Royals' Extra-Inning Power Continues to Awe in Postseason

These were supposed to be your small-ball Kansas City Royals, saviors of the sacrifice bunt and stolen base.

Yet, this is the postseason. It is a time of year when the improbable happens regularly and small-sample outcomes rule the tournament. The previous six months of predictability and data be damned.

These are the power-hitting Kansas City Royals, decriers of track records and winners of Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles 8-6 Friday night in 10 innings at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

It was Kansas City’s fourth extra-inning game in these playoffs, all of them ending in victories. And in three of those wins, the go-ahead run has come through a home run from one of the organization’s former top-three overall draft picks—Mike Moustakas (Game 1 of the ALDS), Eric Hosmer (Game 2) and Alex Gordon on Friday.

"

Playoff extra-inning home runs by the worst power-hitting team in the majors are the new market inefficiency.

— Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri) October 11, 2014"

If you followed the Royals during the regular season, this kind of power outburst would have been completely unexpected. Their lineup was dead last in the majors in home runs and their manager, Ned Yost, was a lover of small ball, bunting and running his team into its first postseason berth since 1985.

Coming into this ALCS against the Orioles, the narrative was obvious: The Royals don’t hit home runs, but they can steal bases and manufacture runs. The Orioles led the majors in homers and were last in stolen bases.

So, of course, as everyone figured would happen in this ridiculously wild and nutty postseason, the Royals erupted for three home runs Friday, two in the 10th inning, to make them the only team in playoff history to hit three go-ahead homers in extra innings in one postseason and the only one to hit four total extra-inning home runs in one postseason. They were caught stealing in their only attempt.

Meanwhile, the Orioles did not hit one homer and stole two bags.

"

Ok Royals. I am sorry but we are turning down your proposed movie script. It simply lacks any plausibility.

— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) October 11, 2014"

Before this series, some discussed how the Royals would have hit a lot more home runs if they played in Camden Yards despite Oriole Park ranking 20th out of 30 venues in surrendering home runs. Still, it was a topic even though Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City ranked 22nd.

“This is a park that’s a lot more conducive to hitting home runs than our ballpark is,” Royals manager Ned Yost said in his postgame press conference, somewhat downplaying the power of Baltimore’s lineup. “You put our club in this ballpark, we would have hit a lot more home runs than we ended up hitting. It showed tonight.”

What showed more than that is the Royals cannot be doubted in October, even when momentum shifts away from them as it did in the ninth inning. The Royals squandered a golden chance—bases loaded and nobody out—after three consecutive walks from typically dominant Baltimore closer Zach Britton.

Those kind of blown opportunities seem to be nothing new for the Royals, though. They overcame momentum shifts in the one-game wild-card playoff against the Oakland A’s and in their first two games of the ALDS against the Los Angeles Angels. They won all three of those games in extra innings.

That part of it might not be so jaw-dropping if the Royals weren’t doing it with the long ball. The Royals hit one extra-inning home run during the entire regular season and, even though this doesn’t have anything to do with the current roster, had never hit one as a franchise before this year.

Beyond that, the Royals have now hit seven home runs in their last four games, something they did just once during the regular season. And they hit three homers in one game just four times during the regular season. 

“We just find ways to win ballgames,” Yost said. “Sometimes it's home runs, sometimes it’s stealing bases, manufacturing runs. Most of the time it’s with good pitching and defense. These guys will find a way to get it done.”

Getting to this point was a long time in the making for the Royals, and it was a lot of “just wait until our draft picks bloom” for frustrated fans. Yet here are the Royals, three wins away from a World Series appearance, with the late-night heroics provided by those picks adorned with expectations who had their names called within the first 10 minutes of the draft.

Gordon (second overall pick in 2005), Moustakas (second overall in 2007) and Hosmer (third overall in 2008) are having coming-out parties in this postseason, and they are mostly taking place after the ninth inning. Those players are big parts of the group the Royals hoped would eventually lead them back into title contention, and here they are doing just that, beating teams at their own game as their postseason march continues.

“It’s already been a long postseason,” Gordon said on the TBS broadcast after the game, “but as long as we keep winning it doesn’t matter.”

Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News, and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.