Five ALCS questions: Blue Jays-Royals could turn into a classic
— -- The best two teams in the American League reached the league championship series in dramatic and bizarre ways, creating some serious momentum for each team.
Now the Kansas City Royals and Toronto Blue Jays meet in the postseason for the first time since their epic American League Championship Series in 1985, a series that saw the Royals rally from a 3-1 deficit to advance to the World Series. And if that's not enough, these teams tangled during the 2015 season, seven games that included dustups, beanballs and anger.
Here are five questions.
1. How gritty and tough are the Royals?
Then, doing what the Royals do better than any team in the big leagues, they put the ball in play, strung together five straight singles and wound up winning the game 9-6. They became the first team ever to overcome a four-run deficit in the eighth inning or later, and stave off elimination, two years in a row in the postseason. "We believe in ourselves," Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer said. "The guys on this team have a lot of character."
2. How about the roll the Blue Jays are on?
And the way they won Game 5 against Texas -- with perhaps the craziest inning, the indescribable seventh, in postseason history -- makes you wonder if divine intervention is going on here. Or maybe it's just a bunch of hungry guys who can really hit and are trying to get the Blue Jays back to the World Series for the first time in 22 years.
3. What is the status of Kansas City's starting pitching?
And now he has some help from Johnny Cueto, who pitched the Royals into the ALCS with eight terrific innings -- the fifth pitcher in postseason history to record eight strikeouts and no walks in a winner-take-all game -- in Game 5 of the ALDS against Houston. Cueto retired the final 19 batters he faced, the most ever to end a start in a winner-take-all game in the postseason. Cueto won't be available until Game 3, but it looks as though the old Cueto is back, and, if so, that gives the Royals a legitimate No. 1 starter.
4. What should we expect from David Price?
In his postseason career, he is 2-6 with a 5.04 ERA and nine homers allowed in 50 innings. It is impossible to explain what happens to him in the playoffs, but there is still time to change that narrative. That time begins in this series.
5. How does the ninth inning look for each team?
The Blue Jays' closer is rookie Roberto Osuna, but he has looked nothing like a 20-year-old in the playoffs. He has shown dominant stuff and tremendous poise. In this postseason, he has thrown 5 ? innings, not allowed a hit or a walk and struck out six. The way he closed out the Rangers, getting the final five outs of Game 5, was beyond impressive.
Blue Jays in seven