ALCS Game Two and Sunday Notes on Saturday Night

There were 46,912 fans at Oriole Park at Camden Yards today/tonight. Between print, radio and TV, there were just over 800 credentialed media. As for the 31 players who performed on the field, they put on another good show. This game wasn’t as wild and wacky as the one that ended just before one o’clock this morning, but it was still a doozy – a doozy that last 4 hours and 17 minutes. The Royals scored twice in the ninth inning on a double by Alcides Escobar and a single by Lorenzo Cain to win 6-4.

As usual, I won’t write much here about what you just saw on TV. What I will do is supply some color in the form of post-game quotes and fold this over into my weekly Sunday Notes column.

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Mike Moustakas on homering for the third consecutive game and executing a sacrifice bunt in the ninth inning: “That’s how we’re playing the game right now. Any way we’re going to score runs, we’re going to score. If that means sac bunting or hit-and-running – anything to generate runs – we’re fine with it. But I’m seeing the ball good right now. I’m getting good pitches to hit and I’m not missing them.”

Lorenzo Cain on making a spectacular diving catch in right-center field: “Zone in and make the play. I don’t think about messing up. I’m not a guy who is scared or fearful about making a mistake. I’m willing to lay out and do whatever it takes to make a play. I’m going to continue to play that way. I’ve played that way my entire life.”

Ned Yost on the Royals benefiting from some soft hits: “That’s good hitting, yeah. I’ll take bloop hits all day long. They get bloop hits, too. They’re a little bit aggravating.”

Buck Showalter on decision-making and being down two games to none: “I could go over about a hundred decisions Ned and I have to make, and the players, more importantly, have to make. It can be kind of maddening if you let it, but you trust your instincts and know your guys. You’ve got to win four games. You’ve got to keep from losing more than three. That’s obviously oversimplifying it.”

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A lot has been written about Buck Showalter in recent weeks, and deservedly so. The quotable manager has achieved cult status in Baltimore, and if he leads the Orioles to the promised land – a more daunting task than it was 24 hours ago – Earl Weaver might eventually have company in Camden Yards statue land.

Less has been written about Ned Yost – at least in regard to positive print – so let’s spill some cyberspace ink on the much-maligned Royals skipper. After all, his holy-crap-they-might-win-it-all team is currently in the driver’s seat against Showalter’s squad in the ALCS.

Let’s start with some words from outfielder Lorenzo Cain, who has been setting the world on fire since I spoke with him at the outset of the series.

“I would say he was kind of conservative to start the season,” Cain told me. “Toward the end here he’s been a lot more aggressive, changing pitchers and making moves. He changed the lineup – one, two, three – and that’s definitely an aggressive move. You have to take risks in this game to be successful and that’s what he’s doing.

“Buck Showalter is a really good manager, but we have a really good manager as well. Managing and making moves is definitely going to come into play in this series, but as players we understand we have to get it done on the field. A manager can make moves, but at the end of the day, we have to go out there and perform.”

So far, Cain has held up his end of the bargain. He’s 6 for 8 with a pair of walks, and his defense in center field has been immaculate.

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Admittedly, I don’t see enough of the Royals and Mariners to be an expert on either. That said, I wonder how similar Ned Yost and Lloyd McClendon are as managers. Statistical markers can be misleading – we’re talking different rosters in different ballparks – but some of the numbers align. Each team was in the middle of the pack in sacrifice bunts – McClendon’s club had 35, Yost’s 33 – and their hitters finished 14th and 15th respectively in the American League in walks.

Whether those cherry-picked comps tell you anything meaningful about their tendencies is debatable. But one thing seems certain: The two have become less rigid in their approaches.

During last year’s winter meetings, McClendon told me the biggest thing he’s learned since managing the Pirates from 2001-2005 is to “Let them play the game.” He owned up to once having been “a young manager whose intensity probably overshadowed his players.” He said he now knows “it’s important to stand back and let them do their thing.”

Yost said almost the same thing this week. A disciple of Bobby Cox – he coached under him for over a decade – the KC skipper used to be my-way-or-the-highway. Not anymore.

“I always tried to push them to be more like me instead of letting them be themselves,” said Yost. “I learned last year that if you let a young group that has energy, and they’re excited to play the game, and you let them be themselves, you’ll probably be in a better position.”

As for Yost’s in-game skills, there isn’t enough space in this column to debate the pros and cons. Not that he’d give a rat’s patootie what we think.

“The scrutiny is the scrutiny,” said Yost. “I can put a player in the ballgame and if he gets a base hit or gets a big out, nobody is going to say a word. I put that same ballplayer in the game and he strikes out or gives up a hit, then all the second-guessing comes down. I’ve learned that it’s neither right or wrong most of the time. You make the right decision [and] it either works out or it doesn’t.”

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More often than not, a ball hit in the general direction of Alex Gordon is going to end up in his glove. The underrated Royal led all American League outfielders with 27 defensive runs saved this season. On Friday night a national TV audience got a glimpse of that greatness.

The run-saving diving catch he made in Game One elicited an excellent Tweet by MLB.com’s Matt Myers: “Alex Gordon is the rare player who moved to left field and significantly increased his defensive value.”

Prior to yesterday’s game I asked Kansas City first base coach Rusty Kuntz – the team’s defensive guru – about Gordon’s grab. I was especially interested in his positioning, as Gordon covered more ground than runaway crabgrass in order to make the play. It turns out he was right where he was supposed to be.

According to Kuntz, Gordon was playing where Steve Pearce would typically hit the ball in that situation. The direction of the drive suggested to Kuntz that James Shields‘ location was off, a situation which will impact defensive schemes. When a pitcher is missing his spots, the Royals tend to play hitters more straight up as there is more randomness to where balls will be hit.

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No one is hitting the ball very well against Andrew Miller right now. Many aren’t hitting it all. The overpowering lefty reliever has pitched six-and-a-third scoreless innings in the postseason and has allowed just one hit and one walk. He’s fanned seven. His slider has been a thing of beauty – unless you’re in the batter’s box.

Miller won a World Series ring with the Red Sox last year, and he knows what a good clubhouse vibe feels like. He’s in the middle of one right now in Baltimore. I asked him prior to Game One how the two October atmospheres compare.

“In a lot of ways it’s very similar and in a lot of ways it’s really different,” responded Miller, who came to Baltimore in a trade-deadline deal. “This is a good clubhouse – everyone gets along and it’s a good dynamic – but the question is always, ‘What comes first, that or winning?’ I stepped into a team that was winning and gets along really well.

“It’s a different group of personalities,” added Miller. “If you look at who everybody considers the leaders of this bunch, it’s hard not to think of Adam Jones and Nick Markakis. They aren’t as loud as some of the characters we had in Boston, but their voices carry the same amount of weight. They lead in their own individual ways.”

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A few factoids on Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar, on whom scouts [good glove!] and defensive metrics [meh] aren’t in accord. There are no arguments on the double play he started on a sharp ground ball toward the middle by Nelson Cruz in Game One. It was an overshadowed big moment on a wild night.

Escobar was one of four players to appear in 162 games this season. The others were Freddie Freeman, Evan Longoria and Hunter Pence. Over the past four seasons Escobar has played more regular games, 633, at shortstop than anyone in baseball.

Escobar’s home run off of Chris Tillman was one of Friday’s more unpredictable happenings. Over the course of the regular season, Escobar went deep once in 432 at bats against right-handed pitching. The blast came at Kauffman Stadium against Minnesota’s Phil Hughes in April.

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An interesting and mostly unnoticed occurrence came in the seventh inning of Game One when Jarrod Dyson pinch ran. The Royals speedster slid off – was pushed off? – the second base bag and was tagged out by Jonathan Schoop. That wasn’t the under-the-radar part of the play [my apologies if TBS announcers actually discussed this, which I’m guessing they didn’t].

Orioles first baseman Steve Pearce was positioned off the bag while holding Dyson on. Showalter has employed this strategy from time to time in the past, and hasn’t been too forthcoming on why. Earlier this summer he allowed that a primary purpose is that the runner freezes whenever the first baseman makes any kind of movement toward the bag.

Kevin Gausman nearly picked off Dyson prior to the unsuccessful steal. During Thursday’s media session, I asked the young righthander how the Orioles will go about shutting down the Royals’ running game. “We’ll switch it up a little bit,” Gausman said. “We’ll monitor our times to the plate and our looks over, just to change up our holds – things like that.” The outside-the-box hold by his first baseman was obviously part of that plan.

Updating this segment, which I initially wrote mid-game. As you might have noticed, the Orioles employed the strategy again tonight. They did so in the ninth inning, first with Terrance Gore and then with Dyson. The Royals gave up an out to move Gore over and yes, they probably should have had him try to steal. The speedster certainly felt he could have swiped the bag. After the game, he told me, “I felt very confident if I was stealing, because I had [the pitcher] pretty good there.”

I asked Gore if he’d been held on with the first baseman off the bag.

“First time ever,” responded Gore. “I didn’t let it affect me at all, though. He went back toward first and I didn’t even flinch. I didn’t even look at him. Rusty told me not to. If you see him sliding over, that’s going to make you want to jab back that way. I didn’t stare at him, I didn’t even blink at him.”

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I went to the Babe Ruth Museum on Friday afternoon and it was well worth the $6 admittance fee. Located at Ruth’s birthplace in one of four row houses near Camden Yards, it isn’t expansive, but there are some great artifacts. Among them are the catcher’s mitt he used as a miscreant youth at St. Mary’s Industrial School, autographed balls — including one signed by Ruth, John McGraw and Connie Mack – and a bat given to Ruth by Shoeless Joe Jackson. Copies of Babe Ruth Sports comics from the 1940s, and the 1935 edition of Babe Ruth’s Big Book of Baseball (64 pages!) caught my eye. Ditto some old Ruth baseball cards.

There are a few non-Ruth-specific oddities, like a 1914 Baltimore Terrapins pennant. The Terrapins were a short-lived Federal League team that influenced the sale of Ruth from the minor-league Orioles to the Red Sox. Also at the museum is a donation by former Red Sox pitcher Ed Carroll, who served up Ruth’s 479th home run. Carroll’s 1929 equipment bag is there, as well as his uniform, cap, glove, and metal protective cup. You read that last part right: metal protective cup.

There’s a lot more. It’s worth a visit the next time you’re in Baltimore. As for whether the Orioles make it back to Camden Yards this fall… only time will tell. They’re in a 2-0 hole right now, but the 2014 postseason has been anything but predictable.