit the go-ahead homer in the eighth inning in Game 3, extended the lead to 3-0 with his single in the sixth, before tensions had simmered all night – and all series – after Yankees third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr had called the Royals’ Game 2 win ‘lucky’ – boils over in the bottom half. Volpe hit a hard hit on Maikel Garcia at second base to complete a double play, and the Royals’ third baseman took offense. Players left both dugouts before order was restored.
“I just felt like (Garcia) was trying to go in and hurt Volpe because he was a sore loser,” Chisholm said. “I didn’t like that. I told him we don’t do that on this side and that I will stand up for my boys.”
However, the near-fracas almost set Kansas City on fire. Witt, who had been 1 for 15 in the series, followed with a single and Vinnie Pasquantino – who had been 0 for 14 – had an RBI double. But as the sellout crowd of 39,012 at Kauffman Stadium was sent into a sudden frenzy, Cole got Salvador Perez to lazily pop to second base to end the inning.
Cole’s night ended after he got Isbel to fly to the warning track with a runner aboard to end the seventh, a deep shot to right field that would have been a game-tying homer if it had hit that part of Yankee Stadium.
New York’s bullpen did the rest.
“We are in a good place. That doesn’t mean we’re in a great place,” Stanton said. “We are here to win. No one wants to be on the losing side of this. Imagine how Kansas City feels right now. Nobody wants to feel like that. We have the opportunity to keep it going, but the reality is that we have to take care of things.”