Royals one win from World Series

Thanks to outstanding relief pitching, the Kansas City Royals are one win away from their first Fall Classic in nearly three decades.

Six pitchers combined to hold Baltimore hitless over the final six innings and the Royals put enough offense together for a 2-1 victory in game three of the American League Championship Series at Kauffman Stadium.

Kansas City, which still hasn’t lost in seven postseason games, will host game four Wednesday looking to advance to its first World Series since winning it all in 1985.

Baltimore led 1-0 and was looking to add more when Nick Markakis led off the top of the third with a bloop single. Not only would Markakis be left at first after Royals starter Jeremy Guthrie retired the next three batters in order with relative ease, but the Orioles would get just one base-runner the rest of the way.

That was a two-out walk to Ryan Flaherty in the fourth. Guthrie struck out Nick Hundley to end that inning, then had an easy time in a perfect fifth. Guthrie, making his first career postseason start, was lifted after five innings of three-hit ball and with his team tied at 1-1 (Lorenzo Cain singled and scored on Alex Gordon’s ground out in the bottom of the fourth).

That’s when the Royals’ bullpen took over.

Starting with Jason Frasor’s perfect sixth, Kansas City relievers set down all 12 batters they faced, including the Orioles’ 3-4-5 hitters of Adam Jones, Nelson Cruz and Steve Pearce twice each. Kelvin Herrera had a pair of strikeouts and was perfect in the seventh and Wade Davis followed suit in the eighth. Pearce, who in the second doubled and scored on J.J. Hardy’s double for Baltimore’s only run and first lead of the series, grounded out to second to end the game against closer Greg Holland.

The hosts’ pitching staff also benefited from the usual dose of excellent Royals’ defense, though this time it was the infield that shined the brightest. First baseman Eric Hosmer made a diving stop of Cruz’s ground ball to erase the lead off man in the second, and third baseman Mike Moustakas made a diving catch of Pearce’s line drive in the fourth and added a fantastic catch along the third base line, diving into the stands to snare Jones’ pop fly to start the sixth.

“Again, our bullpen stepped up big for us,” said Moustakas. “They’ve been doing it all year for us and they keep doing it.”

Kansas City took the lead for good in the sixth. Nori Aoki had a lead off single and after a strikeout, Hosmer ripped a single to right field that moved pinch-runner Jarrod Dyson to third. That chase Baltimore starter Wei-Yin Chen and Kevin Gausman served up Billy Butler's go-ahead sacrifice fly that allowed Dyson to score easily from third.

Chen pitched well - 5 1/3 innings, seven hits, two earned runs - but suffered the loss. Despite allowing the inherited runner to score, Gausman didn't surrender a base-runner in 2 2/3 innings and in eight innings out of the bullpen in his first postseason has given up just one run.