BALTIMORE — – While Bobby Witt Jr. prepared for his highly anticipated playoff debut for the Kansas City Royals, he took a moment after the final notes of the national anthem sounded at Camden Yards on Tuesday to take it all in.

The bright lights on a cloudy afternoon. The 41,506 roaring souls in the stands, most of them supporting the host Baltimore Orioles. The orange towels twirling in their hands.

“I said, ‘This is where you want to be,’” Witt said afterward. “This is the place you want to be. And this is what makes you a baseball player. This is what you dream about.”

Witt showed why he is one of the game’s biggest young stars, taking home the lone run with a single Tuesday to back six stellar innings from another playoff rookie, Cole Ragans, and lead the Royals helping return after a nine-year postseason absence with a 1-0 win over the Orioles in Game 1 of their AL Wild Card Series.

“It’s quite fitting for him to drive the run. He’s been the leader of the offense – him and (Salvador Perez) – all year,” KC’s Michael Massey said. “It’s what we want as a team for him to come into this situation.”

Witt, the 24-year-old shortstop who led the majors this season with 211 hits and a .332 batting average, bounced the ball through the infield on a 95 mph, first-pitch cutter from 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes with two zeros in the sixth.

Burnes used that cutter to get Witt out in his first two at-bats.

“He made some pretty bad swings and weak contact, so it was a pretty good throw,” Burnes said. “It didn’t hit him very hard. He just found a hole and that was the difference.”

Maikel Garcia came around to score after drawing a walk, stealing second – Burnes has allowed runners to rack up 41 major league bases this season – and moving to third on a grounder.

Garcia is another postseason rookie, as is Lucas Erceg, who earned a four-out save, emblematic of a rising Royals club that lost 106 games last season but used a 30-win improvement to return for the first time to return to October. time since winning the 2015 World Series.

Witt dealt with some butterflies in the ninth, and Erceg said he had to slow himself down after realizing he wasn’t sticking to his normal routine on the mound. But otherwise, these KC Kids certainly seemed comfortable in the bright lights when games matter most.

“Basically just be yourself,” Witt said. “That’s what we do as a team.”

Now the Royals can end this best-of-three series and advance to an AL Division Series against the New York Yankees by winning Game 2 in Baltimore on Wednesday. Kansas City sends All-Star Seth Lugo to the mound to face Zach Eflin.

Baltimore has lost its last nine postseason games.

Ragans left after 80 pitches due to cramps in his left calf, and the bullpen took care of the rest of the time. The All-Star lefty was stellar, mixing a 98 mph fastball with a variety of off-speed offerings while allowing just four hits and striking out eight.

Burnes seemed like exactly the asset Baltimore was hoping to get when it acquired him from Milwaukee in February.

“He did his part,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said.

The AL’s All-Star starter this season received a standing ovation after giving up a leadoff single in the ninth. He allowed one point, five goals and that one important free pass to Garcia.

“The free run hurt,” Burnes said. “The walk cost us the match.”

He became the first starter to throw a pitch in the ninth inning of a postseason game since Washington’s Stephen Strasburg in Game 6 of the 2019 World Series.

But Baltimore’s sluggers — the team’s 235 home runs trailed only the Yankees — couldn’t get through.

The Orioles got a runner to third base in the third inning, but Jordan Westburg flied out on the warning track in left field. They put men on the corners in the fifth, but Ragans picked off James McCann and 2023 AL Rookie of the Year Gunnar Henderson.

“A big place,” Ragans said.

Hyde’s opinion? “That hurt.”

And in the eighth, with a pair on and two outs, Erceg replaced Kris Bubic and forced Anthony Santander into a fielder’s choice with thousands of spectators on their feet.

“It will be louder. It’s going to be bigger, one way or another,” said Witt, whose father was a pitcher in the Majors. “But you just have to know that this is the game I grew up with and loved.”

Trainer’s room

Royals: Vinnie Pasquantino came off the injured list after being out since August 29 with a broken right thumb. He went 0 for 3 with a walk as DH.

Next

Lugo (16-9, 3.00 ERA) will make his first postseason start. Eflin went 10-9 with a 3.59 ERA combined for Tampa Bay and Baltimore in 2024.

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