Kansas City, Mo..— Gerrit Cole pitched like a postseason ace Thursday night, limiting the Kansas City Royals to just one run in seven innings and sending the New York Yankees to a 3-1 victory that put them new to the American League Championship Series.
The six-time All-Star scattered six hits and struck out four before handing the ball to the New York bullpen, which dominated a tense American League Division Series. Clay Holmes pitched a perfect eighth inning and Luke Weaver breezed through the ninth, extending the scoreless streak by Yankees relievers to 15 2/3 innings this postseason.
New York will play either Cleveland or Detroit in the ALCS starting Monday night at Yankee Stadium.
Juan Soto, Gleyber Torres and Game 3 star Giancarlo Stanton drove in runs for the Yankees, who clinched a spot in their fourth American League Championship Series in eight years on the road. They won 50 road games in the regular season, their most in 21 years.
Michael Wacha failed to make it through five innings for Kansas City, allowing two runs, six hits and a walk. He didn’t get much help from a long-struggling offense that managed to score just five total runs in the final three games of the series.
Still, it was a notable turnaround for a club that went from a 106-loss laughingstock a year ago to making its first postseason appearance since winning the 2015 World Series. And with young stars like Bobby Witt Jr. signing contracts In the long run, there is hope in Kansas City that this was a beginning rather than an end.
New York set the tone from the start, pounced on Wacha as it did in the first game of the series. Torres hit the veteran right-hander’s first pitch of the game for a double, and Soto followed with an RBI single on just the third pitch of the night.
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