KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The ball seemed to pop straight up into the Kansas City night and soar out of Kauffman Stadium.
It came off Giancarlo Stanton’s bat at a 35-degree angle with an exit velocity of 112.9 mph then landed 417 feet away at the base of a staircase that runs alongside the Royals Hall of Fame.
"I just hit the ball hard," Stanton said. "You can't go up trying to hit a homer. But you put yourself on time and get the bat through the zone on time. It was a good shot."
Stanton’s solo home run with one out in the eighth inning proved to be the difference in a 3-2 win Wednesday in the first MLB playoff game Kansas City has hosted in nearly nine years.
“He's a killer,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “It's remarkable, or I just admire, how well he's able to focus in these big moments and just go to a different place mentally. ... He's so good at locking in in these big games. He's done it throughout his career with us."
Kris Bubic had thrown a slider one pitch earlier., which finished to the middle of the plate below the strike zone for a ball. The next pitch was almost identical except it was six inches more inside, still below the strike zone.
“It looked like a slider that probably stayed in the middle,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “I didn't go back and look at the replay of it, but he got the barrel out front on an off-speed pitch.”
And sent it to the heavens.
"It wasn't a bad pitch," Stanton said. "But yeah, just got under the shape, was on time and was able to scoop it out."
The Royals dug a hole midway through the game and rallied after part-owner Patrick Mahomes provided a jolt to the sellout crowd of 40,312, only to watch the New York Yankees take control of the American League Division Series on Stanton’s moonshot.
Kansas City’s season will be on the line in Game 4 of the best-of-five series Thursday back at The K, where Stanton turned back the clock to put top-seeded New York in the driver’s seat in the series.
His game-winning home run wasn’t even the hardest ball he hit. That would be his fourth-inning RBI double, which he smacked at 114.1 mph off the center-field fence.
Right-hander Seth Lugo hadn’t allowed a hit until Stanton’s RBI double scored Juan Soto from first base.
A good relay throw might have cut down Soto, who reached on a walk, at the plate, but Witt’s throw was up the first-base line.
The Yankees tacked on another run in the fifth on a Soto sacrifice fly.
Lugo gave up a leadoff single and loaded the bases with one out after a pair of walks, but he limited the damage.
Between innings, a fired-up Mahomes popped up on Crown Vision.
Mahomes, who has a penchant for comeback wins in his day job as quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, urged the Kansas City faithful to get loud and the stadium crackled with energy in response.
The Royals — who’d managed only one hit to that point thanks to Yuli Gurriel’s second-inning double off the left-field wall — then came to life at the plate as well.
Adam Frazier reached on a two-out infield single and scored on Kyle Isbel’s opposite-field double into the left-field corner.
Michael Massey followed with an RBI triple to right field, which skipped under the glove of a diving Soto and rolled all the way to the wall.
Soto remained face down in the Kauffman Stadium grass, a sea of blue enraptured and in full throat, as Massey slid into third with the game all square again.
Stanton — who went 3 for 5 with a double, a home run and an unexpected stolen base — put the Yankees back in front a few innings later.
“He went up there looking to do damage, looking to do just that,” Boone said of Stanton’s game-winning home run. “I thought he laid off all the right pitches and just put a great swing on it on what was obviously a great night for him, including adding the stolen base for good measure."
Kansas City put runners on the corners in the eighth when Witt got his first ALDS hit. He’d started the series 0 for 12 with five strikeouts before a fifth-inning walk.
Witt then rolled a one-out grounder through the left side, but he never attempted to swipe second base.
Instead, he stayed at first as Vinnie Pasquantino hit a soft liner to shallow center just to the right of second base. The ball hung up long enough for shortstop Anthony Volpe to snare it with a diving catch.
"When he first hit that, I'm like 'Oh, no,' and here comes Volpe out of nowhere," Boone said.
Salvador Perez followed with a single up the middle to keep the inning alive, but Aaron Judge caught Gurriel’s towering — but ultimately harmless — flyball to center field to end the threat.
Pinch hitter Tommy Pham rolled out meekly to shortstop to end the game.
The Yankees' bullpen has yet to allowed an earned run in 13 2/3 innings during the ALDS, including 4 1/3 innings Wednesday.
"We have complete confidence in them," Clarke Schmidt, who started the game for New York, said. "I think that's been one of our strengths if not our main strength the whole year."
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