Since Johnny Cueto joined the Kansas City Royals after the trade deadline, the team and its fans have been waiting to see the pitcher who was one of the best in MLB during the past four-and-a-half seasons. He finally showed himself when the Royals needed him most, with their season on the line in a decisive Game 5 of the ALDS at Kauffman Stadium.
Cueto hadn’t looked like much of an ace in his previous 14 starts with Kansas City. In the regular season, he compiled a 4.76 ERA with 101 hits allowed in 81.1 innings, along with only 56 strikeouts. In September (and one start in October), Cueto’s ERA was 5.58, including 56 hits and 12 walks allowed in 40.1 innings. The Royals had every reason to be concerned over whether or not he could be relied upon in the postseason.
Those doubts weren’t erased in Game 2 of the ALDS versus the Astros, in which Cueto gave up four runs, seven hits and three walks in seven innings. But Kansas City obviously got Cueto for a reason, to be the man to put on the mound in a do-or-die game, to be the No. 1 guy that could shut down the opposition and carry his team into the next round of the playoffs and beyond.
Early on, it looked as if Cueto might slip up again when Luis Valbuena cranked a two-run homer off him in the second inning. Yet the home team falling behind didn’t take the Kauffman Stadium crowd out of the game at all. And though the Royals were down 2-0, it felt like it was only a matter of time before they came back to tie the score and take the lead (which they did in the fifth inning) because Cueto was invincible from that point on.
To put a number on Cueto’s dominance, he retired 19 consecutive batters after serving up Valbuena’s home run. Whatever he’d been missing or hadn’t been able to find during the past 10 weeks in a Royals uniform, he most definitely rediscovered Wednesday night. Everything came together for him when the Royals needed it to the most.
Overall, Cueto pitched eight innings, allowing two runs on only two hits with eight strikeouts and no walks. Royals manager Ned Yost removed from the game for the ninth inning, but having thrown just 91 pitches and cruising through the Astros’ lineup with no trouble, Cueto likely could have finished the game off.
That was especially true after Kendrys Morales hit a three-run shot off Dallas Keuchel in the eighth to give the Royals a 7-2 lead. But with Wade Davis available to pitch the ninth, there was no sense in even tempting fate. Keep the Astros down and get ready for the ALCS.
For the Astros, an ascendant ended on a night in which it was simply clear the Royals were the better team, as they had been throughout most of the regular season. Obviously, this ending is disappointing — even more so when this young team could have closed out the series in Game 4 at Minute Maid Park, but blew a 6-2 seventh-inning lead. It certainly felt like Houston had missed its best opportunity to eliminate the defending AL champions.
Though to its credit, Houston didn’t play like a deflated team that had to play an extra game on Wednesday night. The Astros had no answers for Cueto (with the exception of Valbuena’s early home run), but they didn’t just lie down and concede the series either. The Royals beat them, setting up a championship series between the two best teams in the league. Next year, Houston might be one of those clubs. It’s just not their time yet.
— Johnny Cueto (@JohnnyCueto) October 15, 2015
The Royals and Blue Jays are meeting up in the postseason for the first time since 1985, when Kansas City won the ALCS in seven games and went on to win the World Series. Game 1 of the ALCS will begin Friday night at Kaufmann Stadium. Though starters and rosters have not yet been determined, it seems likely that Edinson Volquez will start for Kansas City with Marco Estrada getting the nod for Toronto. First pitch is scheduled for 8:07 p.m. ET and will be televised on Fox.