Kansas City, Mo.— Gerrit Cole pitched like a postseason champ 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 just in the American League Championship Series.
The six-time All-Star scattered six hits and struck out four before handing the ball over to New York’s bullpen, which dominated a tense American League Division Series. Clay Holmes pitched a perfect eighth inning and Luke Weaver breezed through the ninth, extending Yankees relievers’ scoreless streak 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 ran for the Yankees, who clinched their fourth American League Championship Series berth in an eight-year run. They won 50 road games in the regular season, the most in 21 years.
Michael Wacha failed to get through five innings for Kansas City, allowing two runs, six hits and one walk. He didn’t get much help from a longtime offense that managed just five total runs scored in the final three games of the series.
Still, it’s a momentous turnaround for a club that went from a 106-game losing streak to a laughing stock a year ago to its first postseason appearance since winning the 2015 World Series. And with young stars like Bobby Witt Jr. signed a long-term contract, there is hope in Kansas City that this is the beginning, not the end.
New York set the tone from the start, attacking Wacha as it did in the first game of the series. Torres hit the veteran right-hander’s first pitch for a double, and Soto followed with an RBI single on just his third pitch of the night.