Kansas City Royals Sink Yankees, Even Up ALDS

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Catcher Salvador Perez has been a standout player for the Kansas City Royals during his MLB career. On Monday night, Perez’s home run helped the Royals defeat the New York Yankees 4-2 in the American League Division Series. The victory ties the series with the Yankees at 1-1 as the teams now head to Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.

Perez is the final Kansas City player remaining on the Royals’ roster from their 2015 World Series championship team. To say he’s seen the Royals go through peaks and valleys in the past few seasons wouldn’t be a stretch. This season, the Kansas City Royals put things together to reach the American League postseason round.

Kansas City Royals Rock Rodón

So, Perez led off the fourth inning with a home run off New York Yankees starting pitcher Carlos Rodón. Royals starting pitcher Cole Ragans wasn’t too sharp for his team. But four Kansas City Royals relievers managed to keep the Yankees’ hitters, including Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, off-balance.

Tommy Pham, Maikel Garcia, and Garrett Hampson collected RBI singles for Kansas City, The Associated Press reported. Garcia had himself a four-hit night at Yankee Stadium, something he can tell his kids and grandkids about someday.

Judge and Kansas City star Bobby Witt Jr. aren’t producing stellar MVP-type numbers at all in this series. Judge went 1-for-3 on Monday with an infield single, but he’s 1-for-7 with four strikeouts. Witt went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts. He’s 0-for-10 in the series against New York pitching.

Hitting with runners in scoring position remains a problem for the New York Yankees. They went 1-for-6 on Monday night and are now 3-for-19 in two games. Giancarlo Stanton gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead in the third inning on an RBI single.

For his night on the mound, Ragans allowed one run and three hits, striking out five New York batters and walking four. Kansas City Royals relievers Angel Zerpa, the Game 2 winning pitcher, and John Schreiber put together an inning of work apiece. Kris Bubic followed with two scoreless innings and Lucas Erceg picked up his third save in the postseason.

New York nicked up Erceg a little bit in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jazz Chisholm hit a solo home run over the right-field wall at Yankee Stadium, putting the Yankees within 4-2. Jon Berti connected for a two-out single, but Gleyber Torres grounded out to end the game. Soto was on deck for New York, so he just made a right turn and headed back to the Yankees’ dugout.

Salvador Perez Keeps On Hitting

Perez, for his part, has hit Rodón pretty well in his career. A nine-time All-Star, Perez entered Monday night’s game with a 12-for-26 mark against Rodón with three home runs. They’ve faced off in AL Central battles with Perez for Kansas City and Rodón when he was with the Chicago White Sox.

“It’s not about one inning, it’s not about one pitch… it’s about nine innings, 27 outs,” Perez told MLB Network after the game. Kansas City fans at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Monday Night Football game against the New Orleans Saints kept up with the Royals on their phones. When Monday night’s Royals game went final, fans at Arrowhead Stadium started chanting, “Let’s go Royals!” The Chiefs also beat the Saints, too, going to 5-0 in their NFL season.

In the fourth inning, Yuli Gurriel, a postseason legend with the Houston Astros, singled, advanced on a wild pitch, and scored on Pham’s one-out single for a 2-1 lead. Pham stole second base and scored on Hampton’s single. Garcia’s RBI single off of Yankees reliever Ian Hamilton put the Royals up 4-1.

Rodón gave up four runs and seven hits in 3 2/3 innings. He posted seven strikeouts and no walks. New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone is looking at him for a possible Game 5 start. It’s possible that the Yankees and Royals get that far with the series now deadlocked.

That’s something true across all AL and NL postseason series. Every one of them stands at 1-1 for the first time since the divisional round of playoff action started in 1995.

Game 3 is Wednesday night at Kansas City. It will be the Royals’ first postseason home game since the 2015 World Series.

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Article originally written by Joe Rutland.