Royals vs. Angels: Game 1 Score and Twitter Reaction from 2014 MLB Playoffs

The Kansas City Royals are really making sure they milk their first postseason appearance in 29 years.

Just two days after the Royals won a 12-inning thriller against the Oakland Athletics, Mike Moustakas put aside the small-ball talk for a while, hitting an 11th-inning home run to propel Kansas City to a 3-2 win and 1-0 series lead over the Los Angeles Angels.

Eric Hosmer, one of the heroes from Tuesday's classic, put it simply, via The Kansas City Star's Andy McCullough:

Former Long Beach State teammates Jered Weaver and Jason Vargas were near the top of their games. Weaver struck out six through seven innings, giving up just three hits, two walks and two earned runs. Vargas went six and also gave up three hits, but two of those went for home runs to Chris Iannetta and David Freese.

Ultimately, the Royals bullpen flashed better staying power, pitching five innings of one-hit, shutout ball before Moustakas' game-winning blast gave Danny Duffy the win.

Much attention has been paid over the last couple of days to the vast difference in how these teams score runs: Kansas City's speed, clutch-hitting and small-ball approach vs. Los Angeles' power.

That contrast was immediately on display.

In the top of the third, Alcides Escobar put the Royals on the scoreboard first with a two-out double to score Moustakas, who had walked. In the home half of the inning, the Angels' No. 9 hitter, Iannetta, responded with a deep blast to left to tie things up.

ESPN Stats & Info noted the impressive feat from the 31-year-old catcher, who had seven home runs all season:

It was more of the same in the fifth. Alex Gordon doubled, advanced to third on a flyout and scored on a sacrifice fly by Omar Infante, only for Freese to crush a solo homer in the bottom half of the frame.

As MLB's Twitter feed pointed out, it wasn't an uncommon postseason moment for the former St. Louis Cardinals hero:

The Halos threatened in the next two innings, but both times it was Norichika Aoki bailing out one of the league's best defensive teams with tremendous plays in right field.

ESPN Radio's Beto Duran reports Mike Scioscia's thoughts on Kansas City's defense:

With two on in the sixth, Howie Kendrick sent a long, towering drive toward Aoki and center fielder Lorenzo Cain—who had already made two spectacular catches earlier in the game—that looked like massive trouble. But then the 32-year-old Aoki did this:

As an encore the next inning, Aoki made a sliding catch on the warning track with the go-ahead run on third and followed it up with an unforgettable celebration, per McCullough:

Los Angeles got a runner into scoring position in the eighth and ninth to make it four threatening innings in a row, but once again, the Royals bullpen, which was clutch all night, worked out of the jams.

The Angels bullpen was rolling along just as smoothly with three no-hit innings to follow Weaver, but on the third pitch of the 11th frame, Moustakas took a Fernando Salas offering into the first row in right field.

ESPN Stats & Info put the hit into historical perspective:

Greg Holland, who was starting to get lonely in the bullpen after Ned Yost used six relievers before him, proceeded to shut the Angels down in order to give Kansas City the crucial series-opening win.

The scrappy Royals are now 2-for-2 in producing dramatic postseason victories, and as Grantland's Jonah Keri noted, they have to be quickly gaining fans with these types of performances:

After a captivating, back-and-forth Game 1, a decidedly alluring pitching matchup awaits Friday. Yordano Ventura and Matt Shoemaker have been two of the best rookies in the league, but they couldn't have taken more different paths to Game 2.

Ventura is a fireballing 23-year-old from the Dominican Republic, while Shoemaker is a 28-year-old former undrafted free agent with impeccable control.

The pressure will be on the latter, who is coming off an oblique injury. He'll have to fare better than he did in his first two starts against the Royals (10.00 ERA, his worst against any team), or the team with the best record in baseball will be sitting in a big hole heading back to Kansas City.