Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – The New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals 3-1 on Thursday and advance in the Major League Baseball playoffs as Cleveland kept their season alive with a 5-4 win over Detroit. Juan Soto, Gleyber Torres, and Giancarlo Stanton drove in runs for the Yankees, and pitching ace Gerrit Cole surrendered just one run over seven sparkling innings as the Yankees clinched their best-of-five American League division series 3-1 to reach the American League Championship Series. They’ll next face either the Detroit Tigers or Cleveland Guardians.
The Guardians leveled their series at two games apiece thanks to a two-run home run in the seventh inning from David Fry, whose sacrifice bunt added an insurance run in the top of the ninth that would prove to be the difference-maker. In Kansas City, Soto put New York in front in the first inning with a single that scored Torres, who opened the game with a double. Torres’s single in the fifth put the Yankees up 2-0, and game three home run hero Stanton knocked in a run with a single in the sixth. That was all the scoring Cole and the Yankees bullpen needed.
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“What a performance by GC to come out here and do his thing,” Yankees slugger Aaron Judge told broadcaster TBS of Cole, who allowed six hits with no walks and four strikeouts on 87 pitches. “That’s why he’s our ace. He goes out there and does performances like this when we need him to.” Closing pitcher Luke Weaver retired three straight batters in the bottom of the ninth to seal the win. Kansas City’s only run came with two outs in the bottom of the sixth — shortly after the benches briefly cleared in the wake of Yankees second baseman Anthony Volpe’s hard tag on Maikel Garcia.
The Yankees, who lost the 2022 ALCS to the Houston Astros and missed the postseason last year, will be favored against either Cleveland or Detroit in the ALCS when the best-of-seven series starts on Monday in New York. The Guardians will host the Tigers in game five of their series on Saturday.
**Fry fuels Guardians** – Shut out by the upstart Tigers in games two and three, the Guardians were down 3-2 when Fry was called in to pinch hit with one runner on and two out in the top of the seventh. He deposited a 97-mph fastball from Tigers reliever Beau Brieske over the left center field fence to put the Guardians ahead for good. “I was just trying to get a pitch to hit,” Fry said. “I had some opportunities yesterday to drive some runners in and didn’t get the job done. So I was looking to get it done for the boys and luckily it went out.”
Cleveland added a run in the top of the ninth, Fry laying down a bunt that allowed Brayan Rocchio to score from third base. Rocchio had singled with one out in the inning and reached third on Steven Kwan’s base hit. That insurance run proved necessary when the Tigers clawed one back in the bottom of the ninth. Justyn-Henry Malloy opened the inning off Cleveland closing pitcher Emmanuel Clase with a double to left field. He reached third on a ground out by Parker Meadows and scored on another ground ball by Jace Jung before Clase recorded the final out.
Cleveland ended a streak of 11 defeats in playoff elimination games, a skid dating back to game six of the 1997 World Series. Jose Ramirez also homered for the Guardians and Zach McKinstry homered for Detroit in a tense battle that twice saw the Tigers rally to tie it before they took a 3-2 on Wenceel Perez’s run-scoring single in the sixth.
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