Toronto Blue Jays left-hander David Price was dealing. He entered the seventh inning of ALCS Game 2 having retired 18 consecutive Kansas City Royals on Saturday afternoon, and the Jays held a 3-0 lead. And then...it happened.
A seemingly harmless pop to shallow right field off the bat of Ben Zobrist brought second baseman Ryan Goins and right fielder Jose Bautista together, but a miscommunication allowed the ball to drop for a leadoff single. That opened the floodgates, so to speak, as K.C. capitalized with a furious rally that ended with them on top by a 5-3 score. In order, here's what happened next:
Lorenzo Cain: single
Eric Hosmer: RBI single
Kendrys Morales: RBI Groundout, Cain scores
Mike Moustakas: RBI single (tie game)
Salvador Perez: Strikeout
Alex Gordon: RBI double, Royals lead 4-3
Alex Rios: RBI single, Royals lead 5-3 (off new pitcher Aaron Sanchez)
Just like that, Price's outing went from a dominant six-inning shutout to a final line of 6 2/3, six hits and five earned runs. Two innings later, the Royals wrapped up a 6-3 victory and the Blue Jays suddenly found themselves in an 0-2 hole in this best-of-seven ALCS.
The Royals' penchant for late-inning heroics is earning them quite a reputation around social media lately, as exemplified by this tweet from MLB.com's Aldon Gonzalez:
Toronto came back from an 0-2 hole in the ALDS against the Texas Rangers to get here, and now they'll have to do it again if they want to advance to the World Series. Saturday's events didn't exactly help.
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