Page 19 - atoday

SPORTS A19
Thursday 22 October 2015

Estrada leads Blue Jays over Royals 7-1

BY HOWIE RUMBERG Toronto Blue Jays’ Ryan Goins, left to right, Troy Tulowitzki, Jose Bautista, and Ben Revere celebrate the Blue Jays 7-1 victory over
AP BASEBALL WRITER the Kansas City Royals in Game 5 of baseball’s American League Championship Series on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2015, in Toronto.
TORONTO (AP) - Marco
Estrada came up with a Associated Press
superb start in the most
important outing of his ca- times in the LCS, including Escobar, who entered 9 for Ben Revere led off with a peal it,” Yost said. “I don’t
reer, stopping the Royals’ when the Royals bounced 15 (.600), got Kansas City’s walk and Volquez hit Josh know if he was arguing the
hit parade and helping the back against the Blue Jays first hit when he opened Donaldson with the first pitch, I don’t know what he
Toronto Blue Jays send the in 1985 en route to Kansas the fourth with a ground pitch. In August, Volquez hit was talking about.”
AL Championship Series City’s only World Series title. single past a diving Tulow- Donaldson in a testy game Encarnacion walked on
back to Kansas City. In this year’s best-of-five Di- itzki at shortstop. that included a benches- another pitch that upset
Estrada pitched one-hit vision Series, Zobrist promptly grounded clearing scrum. Volquez and Yost. Volquez
ball into the eighth inning, Toronto fell behind 0-2, then into a double play to sec- He then walked Jose Bau- turned his back to plate
giving Toronto’s tattered won three straight against ond baseman Ryan Goins. tista in a 10-pitch at-bat umpire Dan Iassogna as
bullpen a rest, and the Texas. “He was really good to- on a knuckle curve that Revere jogged home for a
Blue Jays beat the Royals Before 49,325 roaring fans, day,” Escobar said. “He looked to get a piece of 2-0 lead. It was his last bat-
7-1 Wednesday to close Chris Colabello’s solo hom- threw the ball down, down the plate. ter.
to 3-2 in the best-of-seven er into the left-field seats in and away, down and in. “I thought the pitch to Bau- Herrera relieved and struck
matchup. the second gave Estrada He didn’t miss many pitch- tista was definitely a strike,” out Colabello. With the
“It’s the start that we need- a lead. It was the only mis- es today.” Royals manager Ned Yost crowd chanting “Tu-lo! Tu-
ed,” Troy Tulowitzki said. take by Volquez, the Game Kansas City had no other said. lo!” Tulowitzki sent a drive to
“They’re a great team 1 winner,. runners until Cain walked Yost shouted from the dug- the center-field wall, send-
over there. We know that. Estrada didn’t make a mis- with two outs in the sev- out for Perez to appeal to ing fans into a towel-wav-
But this guy kept them off cue until Salvador Perez enth. Price was up in the first base on ball four, think- ing frenzy.
balance and allowed the homered with two outs in bullpen, but Estrada got ing Bautista may have Bautista and Donaldson
offense to settle in and get the eighth. Estrada retired Eric Hosmer to fly out. swung. But it was too loud had consecutive doubles
some runs.” his first nine batters, end- Volquez allowed just two in the closed-roof stadium off Danny Duffy in the sev-
Tulowitzki provided three of ing at four Escobar’s record singles after Colabello con- for Perez to hear. enth to make it 6-0, and
those runs. He broke open streak of leading off playoff nected but lost the strike “We were trying to get their Kevin Pillar doubled in a run
with a bases-clearing dou- games with hits. zone in the sixth. attention to get him to ap- in the eighth.q
ble off Kelvin Herrera in the
sixth, giving him seven RBIs
in the series.
Edwin Encarnacion had
walked with the bases
loaded against Edinson
Volquez, who seemed flus-
tered by close calls against
the Royals.
Kansas City had 30 hits in
the first two games in Toron-
to, but Estrada faced the
minimum 20 batters before
Lorenzo Cain walked with
two outs in the seventh.
Closer Roberto Osuna was
perfect in the ninth.
Yordano Ventura will
start for the defending
AL champions on Friday
in Game 6 against David
Price, the Game 2 loser.
Estrada, a 32-year-old free-
agent to be, enabled his
bullpen to rest, a day after
Kansas City romped 14-2 in
a game that saw infielder
Cliff Pennington pitch in
the ninth.
“This time around I had a
better fastball command,”
said Estrada, who gave up
three runs in the opener.
“That was the key to this
game.”
Toronto is trying to be-
come just the 13th team
to rally and win among 80
who trailed 3-1 in best-of-
seven postseason series. It
has happened four of 17