For the third straight game, the Royals and Yankees played a PLAYOFF baseball game. The appearance of the plate all feels valuable, and runs are very difficult to scratch across the plate. The starters were pulled early and then a parade and relievers and eventually pinch hitters were brought in to find any possible advantage. Kansas City had a packed house and a few more with as many as 3,000 standing room only tickets sold, and they roared, groaned and booed, especially when Jazz Chisholm was on.

The beginning of the game consisted of three consecutive 1, 2, 3 half innings. Yuli Gurriel finally got some runners on base by hitting a double off the left field wall. He came under it just a little too much, otherwise it would have been gone. Then the Yankees drew first blood in the 4th. Juan Soto led off the inning with a walk, but Lugo caused Judge to pop out and Wells to strikeout. Giancarlo Stanton then hit an RBI double to score Soto. They scored again in the next inning on a sac-fly by Soto with the bases loaded and one out.

Trailing by two, the Royals came back in the bottom of the fifth. After two quick outs, Frazier singled and Isbel drove in a double while running across the field. Then Massey hit a triple as Soto made a layup and missed the ball trying to prevent Isbel from scoring. That was it for Clarke Schmidt and the Yankees bullpen took over.

Over the next few innings, Clay Holmes, Angel Zerpa, John Schreiber, Sam Long, Brady Singer and Tommy Kahnle maintained the 2-2 tie. Brady Singer hadn’t pitched since September 27 and he had to come in and face Aaron Judge with a runner on and two outs. Judge struck out on ball four, but the first base umpire said he took a swing and called him.

That was probably a check swing, but I’ll take it.

Kris Bubic came in for the 8th inning and the tie was broken.

He got through the remainder of the inning without any problems, but the damage had already been done. The Yankees kept Kahnle in to face Massey, then Luke Weaver came in for the 5-out save opportunity, starting with Bobby Witt Jr.

Bobby Singled and Salvy moved him to third, but the tying run never reached home in the 8th. And that was that. MJ and Garcia popped out to start the 9th and Pham pinch-hit and bounced to short. That was that.

It was a hard-fought game, but Stanton’s two big hits were just too much for the Royals to overcome.