Billy Butler, the Royals’ longest tenured player, is introduced before the wild card game against the A’s. (AP Images)
Wild Card Game | September 30, 2014
Royals 9, A’s 8, 12 Innings
Putting the Wild in Wild Card
Royals Swipe Seven Bases to Spur Epic Comeback
Well, that was fast. Or so it initially seemed. Twenty-nine years of waiting, of frustration, of thinking every spring “maybe this is our year,” to the mid-summer realization “there’s always next year.” After 29 years the Royals were finally here, in the postseason. And in less than 29 minutes—or however long it took Oakland to put together a five-run sixth inning—it was over. This time of the year teams don’t come back from 7–3 deficits after seven innings, especially a team like Kansas City that had spent so much energy during the roller-coaster 2014 season just to reach the postseason.
But in front of a rocking, standing-room only crowd of 40,502 at Kauffman Stadium, the young and inexperienced Royals were brought back to life in the wildest of wild card games. And all it took were two pinch-hitters, seven stolen bases, seven pitchers, a batter who had been 0-for-5, and 12 innings.
“This will go down as the craziest game I’ve ever played,” first baseman Eric Hosmer said. “This team showed a lot of character. No one believed in us before the game. No one believed in us before the season.”
Pitcher Jon Lester, whom Oakland acquired at the trade deadline for an anticipated postseason run, held a comfortable 7–3 lead. That was bad news for the Royals considering Lester has had Kansas City’s number throughout his career, regardless of the name on his uniform. In fact, Lester, who was 4–0 against the Royals in 2014, shut out Kansas City in Boston on July 20, and then two starts later, on August 2—his first appearance for the A’s—he beat the Royals again.
But things would change after the seventh inning of the wild-card game.
Royals’ 12th-inning hero Eric Hosmer scores a single by Christian Colon, tying the game at 8–8. (AP Images)
Down to six outs and nothing to lose against Lester, the Royals tightened the screws a little. Alcides Escobar led off the bottom of the eighth with a base hit and then promptly stole a base, one of seven on the night for the Royals. After Nori Aoki advanced Escobar with a groundout to second, Lorenzo Cain singled to center. That made it 7–4 Oakland. With Hosmer at the plate, Cain stole second. Hosmer walked, which ended Lester’s night. Relief pitcher Luke Gregerson gave up a single to Billy Butler, scoring Cain and moving Hosmer to third. 7–5 Oakland. Terrance Gore, running for Butler, stole second. Perhaps focusing too much on Kansas City’s speed on the basepath, Gregerson threw a wild pitch to Alex Gordon that scored Hosmer on a dive at home. 7–6 Oakland. Gordon ended up walking and then stole second. (In case you’re not keeping track, that’s four stolen bases for the Royals in the inning.) The inning came to a screeching halt, though, as Gregerson struck out both Salvador Perez and Omar Infante. It was the second time in the game that the hitless Perez struck out. He’d get another chance.
The Royals tied the game in the bottom of the ninth, courtesy of pinch-hitter Josh Willingham, who was a late-season acquisition brought in to give Kansas City some veteran power at the plate. Hitting for Mike Moustakas against Oakland reliever Sean Doolittle, Willingham blooped a base hit. Jarrod Dyson, running for Willingham, was sacrificed to second and then stole third. He tied the game on a sacrifice fly by Aoki.
After Brandon Finnegan, who barely three months earlier was pitching for Texas Christian University in the College World Series, relieved Greg Holland and shut down the A’s, the Royals seemed to be on their way to the American League Division Series. Hosmer led off the Kansas City 10th with an infield base hit and advanced to second on a sacrifice by pinch-hitter Christian Colon. Two batters later, with Hosmer at third and two outs, Perez had a chance to redeem his eighth-inning strikeout. But the Royals All-Star catcher grounded out to second, making him hitless in five at-bats.
After neither team scored in the 11th, former Royal Alberto Callaspo delivered a pinch-hit RBI single off Finnegan that scored Josh Reddick and gave the A’s an 8–7 lead.
“First postseason in 29 years?” Finnegan said after the game. “I felt like I just ended it.”
Yet, once again, just when it looked as if the Royals might be finished for the season, they gave everyone a foreshadowing to the next two weeks.
Eric Hosmer slides in to a score on a wild pitch by relief pitcher Luke Gregerson in the eighth inning, reducing the A’s lead to 7–6. (AP Images)
With one out in the 12th, Hosmer tripled off the top of the wall in left-center. Colon, another rookie, knocked in Hosmer and reached safely on a high chopper to third base. That tied the ballgame. Colon then stole second—the seventh swipe of the night for Kansas City—giving the Royals a runner in scoring position with two outs and Perez at the plate once again.
“I worry about it because I want to help the team,” Perez said.
Perez, who looked silly throughout the game at the plate, reached out for a low and away pitch with two strikes and pulled the ball past diving third baseman Josh Donaldson. Colon, who has good speed, scored easily, giving the Royals a walk-off win—their first postseason victory since Game 7 of the 1985 World Series.
“That’s the most incredible game I’ve ever been a part of,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “Our guys never quit. We fell behind there in the fifth inning, sixth inning. They kept battling back. They weren’t going to be denied. It was just a great game.”
Of course, it was a controversial decision Yost made in the sixth inning that helped lead to Oakland’s runs. Starter James Shields gave up a bloop single to Sam Fuld and then walked Donaldson. With two on and nobody out and Kansas City holding a 3–2 lead with Brandon Moss—who homered earlier—coming to the plate, Yost pulled Shields, who’d thrown 88 pitches, and brought in starter Yordano Ventura. Yosted! Instead of going to a reliever, Yost pulled “Big Game James” and brought in another starter, a questionable move by the much-maligned manager. Moss sent Ventura’s third pitch 432 feet to dead center.
“Just one of those things,” Yost said.
But despite those things, this was just the beginning of something special for the Royals.
“It was absolutely epic,” Shields said. “You don’t write a story like that.”
Outfielder Lorenzo Cain (center) celebrates the Royals’ victory over the A’s. Cain drove in two runs in the wild- card game. (AP Images)