KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Blue October is over — for now.
The New York Yankees eliminated the Kansas City Royals with a 3-1 win Thursday at Kauffman Stadium in the rekindling of an old postseason rivalry.
The two franchises met in the playoffs four times in five seasons from 1976 to 1980.
New York, which won three of those meetings, eased to another series win in the best-of-five American League Division Series, beating Kansas City in the first meeting against their old rivals in 44 years behind ace Gerrit Cole.
“I’m really proud of what they've done and it stings, but that's OK,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “It's OK to have it sting because this isn't where we want our season to end. This isn't what we hoped for when we started out. I think that's OK to embrace it, that it doesn't feel very good.”
The Royals roughed up Cole for four runs — three earned — in five innings during Game 1 of the series, which the Yankees rallied to win, but he was much more effective in Game 4, sending New York onto the AL Championship Series against Detroit or Cleveland.
Cole scattered six hits and didn’t walk any batter, striking out four in seven innings. He wasn’t dominant, but he also didn’t get hit quite as hard as five days earlier in the Bronx.
“His fastball was a little bit better today,” Quatraro said. “He located it at the top of the zone — which he's got 18, 20 inches of carry at 96, 97 mph. That's a tough thing to get to, and I think to me that was the biggest difference.”
Kansas City didn’t breakthrough until the sixth inning, but Cole — after a mound visit from New York manager Aaron Boone — limited the damage to one run when he got Salvador Perez to pop out to second base representing the tying run.
New York quickly jumped in front when Gleyber Torres ambushed Michael Wacha’s first-pitch fastball for a leadoff double. He scored on Juan Soto’s RBI single one batter later, but Wacha limited the damage from there.
“Three pitches into the game, it's 1-0 and he bowed his neck and went right after him,” Quatraro said. “He doesn't back down from anybody, and why should he? He's been doing this a long time, he's got a lot of confidence in himself and it showed it right there. He composed himself and got us some big outs.”
The Yankees scratched out a second run in the fifth — chasing Wacha, who allowed two runs on six hits with a walk and two strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings — and added one more in the sixth.
Torres did the honors with an RBI single in the fifth, which brought Royals closer Lucas Erceg on to retire Soto on a weak flyball to center.
“They're in the middle of the order with Soto, (Aaron) Judge, (Giancarlo) Stanton coming up,” Quatraro said. “I felt like that was our best opportunity to keep the game where it was and try to give us the best opportunity to come back.”
Before the game, the Royals’ staff told Erceg to be ready in the middle innings.
“Coming around that third time through the order is kind of when they were putting at-bats together in previous games in the series, so they told me ahead of time to be ready in the fifth or sixth,” he said.
Judge greeted Erceg with a ringing double to lead off the sixth and scored on Stanton’s hard ground-ball single through a drawn-in infield for a 3-0 lead.
Meanwhile, Tommy Pham had the Royals’ only hits through the first five innings, but Kansas City’s offense came to life in the sixth inning.
Maikel Garcia singled to right field, reigniting the Kauffman Stadium crowd.
Michael Massey followed with a groundout to first, but the fireworks started after Jon Berti stepped on first and threw down to second base.
Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe tagged Garcia — and delivered an elbow to the chin — to complete the double play. He then kept his glove on the Royals’ third baseman well after he’d slid past the bag.
Asked for his perspective on the play, Quartaro said, “Volpe had the ball, blocked the bag, Maikel probably didn't care for that too much, and it got a little chippy.”
Garcia and Volpe exchanged a few words, which led to the benches and bullpens pouring onto the field for a 52-player meeting between first and second bases.
“We just go back and show a little Hal McRae and Willie Randolph and we'll all laugh at ourselves,” Boone said.
After the dust settled, Bobby Witt Jr. sliced a single to right field and then scored when Vinnie Pasquantino plugged the left-center field gap with a line-drive double to the wall.
It was set up for Perez, the 2015 World Series MVP and last remaining link to last decade’s back-to-back AL champions, to send The K into further frenzy, but he popped out to second base instead as the sellout crowd of 39,012 settled back into their chairs to ruminate about what might have been.
That theme continued an inning later when Pham singled for the third straight at-bat against Cole and Kyle Isbel chased Yankees right fielder Juan Soto to the fence with a flyball for the final out of the seventh.
“He put a good swing on it,” Quatraro said. “I had a good feeling going into that at-bat, but unfortunately we're playing in Kauffman.”
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