2015 flashback: Stories, photos, pages from Royals’ ALDS Game 4 comeback victory

Five years ago this fall, the Kansas City Royals won their second World Series championship.

Fox Sports Kansas City is re-airing the Royals’ victories from that postseason this week. At 7 Tuesday night, May 5, it’s Game 4 of the ALDS.

To help you relive the moments from that magical October, we’ve dug into our archives.

Below are original stories, front pages and photos that appeared in the Oct. 13, 2015 editions of The Kansas City Star, the day after the Royals beat Houston 9-6 on a comeback for the ages to tie their best-of-five American League Division Series at 2-2:

Dejá blue: Royals again defy odds to play another day

HOUSTON — Two old friends sat at a table over plates of steak and chicken in a room adjacent to baseball’s most improbable relief. Alex Gordon and Luke Hochevar are the longest-tenured Royals. Together, they have seen so much. Something, even, sort of like what is so far the game of baseball’s postseason.

Across the hallway, speakers blared “Trap Queen,” the rap song that’s become this team’s anthem. There was joy and relief, but more than that there was amazement. The Royals had completed a nearly impossible comeback, turning a playoff death sentence into a 9-6 win over the Astros here on Monday. Their American League Division Series is pushed to a decisive Game 5 at 7 p.m. Wednesday back in Kansas City.

Again? This happened again? You could not help but be reminded of last year’s Wild Card Game against the Oakland Athletics, almost exactly 54 weeks earlier. A four-run deficit erased in the eighth inning — with Luke Gregerson on the mound for the other team, even — and if the Royals complete the deed on Wednesday, this one will fuel the same sorts of stories and awe.

Over their postgame meals, Gordon turned to Hochevar. He remembered hearing that entering the eighth inning, the Royals had a 3.5 percent chance of winning the Wild Card Game.

“Hey,” he said to Hochevar. “I wonder what the chances were here.”

For the record, entering Monday’s eighth inning, the computers gave the Royals a 3.2 percent chance to win. These calculations may or may not be junk science, but the fact that we’re having this discussion about another Royals game a year later is a direct rebuttal to any bit of logic. You’re only supposed to get one of these, if you’re lucky.

In the minutes that followed the madness, professional baseball players tried to make sense of it. Alcides Escobar said this was what happens when you keep grinding. Wade Davis talked about a team that never stops believing. Salvador Perez mentioned how much the guys care for each other and their goal of going one step more than last year.

Mike Moustakas’ name came up a lot. After the seventh inning, he walked into the dugout shouting about how the Royals would not lose this game. They would keep fighting, keep battling. This kind of thing makes great copy and video for media outlets, but drawing a direct connection between Moustakas’ shouting and another historic comeback is somewhere between embellished and fiction.

If it was that simple, why not shout before every inning? So what was different about today? About this moment? Why now?

“I don’t know, man,” Royals outfielder Jarrod Dyson said. “You gotta ask the Lord. You gotta ask God that question. I can’t tell you, man.”

The Royals had two hits and no life across seven innings. A close game blew open when Ryan Madson allowed an inherited runner and then two of his own to score. The Royals trailed by four. The Astros had hit four home runs, and the air in Minute Maid Park filled with cheers.

But if the Astros grabbed hold of this game with power, the Royals wrested it back with paper cuts. The play-by-play is truly remarkable: single, single, single, single, single, reached on error, strikeout, walk, groundout, walk, strikeout.

Alex Rios had reached base just three times in the entire series. In the eighth, he reached twice. Eric Hosmer had just one hit in 15 at bats, too many of them with men in scoring position. He singled in a run.

Drew Butera had not been to the plate in eight days and had never batted in a playoff game. He had what many of his teammates called the plate appearance of the day, a 10-pitch walk that brought Gordon to the plate with the bases loaded and one out. Gordon hit what he called the happiest groundout of his life, giving the Royals the lead, and the dugout rejoiced.

The moment so struck pitcher Edinson Volquez that, later, he would say the Royals were down six runs in that inning. It was only four, but by the feel of it, it might as well have been 14.

“Crazy,” Volquez said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Not in the playoffs, not in the regular season, not ever.”

It would be fun to draw that connection between Moustakas’ shouting and the Royals’ comeback. That would make for a fantastic story, like Raul Ibañez giving the pep talk before the eighth inning of the Wild Card Game.

But, as Jonny Gomes pointed out, the Royals did the same kind of shouting before the seventh inning on Monday, and no one got a hit. Heck, they did the same kind of shouting throughout Game 3 on Sunday, and lost.

Baseball is funny. It is our most measurable mainstream sport. We can know exactly how every hitter has performed with two outs or with runners on first and third or against soft-tossing lefties. We can know exactly how much movement is on every pitch, where it crossed the plate, and that combination’s expected success rate.

But we can’t know this. We can know the Astros’ bullpen is shaky, and that the Royals have reached this point in large part through resiliency, but we cannot know when it will all happen together. We can’t know when the moment will grab us.

In the movie, it would’ve been Moustakas’ speech. In the movie, the dugout would have been dull and Moustakas — played by Kiefer Sunderland? — would’ve walked in and started to shout, and the string music would’ve started playing in the background as the guys clapped in unison until Perez (played by Benicio del Toro, obviously) hit the grand slam. Also, this all would have happened in the ninth inning. And at home. Roll credits.

That’s not how it works, though. Reality is messier, much less predictable, and if we’re being honest, a heck of a lot more fun.

Moments like the one the Royals gave us on Monday are a blast precisely because they come from nowhere. This is what makes baseball so much fun. It is our most measurable sport, and it is also our most unpredictable. That’s a heck of a thing.

This is Gordon’s ninth big-league season. He has played more than 1,000 games in the majors and probably as many before that. Virtually all have been forgotten. This one he will remember forever. This is why baseball can be so damn fun. The smile on his face talking about how it all happened was pure joy.

“This will be even better to look back at when it’s all said and done,” Gordon said. “I’m already thinking about it, right now. Baseball’s crazy. I’m watching it in my head right now. It’s going around in circles. That ... that was fun.”

Fueled by Moose’s call, latest rally defies belief

HOUSTON — Only a fuzzy, slim line tends to distinguish the rational from the mythological in epic sports sagas.

That underscored the phenomenon that unfolded on Monday at Minute Maid Park that enabled the Royals to overtake Houston 9-6 and tie this American League Division Series.

Facing elimination and something like humiliation in a season that is World Series or bust, the Royals lagged 6-2 with two measly hits after seven innings.

You could measure the dire straits they were in by any number of means. But a fine instrument would be the official Twitter account of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, which about then offered congratulations to the Astros for “advancing to the ALCS!”

Which actually was a more tactful way of conveying what plenty of Royals fans were saying about their own team.

Especially as they retreated to the dugout after a deflating overturned call had ruled Terrance Gore out at third base in the seventh inning with a chance to tie - and as hopes were further doused by a three-run Houston seventh in which reliever Ryan Madson gave up two home runs.

When Madson got to the dugout, though, he was struck by the chirping he heard.

“’It’s not going to end like this! Don’t worry about it! We got it!’ “

The catalyst for that surge in spirit, if not scientifically the rousing comeback itself, was third baseman Mike Moustakas.

By the time he ran in from third base, Moustakas had a certain conviction and fury in his voice that would be the first thing many players mentioned as they tried to account for the spectacle of what came next.

“Moose was the main one for sure,” pinch runner Terrance Gore said, smiling. “Pretty aggressive.”

Moustakas, “just started yelling,” left fielder Alex Gordon said. “Kind of fired up the dugout, (and then) one thing kind of let to another.”

The central message served to remind them what they are about and from where they’ve come.

So did his invocation of the recurring team theme that underscored the legendary American League Wild Card win against Oakland last year.

“Keep the line moving,” a phrase you’d hear all over the clubhouse later.

One man, one pitch, at a time, the Royals did just that to manufacture a critical-mass, five-run seventh that affirmed Moustakas’ best explanation of a scenario that defies the laws of order.

“This is what we do: never quit and never give up,” Moustakas said afterward.

As for what he said at the time, he joked that he couldn’t repeat some of it “on air.”

But his words probably mattered less than their tone and passion.

“’We’re not losing this game!’” he yelled, in part. “’We’ve worked too hard, and we’ve come too far!’”

Many a similar pep talk no doubt has shriveled up and gone blowing in the wind when rallies failed to ignite.

For that matter, this one hinged on so many more things.

Starting with the fact that maybe if Alex Rios hadn’t gotten the first of five straight singles to open the inning, none of the rest would have happened.

But Rios did, and as catcher Sal Perez put it, “Everybody followed.”

From Moustakas’ cue, and you can embrace or dismiss the actual impact, but it will become a foundation of this lore.

“I mean, you can yell, and sometimes it doesn’t happen,” Gordon said. “But, obviously, we care about this a lot and we want to win. And it showed there in the eighth inning with some guys stepping up and trying to lead it out of the gates.

“And it worked, so ...”

That doesn’t really explain how it happened, exactly, but what can?

And maybe it’s enough that it says something about how it started and sustained itself some. And about the power of hope and belief.

“Luck,” playwright Tennessee Williams once wrote, “is believing you’re lucky.”

After so many woebegone years for the franchise, it’s represented now by a group that believes it’s good and lucky - or at least capable of concocting its own fortune.

And why shouldn’t it feel that way after the Wild Card Game that transformed them from hapless to the most happening team in baseball?

Whether that experience was an active frame of reference or is just hard-wired in them by now, last year’s comeback from four runs down in the eighth inning loomed over and at least in some way stoked this one.

“Oh, a lot,” said Perez, who was in the training room with his neck encased in ice. “Every second, every hit, every score. ...

“Yeah, yeah, I think being in that situation before helped a lot.”

But this also was its own distinct story, one that somehow happened despite its own incalculable variables.

The simplest was this: The Royals had scored four runs in 16 innings in two games here before their 41-minute eighth inning.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Rios, Escobar, Ben Zobrist, Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer singled successively to cut it to 6-4 for Kendrys Morales.

Morales smacked a hard grounder up the middle, ruled an error, to tie it 6-6.

Moustakas struck out swinging, but then reserve catcher Drew Butera kept the line moving and the inning afloat by earning a 10-pitch walk.

“What an at-bat by him,” said Gordon, who then drove in the go-ahead run with a ground-out.

Hosmer, who had been in a one-for-15 funk before his single in the eighth, added a two-run homer in the ninth to add the exclamation point, and the cold-blooded Wade Davis closed it out.

The stuff that dreams are made of, again.

And like most mysteries of the universe, well, it had to start somewhere - and Moustakas’ cajoling is as good a place as any.

Back from the brink: Royals win 9-6 after trailing Astros by four runs after seven

HOUSTON — Ned Yost gazed at his feet as he traversed the bowels of Minute Maid Park, exiting a Royals clubhouse still humming after a comeback that kept a season alive and stunned even the heartiest of the faithful. He passed clubhouse attendants loading bats and luggage for a flight to Kansas City and Game 5 of the American League Division Series, an outcome in peril when Monday’s eighth inning began.

The hallways were quiet as Yost strode toward his postgame news conference. Along the way, he walked by the hushed confines of the Houston Astros, who saw their champagne celebration canceled by a 9-6 victory by the Royals in Game 4. Yost could believe it — he had seen something so similar in last year’s Wild Card Game — and yet he could not.

“That kind of came out of nowhere, huh?” Yost said. He shook his head, still trying to process the result. “Sometimes there’s things that are meant to be.”

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Down four runs in the eighth, six outs away from an early winter, the Royals stormed back to astonish their opponents. It sounds improbable only because it sounds so familiar. The debate will rage until Wednesday, when Johnny Cueto takes the ball for Kansas City, about which comeback was better: The extra-inning scramble to defeat Oakland last year or the five-run ambush to wreck a coronation in Houston?

The victory over the Athletics opened the door to a franchise-restoring run to the World Series. The story of the 2015 Royals remains unfinished, but they earned the chance to write at least one more chapter.

Both comebacks occurred with four-run deficits in the eighth, and both involved reliever Luke Gregerson, a setup man in Oakland then, the closer in Houston now. Gregerson completed the Astros’ bullpen implosion when he walked backup catcher Drew Butera and let Alex Gordon hit a grounder that scored the winning run. For insurance, Eric Hosmer tacked on a two-run homer in the ninth.

“The percentages of baseball certainly weren’t in our favor,” general manager Dayton Moore said. “These guys went out and took the game.”

They withstood a ferocious shelling in the seventh, when shortstop Carlos Correa and outfielder Colby Rasmus detonated homers off Ryan Madson and electrified the park. The barrage appeared to only motivate their guests, as the players vowed that “these are going to be the toughest six outs you ever get,” reserve outfielder Jarrod Dyson said.

For seven innings, the Royals looked lifeless. In the eighth, they became the undead, refusing to let their season perish. An innocuous single by Alex Rios soon mushroomed into a bases-loaded situation with none out for Lorenzo Cain. He roped a single. Hosmer smacked only his second hit in 16 postseason at-bats to cut the deficit to two.

A swing by Kendrys Morales and an error by rookie shortstop Carlos Correa tied the game. Morales punched a grounder up the middle. The ball evaded reliever Tony Sipp and caromed off the mound. Correa rushed forward and felt the ball bounce off his glove. Cain raced home to tie the game and set up Gordon’s eventual RBI.

“We love each other,” Gordon said. “We have fun together. And we fight together. That’s what we did today. We never gave up.”

The top of the inning lasted 40 minutes. The bottom lasted seven pitches. Wade Davis threw all of them. He also handled the ninth for the two-inning save.

The victory sets the stage for Cueto, Kansas City’s erstwhile ace, to face Collin McHugh in Game 5. Kansas City struggled to solve McHugh in Game 1. The Astros bruised Cueto for four runs in Game 2. Because Cueto was reticent about pitching on short rest, the Royals turned to Yordano Ventura for Game 1 and Monday’s potential series finale.

On the mound only three days after his last start, Ventura struck out eight in five innings but could not suppress Correa. Correa smashed a game-tying homer in the third and a go-ahead double in the fifth, which was a prelude for the seventh-inning bombing of Madson.

The Royals appeared set for heartbreak. The offense supplied two hits against Lance McCullers, a rookie making his postseason debut. A seventh-inning rally short-circuited on a controversial decision at third base, when Terrance Gore was called out on a replay reversal. The deficit expanded to four soon after.

Ventura was still the oldest starter on the mound on Monday. Houston countered with McCullers, a 22-year-old with a 95-mph fastball and a hammer curve.

The Royals claimed the lead in the second inning. Perez clobbered an opposite-field shot for a two-run homer.

The Astros tied the game with two solo blasts. Ventura hung a curveball in the bottom of the second, and Carlos Gomez deposited it into the Crawford Boxes in left. An inning later, Correa pulled his hands inside and hammered a 96-mph fastball. The pitch was a ball, and still Correa powered it out.

Correa bested Ventura once more in the fifth. Ventura issued a two-out walk to outfielder George Springer. With the count full, Ventura hummed a fastball over the heart of the plate. Correa ripped a rocket into right. The ball evaded Hosmer’s glove by inches and rattled off the wall. Springer’s helmet flew off his head as he barreled home for the go-ahead run.

When McCullers hit Perez in the seventh, Yost fired his fastest bullet. Gore replaced Perez at first base. He stole second on the first pitch from reliever Will Harris. There he idled while Gordon struck out. But with Rios at the plate, Gore jetted into third.

Both of his feet arrived before Luis Valbuena dropped a tag. The momentum from Gore spilled Valbuena into foul territory. Houston manager A.J. Hinch challenged the call. The replay showed that Gore’s feet left the bag for a split second; it was unclear if Valbuena kept his glove on during the interlude.

The replay crew in New York ruled Gore out, a decision that stunned the Royals. Yet the two homers against Madson, for whatever reason, appeared to have the opposite effect.

When the inning ended, Moustakas charged off the diamond and lit up the dugout with expletives.

“I’m not ready to go home yet!” he hollered.

The message acted like kindling. Just as it did in the eighth inning against Oakland, the dugout came alive.

Up came Rios, who had only one hit in the series entering Monday’s eighth inning. He roped a first-pitch cutter off Harris for a single. Escobar shuttled a curveball up the middle for another hit. Ben Zobrist deposited a hanging curveball in center for a third single.

“We had our biggest at-bats at the most important times,” Moore said.

Hinch stuck with Harris to face Cain. He roped a single into left to bring home a run. Now Hosmer entered the fray, aware of his miserable postseason, hoping to alter the narrative with one swing. But he did not aim for the fences.

Hosmer fouled back two fastballs from Sipp, a southpaw. He ignored two sliders in the dirt. Then he ripped an RBI single into right, opening the door for Morales’ grounder and Correa’s error.

With the game tied, Sipp struck out Moustakas. Hinch sent Gregerson to face backup catcher Drew Butera. It was Butera’s first postseason plate appearance, and he walked.

The bases were loaded for Gordon. He was hitless for the day, with little success all series. He found a heater and bounced it into second baseman Jose Altuve’s glove.

“I was pumping my fist after getting an out,” Gordon said. “I usually don’t do that.”

A thrilled group of teammates greeted both Gordon and Hosmer after the run. Hosmer would later crush a homer off reliever Josh Fields in the ninth. Davis smothered the Astros for the last sixth outs. One man accomplished what four Astros could not.

On the ground floor of Minute Maid Park, walking toward his news conference, Yost kept shaking his head. He had watched his team to do this before. To see it again was a welcome sight.

“They just don’t quit,” Yost said. “They just don’t quit.”

Hos awakens in elite eighth

HOUSTON — Eric Hosmer stood in the batter’s box in the eighth inning having failed in 15 of his 16 previous plate appearances against the Astros in the American League Division Series.

If he didn’t come through here and contribute to a rally, it’s possible that the series would have ended with the solitary single on his 2015 postseason resume, a blotch on an otherwise stellar season.

But Hosmer got not one, but two more plate appearances, driving in a total of three runs with a single in the eighth and a two-run homer in the ninth to put the finishing touches on a 9-6 Royals victory in Game 4.

The home run was a towering shot into the Astros’ bullpen, but that probably wouldn’t have happened if Hosmer had not come through in the eighth.

He stepped in against Astros reliever Tony Sipp, the lefty summoned to stop a Royals hitting conga line that had already reached four straight singles and produced a run.

The aim here was simplicity. Keep things rolling, get the inning to the next guy, in this case, Kendrys Morales.

“Right there, bases loaded, especially with Kendrys coming up, you’re trying to get on base for him,” Hosmer said.

Hosmer fouled off two pitches and held up on two outside the strike zone.

“Finally got one out over the plate and put a good swing on it,” he said

A line-drive single to right field produced another run and made it 6-4. Hosmer got his swing back just in time.

“I’ve been getting beat by a lot of fastballs,” Hosmer said. “You get down two strikes, you miss a couple of heaters, and I’m just trying to put the ball in play.”

The inning continued until the Royals had scored five and taken a 7-6 lead.

Until the eighth, the Royals has been an offensive mystery. The power was there. When Salvador Perez belted a two-run homer in the second inning, the Royals had their sixth blast of the series. But that was about the only manner in which they were scoring. To that point, seven of the 11 runs in the series came via a home run. Perez’s shot was the first with a runner on base.

Hosmer’s home run off Josh Fields provided insurance and took some pressure off Royals closer Wade Davis, who pitched his second inning with a three-run advantage.

“It was critical for us to score in the ninth,” Hosmer said. “Obviously we have all the confidence in the world in Wade, but the way the Astros are playing now you knew they weren’t going to go away quietly.”

Neither was Hosmer, whose playoff bat woke up just in time.