LOS ANGELES: The Kansas City Royals jolted the New York Yankees’s Major League Baseball playoff hopes with a series-leveling 4-2 win in the Bronx on Monday as the Detroit Tigers bounced back to stun the Cleveland Guardians.
The Royals, pipped 6-5 by the Yankees in a Game 1 thriller on Saturday, produced a four-run fourth inning blast to set up victory at Yankee Stadium.
The result leaves the best-of-five American League Division Series finely balanced at 1-1 as the series heads to Kansas City on Wednesday for Game 3.
“That’s just the way that we are — we fight together, and we win together,” said Royals veteran Salvador Perez. “We feel like a family.”
The Yankees, chasing their first World Series crown since 2009, got off to a smooth start with Giancarlo Stanton driving in a single to score Gleyber Torres in the third inning.
But the Royals jumped on Yankees starter Carlos Rodon in the fourth inning to build a three-run lead that ultimately proved decisive.
Perez homered to start the scoring blitz, before Tommy Pham’s line drive to center field sent Yuli Gurriel over home plate to make it 2-1.
Garrett Hampson’s single allowed Pham to score for 3-1 before, and then Hampson got home safely after Maikel Garcia’s single.
Rodon was pulled thereafter, but the Yankees were unable to claw back the deficit as the Royals bullpen produced a lights out performance to stymie the Bronx Bombers.
There was a nervous finale for the Royals after Jazz Chisholm Jr. homered to start the ninth for New York to make it 4-2 before Jon Berti singled to put the tying run on base.
But closer Lucas Erceg took care of business to bag the final three outs and leave the series at one apiece.
In Monday’s other playoff game, Kerry Carpenter blasted a three-run home run in the ninth inning as the Detroit Tigers stunned the Cleveland Guardians 3-0 to level their series at 1-1.
Carpenter, 27, crushed a 423-foot two-out moonshot to right field off Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase to settle what had been a nerve-shredding pitcher’s duel before the ninth inning drama.
It marked another fairytale chapter for Carpenter, who only made his Major League debut two years ago and was working part-time in a sporting goods store in 2020 as he chased his dream of breaking into the big leagues.
“I received a whole lot of God’s grace right there, and that’s about it — and I put a good swing on the ball,” Carpenter said afterwards of his winning homer. “It felt really good. I blacked out after I hit it.”
The Tigers, who stunned the Houston Astros in the Wild Card round last week, had been thrashed 7-0 by Cleveland in Game 1 of the best-of-five ALDS tussle on Saturday.
But a superb pitching performance from starter Tarik Skubal and some scintillating defense shut down the Cleveland offense to leave the game scoreless and on a knife edge heading into the ninth inning, setting up Carpenter’s moment of magic.
“Everybody out there is just fearless and we have a bunch of guys who can execute when they need it most,” Carpenter said.
Skubal pitched seven innings, with just three hits for no runs, to keep the Tigers in touch.
The Tigers host Game 3 of the series in Detroit on Wednesday.
