Chris Young carries Royals to victory with masterful relief outing

As Game 1 of the World Series trudged late into the night, and Chris Young paced back toward the mound in the top of the 14th, a New Jersey native named Scott Bradley looked on from his seat at Kauffman Stadium.

In a few minutes, the longest Game 1 in World Series history would reach its rightful conclusion, a 5-4 Royals victory over the New York Mets on a night with an inside-the-park homer in the first, a game-tying homer in the ninth, and a starting pitcher who had lost his father earlier on Tuesday.

But in this moment, as night prepared to turn to morning, Bradley was most focused on the 6-foot-10 figure in the middle of the field, digging his toe into the pitcher’s mound.

Seventeen years ago, on a spring day in 1998, Bradley had traveled to Highland Park, Texas, to watch a lanky high school senior, a right-handed pitcher with an uncanny ability to rise to the moment. Bradley, who had recently taken the job of head baseball coach at Princeton, had been talking to the kid for months. And every week, the college coach and the high school pitcher would spend some time on the phone.

Sometimes they talked about Bradley’s own playing career, which included a stint catching Randy Johnson on the Seattle Mariners. Sometimes, they discussed the kid’s basketball talent, which had attracted the attention of Division I programs. But there was one day, Bradley says, where he had a specific question for Chris Young.

“Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” Bradley asked. “Where do you want to be?”

“Honestly,” Young answered. “I see myself pitching in the World Series.”

So you can see, perhaps, why Bradley had to be here on Tuesday night, finding his seat on a chilly evening at Kauffman Stadium. For the last 17 years, he had seen pretty much every chapter of Young’s career, from his days as a two-sport star at Princeton, to his early years with the Texas Rangers, to his All-Star turn with the San Diego Padres, to the injuries that nearly derailed his career over the last five years.

On Tuesday night in Kansas City, he witnessed the latest one, a three-inning masterpiece of relief work that carried the Royals to a 1-0 series lead in this best-of-seven series.

“My goodness,” teammate Danny Duffy would say. “Just the ultimate competitor.”

Young, who was scheduled to pitch Game 4 on Saturday in New York, entered the game in the top of the 12th, with the score tied at 4-4. And this is what happened next: He retired nine of the 10 batters he faced. He did not allow a hit. He recorded four strikeouts. And he touched 90 mph on the radar gun for the first time in six years.

He also needed just 53 pitches, leaving open the possibility that he could return to start Game 4.

“The thing that’s so special to me is the confidence we all have in him,” Royals manager Ned Yost said.

On a night defined by chaos and raw emotion, Young was the personification of calm, an unmoved figure working through the teeth of the Mets lineup. His fastball had life, he said, and his slider had depth. According to the radar-gun readings, he had not thrown this hard since a rare shoulder ailment — thoracic outlet syndrome — robbed his fastball of velocity more than three years ago.

“Well,” Young would say, “it’s the World Series. If you were in the World Series, you’d be throwing harder, too.”

Young would say the night felt like any other performance. He tried to lock into the moment and do his job, he said. Except this was not any performance, and this was not any day.

More than four hours earlier, Yost had pulled Young aside and told him to be prepared for a long relief stint. Yost had learned that his starting pitcher, Edinson Volquez, had lost his father earlier on Tuesday, and he wanted Young prepared in case Volquez could not go.

The news stirred feelings inside Young. Just a month ago, he had lost his father, Charles, to a battle with cancer. When he heard about Volquez’s father, his mind drifted to that night in late September.

“I feel his pain,” Young said.

In the end, Young would not be needed early. But as the game pushed on, and the Royals tied the game at 4-4 on Alex Gordon’s homer in the ninth inning, Yost began to piece together a plan. If the game stretched on, Young would be available.

“We felt good about bringing Chris in that game because nothing affects him — nothing,” Yost said. “He’s just going to come in and make pitches and hold the fort until we could find a way to win.”

And that is pretty much what happened. Young entered the game, kept the Mets at bay for three innings, and the Royals would scratch across a run in the bottom of the 14th.

“This team has so much character,” Young would say, “so much fight.”

In the moments after the longest Game 1 in World Series history, Young was standing in front of his locker in the Royals clubhouse. His World Series debut had come four days earlier than expected, and it had come during a wild night of baseball. All around him, reporters were asking about Volquez, and the feeling of pitching in mourning. One month later, after the joy of stepping onto a World Series field for the first time, Young could still understand.

“For a brief period of time, it takes your mind off of it,” he said. “But almost every inning tonight, I was thinking about my dad, hearing his voice, and I’m sure that Edinson is, too.

“Any time I feel like I lose focus, I hear my dad in my head, saying, ‘Concentrate. Focus on what you need to do to help this club win’. He’s with me constantly.”

This story was originally published October 28, 2015 at 3:58 AM with the headline "Chris Young carries Royals to victory with masterful relief outing."