Kansas City Royals OFFICIAL GAME NOTES Kansas City Royals (3-1) @ Toronto Blue Jays (1-3) Rogers Centre - Wednesday, October 21, 2015 American League Championship Series - Game #5 FS 1, 610 Sports, ESPN Radio ON THE AIRWAVES This afternoon’s contest is being broadcast on KCSP Radio (610 Sports) and the Royals Radio Network with Denny Matthews, Ryan Lefebvre, Steve Physioc and Steve Stewart, while Don Free controls the dials as the producer/engineer...today’s game is being televised nationally on FS 1 with Joe Buck, Harold Reynolds, Tom Verducci, Ken Rosenthal and Erin Andrews...today’s game is also being broadcast nationally on ESPN Radio with Dan Shulman and Aaron Boone. THE 2015 KANSAS CITY ROYALS POST-SEASON GUIDE IS AVAILABLE ON-LINE AT MLBPRESSBOX.COM Royals vs. Jays ONE TO GO...--The Royals rebounded strong from Monday’s defeat, plating a club record 14 runs in The Royals are now a win away from advancing to their a 14-2 triumph over the Blue Jays...the win put Kansas City just a victory shy of its second consecutive second straight World Series, leading this set by a 3-1 count... American League title and what would be the fourth in franchise history...the offense struck early and often dating back to 1985, Kansas City is now 10-1 in its last 11 ALCS on Tuesday with the Royals plating four first inning runs, a first for any club in ALCS history...Ben Zobrist contests. hammered a 2-run homer to open the scoring on R.A. Dickey’s fourth pitch of the game after Alcides 2015 AMERICAN LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES Date Site Score WP LP Att. Escobar led off the contest with a bunt hit...original Blue Jay, Alex Rios homered in the second for a 5-0 10/16 KC W, 5-0 Volquez Estrada *39,753 advantage, his first of three hits on the afternoon, which led KC’s 15-hit attack...the Jays cut the deficit to 10/17 KC W, 6-3 Duffy Price *40,357 5-2, but then Kansas City erupted for nine unanswered runs over the final three innings to ice the victory... 10/19 @ Tor L, 8-11 Stroman Cueto *49,751 Chris Young was the starter and came up an out shy of a victory, but contributed 4.2 strong innings allowing 10/20 @ Tor W, 14-2 Hochevar Dickey *49,501 10/21 @ Tor just two runs on three hits...Luke Hochevar fired 1.1 innings of scoreless relief to gain credit for the victory as the first of four KC relievers who held the Jays scoreless over the final 4.1 innings...Escobar delivered a career postseason best four RBI, while Lorenzo Cain had a pair of hits and knocked home three runs...the Royals also set a Major League postseason record with four sacrifice flies, breaking the previous mark of three by the 1982 NLCS Cardinals and 1993 World Series Blue Jays. ESKY EN FUEGO--Alcides Escobar’s bunt single to open yesterday’s contest made him the first player in Major League history to lead off four consecutive games with a hit...it all started on Friday with a game opening double, followed by a single on Saturday and then triple here on Monday...he was tied with the Yankees’ Hank Bauer (1958 World Series vs. Braves), Fernando Vina of the Cardinals (2000 NLDS vs. Braves), and the Giants’ Ray Durham (2003 NLDS vs. Marlins) at three in a row prior to yesterday...when leading off an inning through nine games of this postseason, Esky has batted .600 (9-for-15) with two doubles and two triples...he has a career regular season batting average of .262, but he’s had the ability to turn it up a notch when October baseball commences as evidenced by his career .337 average in the postseason (34-for-101) with a .355 on-base pct. and .485 slugging pct...Escobar’s 34 career postseason hits, accomplished over just the last two years, rank third most in franchise history trailing only Willie Wilson (35) and Hall-of-Famer George Brett (45). ZO’S SLUGFEST--Ben Zobrist, fresh off a 3-double game here on Monday, contributed a pair of hits in yesterday’s win, including a 2-run homer in the first inning... Rogers Centre has become one of Zo’s favorite places to hit, as he entered this postseason with 12 home runs in this building, the most of any road stadium that he’s played in with Yankee Stadium a distant second with six...including his 5-for-10 performance in this series, Zobrist is a lifetime .296 hitter in Toronto (68-for-230) with 20 doubles and 13 home runs for 127 total bases and a career slugging pct. here of .552. CAIN EXTENDS TEAM MARK--Lorenzo Cain,the MVP of last year’s ALCS vs. Baltimore, extended his club record by hitting safely in 13 consecutive postseason games with a pair of hits yesterday...the old mark of 11 was held by Amos Otis...Cain has batted .320 (16-for-50) during the streak with two doubles, a home run, nine runs scored and 10 driven in while compiling an on-base pct. of .397...included is an 8-game hitting streak in ALCS competition, going 13-for-29 (.448). NED AMONG POSTSEASON ELITE--Kansas City skipper Ned Yost jumped his record to 17-7 all-time as a postseason manager with yesterday’s win, while his .708 winning pct. is good for ninth all-time...among skippers who have managed at least 10 postseason games, Yost ranks third all-time in winning pct. behind only Bill Carrigan (8-2, .800 with the 1915-16 Boston Red Sox) and Ozzie Guillen (12-4, .750 with the White Sox)...Ned’s win total of 17 is tied with Joe Maddon (17-21) for 28th all-time and they are tied for sixth among all active managers.. TWO OUT OFFENSE--The Royals were 5-for-12 in two-out at bats yesterday and have hit .311 (14-for-45) in two-out situations through the first four games of this ALCS...Kansas City finished the regular season with a big league best .277 batting average with two outs, 34 points higher than the league average (.243)...KC also led the big leagues with a .278 average with two down and runners in scoring position, plating 301 two-out runs, third most in the Majors....in 2014, Kansas City hit just .236 in two-out situations with 219 total runs...the Royals had three of the top eight individual two-out hitters in the A.L. with Lorenzo Cain (.372) leading the league, followed by Kendrys Morales (.335) in fourth and Eric Hosmer (.303), who was eighth...Morales, who finished sixth in the A.L. in overall RBI (106) drove exactly half of those in with two outs with an American League-leading 53 while shattering Joe Randa’s (2000) previous club record of 46. TODAY’S STARTING PITCHERS: RHP Edinson Volquez (1-1, 2.31) vs. RHP Marco Estrada (1-1, 3.09) ALDS 2015 Career 2015 (Reg. Season) 2014 Career Edinson Volquez vs. Blue Jays 1-0 0-1 0-4 Major League Record 13-9 (3.55 ERA) 13-7 79-68 Marco Estrada vs. Royals 0-1 1-1 1-1 Major League Record 13-8 (3.13 ERA) 7-6 36-34 EDINSON VOLQUEZ takes the hill in this fifth game of the ALCS, his second start of the series and fifth all-time in postseason play...he went 13-9 with a 3.55 ERA in 33 starts during the regular season, his first in Kansas City...the 32-year-old signed a two-year free-agent last winter with a mutual 2017 option. DOMINANT IN OPENER--Edinson kicked off this series with 6.0 shutout innings in Edinson’s Postseason Stats Game #1 last Friday in Kauffman Stadium, earning his first career postseason win in a 5-0 DATE OPPONENT W-L ERA IP H R ER HR BB SO TP-K LEFT 10/11 @ Houston (G3) L, 2-4 5.2 5 3 3 0 4 8 87-55 1-3 Royals triumph...he allowed just two hits with four walks and five strikeouts, retiring 11 of 10/16 vs. Toronto (G1) W, 5-0 6.0 2 0 0 0 4 5 111-69 3-0 2015 Postseason 1-1, 2.31 11.2 7 3 3 0 8 13 198-124 63% the first 13 hitters he faced, before Chris Colabello singled in the fourth for Toronto’s first Career Postseason 1-3 5.89 18.1 16 12 12 1 13 16 - - hit...he didn’t face a situation with a runner in scoring position until the sixth, when Josh 2015 Regular Season 13-9, 3.55 200.1 190 89 79 16 72 155 3298-2107 64% Donaldson and Jose Bautista drew consecutive walks to start the inning, but Volky fanned Career Totals 79-68 4.29 1243.0 1186 643 593 125 592 1090 - - Edwin Encarnacion, got Colabello to line out and fanned Troy Tulowitzki to escape the jam...he became the first KC pitcher to work 6.0 scoreless innings and allow two hits or less and just the 10th all-time...the win was the first of his career over the Blue Jays after entering the night 0-4 in six career regular-season starts. POSTSEASON HISTORY--Volquez makes his fifth career postseason start, earning his first victory in Game #1 of this series last Friday...he’s 1-3 with a 5.89 ERA in his previous four postseason outings...he incurred a 4-0 defeat in Game #1 of the 2010 NLDS to the Phillies, allowing four runs over 1.2 innings with his counterpart, Roy Halladay, tossing a no-hitter against the Reds...he also fell to Madison Bumgarner and the Giants in last year’s N.L.