2015 flashback: Stories, photos, pages from Royals’ ALDS Game 5 clinching 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 Wednesday night, May 6, it’s Game 5 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. 15, 2015 editions of The Kansas City Star, the day after the Royals beat Houston and clinched their best-of-five American League Division Series 3-2:

Cueto aces test in Royals’ 7-2 victory

Johnny Cueto took his hat off and pounded his chest with his right fist. He screamed into the air, and the crowd at Kauffman Stadium screamed back with the kind of force you only hear in the playoffs. For so long in Kansas City, we never heard that force. For this night, finally, Cueto was helping.

This is the man the Royals thought they were trading for three months ago, the proven ace they calculated worth three left-handed pitching prospects. When they made the trade, there was near consensus applause throughout the industry. When Cueto started pitching for the Royals, there was near consensus confusion.

For most of Cueto’s time here, he was something entirely different from an ace. That time has passed. That time does not matter.

The only reason the Royals traded for Cueto was for a night like this, and Cueto was everything they could have expected in helping the Royals to a 7-2 win over the Astros that clinched the American League Division Series on Wednesday. Game 1 of the AL Championship Series will be Friday night against the Blue Jays.

This was a reputation-saving performance for Cueto, at least for his reputation here in Kansas City. He had been closer to a No. 5 starter than a No. 1 for most of his time here — a 4.76 ERA and a .307 batting average against him in the regular season.

Confidence was low enough that Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland openly talked about having a short leash if Cueto got into early trouble Wednesday. Before the game, manager Ned Yost said he hoped to get six innings from Cueto. When was the last time you heard that said about a supposed ace?

As it turned out, Cueto was even better than Yost had hoped — eight innings, two runs, two hits, no walks and eight strikeouts.

“He was unbelievably good,” Yost said. “He knew the magnitude of this game. I think we all did. He came out from the first pitch and had everything going.”

Cueto will be a free agent this winter, and he will almost certainly be pitching somewhere else next season. This was always a business relationship between player and team, on both sides, and for a long time the Royals were losing games and Cueto was losing money.

His time here had almost certainly cost him millions on his next contract. He was deferential, unwilling to pitch on short rest in this series, blamed much of his bad performance on how Sal Perez set up behind the plate and — worst of all, of course — was terrible.

The trend was impossible to ignore because the nature of this partnership created urgency around every start.

But, who knows, maybe he earned some of that money back on Wednesday. More important to the Royals and Kansas City, he earned some of his reputation back.

The Royals traded a significant part of their future for Cueto to help them now, and here, when it mattered most, he delivered. The economics of baseball mean the Royals have one more year with this core, two tops. Even now, Alex Gordon may be playing his last season with the Royals. Greg Holland’s future is clouded by Tommy John surgery.

So the Royals went all in on this season, with Cueto the centerpiece of the movement. Before Game 2, he had promised that people would see his true ability. He was not very good that night — four runs and 10 base runners over six innings — but the Royals won anyway.

That would have been the extent of Cueto’s postseason if not for that epic comeback Monday afternoon in Houston. Cueto took full advantage of the reprieve.

He was noticeably amped during this start. Not just by the way he walked off the mound, or even the way he — playfully, it looked like — exchanged trash talk with Carlos Gomez after an at-bat. He threw some of the hardest fastballs of the season, and other than one mistake to Luis Valbuena, pitched with his customary masterly control and deception.

Even that pitch wasn’t that bad. It was low, and near the inside corner, but it also hit a flaming hot part of Valbuena’s swing. It should have cost only one run, but the batter before reached on an infield single. Mike Moustakas fielded Evan Gattis’ ball, but his throw was wide. Eric Hosmer tried a swipe tag, but the ball popped loose. Those were the only two hits the Astros managed against Cueto. He walked no one.

He appeared to do that signature shimmy only once. This was all business. One at-bat stands out in particular. It was the seventh inning, the Royals led by two, and you could feel the energy around the stadium building.

He started Colby Rasmus with a soft slider, only 81 miles per hour. Judging by the reaction, Rasmus was surprised. Cueto’s slider is usually a few miles per hour faster than that. On the next pitch, Cueto did a quick delivery on a 94 mph fastball. Rasmus swung way too late, and at that point Cueto was in full control. Two pitches later, he struck out Rasmus with a change-up.

Cueto walked off the mound in the eighth inning to a thunderous cheer. Fans waved signs. They chanted his name. Nothing that happened with him before mattered. The Royals acquired him for this situation, and he lived up to it.

The ALCS starts Friday. This will not be the last time the Royals need him in a big spot.

Royals’ ALDS victory validates bold late-season approach

When the Royals acquired pitcher Johnny Cueto on July 26 in exchange for three pitching prospects, they addressed their most glaring issue and made a bold and indisputable proclamation.

The future was now for a small-market franchise whose windows of opportunity can be fleeting - as more than a generation of Royals fans knows only too well.

But the Cueto gambit was only the start of an all-in philosophical approach to the end of the 2015 season — a season the Royals entered mindful of Game 7 of the 2014 World Series not as something to celebrate but as a springboard to unfinished work.

The aggressiveness was reinforced days later, when they traded two more prospects for utilityman Ben Zobrist. It was punctuated all the more through the tinkering, tweaking, spackling and even exhaling after they seized a double-digit lead in the American League Central Division in mid-August.

That span, that tack, induced groans and growing pains and anxieties, particularly in the form of Cueto’s baffling disintegration from ace to wild-card and the Royals’ 11-17 September.

But it was all validated on Wednesday night, when the Royals beat Houston 7-2 at Kauffman Stadium in Game 5 of their American League Division Series to advance to the American League Championship Series against Toronto.

The victory was enabled by a splendid performance from Cueto, who surrendered two hits in eight innings and arguably threw one bad pitch.

Zobrist drove in the fourth run to provide a crucial cushion for the Royals’ bullpen.

And the go-ahead runs were furnished on an RBI double by Alex Rios, who last week in Houston had been asked to furnish ID as a player — something Royals fans have been asking more colorfully for months.

Rios in many ways symbolizes the virtues of what the Royals were trying to do down the stretch when critics thought they were meandering.

He had been hitting .321 when he was hit by a pitch and suffered a broken hand at the beginning of the season, and he sputtered for weeks and weeks upon his return as catcalls came for him to be benched.

But as the Royals were taking inventory and rendering systems checks, Royals manager Ned Yost applied his unique blend of hunch and faith to solving the task and figured this:

Let’s see if he can get it back, because, after all, it had become about October, not winning day-in, day-out.

Maybe Rios would get more of his form back the further behind him the injury became.

“It just took him a long time to get his tempo and to get his rhythm at the plate,” Yost said recently. “That’s why we kept running him out there, running him out there.”

Rios then hit .382 with eight doubles, two triples and two home runs in 24 games from Aug. 19 to Aug. 25 to secure his postseason role.

No, he hasn’t hit particularly well in the postseason (two for 11 entering the game Wednesday).

But let the record show that before the key hit on Wednesday he also delivered the first of five straight hits in the eighth inning of Game 4 to stoke the Royals comeback from a 6-2 deficit to a 9-6 victory.

Rios, though, was just one element of the Royals’ late-season makeover.

During their postseason prep time, they were moving towards installing Zobrist for Omar Infante at second base instead of right field for Rios, a move that became self-evident when Infante suffered an oblique strain.

During their late “slump,” they kept trying to sort out what was with fading closer Greg Holland.

That allowed them to gain the evidence to persuade him to get an MRI, which, alas, shut him down for the season but at least clarified a murky situation.

Holland’s downfall then meant recasting a bullpen whose performance last postseason was among the most dominant in the history of the game.

Naturally enough, the Royals shuffled terminator Wade Davis to Holland’s position and were able to get a running jump at preparing different set-up combinations with Ryan Madson and Kelvin Herrera.

During all the doubting, they rejiggered their rotation, determining that Danny Duffy would be better-suited to the bullpen for this run, that Cueto, Ventura and Edinson Volquez would be the prime starters and Chris Young and Kris Medlen would be the X-factor swing-men.

Finally, they found some semblance of solution to the Cueto dilemma, explained publicly, anyway, as a simple adjustment made with the target catcher Sal Perez was providing.

With that, Cueto performed steadily better before his tepid Game 2 performance.

While he came to inspire more hope, it certainly wasn’t so much that anyone knew what he’d do on Wednesday.

Had Cueto and the Royals not delivered, of course, this would all look different right now.

The Cueto deal could be seen as a bust that mortgaged the future without maximizing the present.

And all the fussing and fiddling to gear up the team for postseason would be viewed as “couldn’t flip the switch back on” and “can’t ever take your pedal off the gas.”

But hindsight bias is all we have in the unexplainable game of baseball.

So the day the Royals acquired Cueto foretold an audacious approach that paid ample dividends on Wednesday ... and into at least the near future.

KC takes the fifth: Royals win series 3-2 and advance to play Blue Jays in ALCS

Johnny Cueto shook both his fists as he strutted off the diamond, as if absorbing the electricity pulsing through Kauffman Stadium, a ballpark galvanized by the finest outing of Cueto’s brief Royals career.

Cueto’s dreadlocks shook as he completed the seventh inning. He saved his best for the biggest night, a 7-2 victory in Game 5 to wrest the American League Division Series from the upstart Astros.

Two years ago, Cueto heard his name spat out in derision as a visiting player during a playoff game in Pittsburgh. During Wednesday’s eighth inning, his name rang out across a sold-out ballpark, each syllable coated with a love and trust earned on this night.

Maligned for so much of his Kansas City tenure, Cueto strapped the rest of the Royals to his back across eight innings. He attacked Houston batters with his fastball, baffled them with his change-up and delivered on the promise elicited by his arrival in late July. He retired the last 19 batters he faced.

“Johnny was phenomenal. He’s an ace,” Royals second baseman Ben Zobrist said. “He struggled a little bit toward the end of the season, but he proved tonight that he is as advertised. He is that guy that they thought he was coming over in the trade.”

Wade Davis pitched a perfect ninth for the Royals.

He lamented one misplaced pitch, a fastball vaporized by third baseman Luis Valbuena for a two-run homer in the second. Cueto struck out eight as the Royals advanced to the American League Championship Series for the second season in a row. They will play host to Toronto in Game 1 at 7:07 p.m. Friday night.

Granted new life by a frenetic comeback in Game 4, the Royals outlasted the Astros across five harrowing games. Houston operated in the driver’s seat for much of these five days and nights. Yet Kansas City displayed enough mettle, and enough timely hitting, to extend its season.

As Cueto glimmered on the mound, his teammates punched through the decaying foundation of the Astros’ pitching staff. Alex Rios smacked a two-run double and came around to score during a go-ahead, three-run rally in the fifth. The defense shined through the evening: Zobrist leaped and snagged to snag a liner at second base, and Alex Gordon slid on his back and caught a ball in foul territory.

In the eighth, Kendrys Morales vanquished Houston’s ace, Dallas Keuchel, who appeared in relief. Morales boomed a three-run homer. He spread his arms wide as he rounded first base. The dugout and the ballpark erupted as one. Morales rolled his shoulders and slapped his fingers across his neck when he reached the plate, repeating the gesture from Astros pitcher Lance McCullers that infuriated the Royals in Game 4.

Hours before the game, Ned Yost settled into his seat for a news conference and strummed his fingers against the microphone. His answers were clipped at the start. His bullpen was fully loaded. His leash with Cueto would depend on Cueto’s performance. Yost kept his enthusiasm restrained, but it was apparent.

“It’s going to be a fun game,” Yost said. “Going to be a fun night.”

As the Royals took batting practice, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred arrived. He chatted with general manager Dayton Moore and owner David Glass. Former Royals George Brett and Mike Sweeney held court nearby. Moore climbed the steps back to the Royals clubhouse, but paused to watch a hallway television monitor showing the chaotic seventh inning in Toronto.

Kansas City officials had diminished their expectations for Cueto’s start. With contingency plans written up for an emergency every inning, the Royals were willing to remove Cueto early. All the Royals hoped for was a few scoreless innings at the outset.

Kauffman Stadium pulsated after a stirring pregame tribute to Larry Leggio and John Mesh, the two Kansas City firefighters killed during a building collapse on Monday. Cueto followed up with a scoreless, three-batter inning in the top of the first.

The noise dipped in the second. Evan Gattis pulled a fastball down the third-base line. Mike Moustakas gloved it, but his momentum carried him over the line. His throw to first pulled Eric Hosmer off the bag. Hosmer swung his glove to tag Gattis, only to lose control of the ball.

The two-out single proved costly. On the next pitch, Valbuena hammered a 94-mph fastball into the Astros bullpen.

Collin McHugh was Cueto’s counterpart on the mound. In Game 1, he limited the Royals to two runs and four hits in six innings. He began Game 5 in much the same fashion. McHugh does not possess starling velocity or one vicious off-speed pitch. He relies upon upsetting the timing of his opponents.

The Royals played into this trap at the start. The Astros turned two double plays in the first three innings. Kansas City required some good fortunate to score its first run.

With one out in the fourth, Lorenzo Cain hacked at a low fastball and smacked a cue shot into right field. His teammates ribbed him as he ran down the line. Cain broke for second on a full-count cutter, which Hosmer dumped into center for a single. Carlos Gomez lost his footing as he retrieved the baseball, and Cain sprinted all the way home.

Cueto recovered from his second blip to author one of his finest outings as a Royal. He struck out seven through five innings. After Valbuena’s homer, Cueto settled into a rhythm.

McHugh survived flurries of hard contact until the fifth. He hit Salvador Perez with a full-count curveball. Gordon one-hopped a ground-rule double on a pitiable, belt-high cutter. Astros manager A.J. Hinch fetched McHugh and inserted Mike Fiers, a starter who had not pitched since Sept. 29.

The decision backfired. Rios punched a curveball down the third-base line. The ball skipped over the bag and eluded Valbuena’s glove. The ballpark came unglued as Perez and Gordon reached home. At second base, Rios unfurled a tremendous fist pump, his most public show of emotion as a Royal.

Alcides Escobar bunted Rios over to third base. Zobrist brought him home with a fly ball to right. A mass of Royals greeted Rios as he reached the dugout. More raucous celebrations would soon follow.

“That’s a great feeling right there,” Hosmer said. “We know late in the game, if we can just get a lead and hand it off to the bullpen, it’s a good feeling for us. All we needed was Wader down there, and Johnny Cueto did the job for us.”

New guys on the block click

They watched the Royals on their magical postseason path last season having worn the uniforms of other teams.

Alex Rios, who spent last year with the Rangers, arrived in December as a free-agent signee, an $11 million upgrade in right field.

Kendrys Morales finished last season with the Mariners and signed a two-year $17 million deal a few day later.

Johnny Cueto from the Reds and Ben Zobrist from the A’s were acquired within two days of each other before the trade deadline. The Royals surrendered plenty of pitching prospects for their service.

But general manager Dayton Moore made it clear with every move. The Royals looked to improve, become the American League’s best team and made another deep run in the postseason.

Their value to the Royals was never greater than it was on Wednesday, when the Royals defeated the Houston Astros 7-2 to capture the American League Division Series.

Each of them contributed in a major way, and Cueto and Rios delivered their best moments in Royals’ uniforms.

Cueto’s work on the mound was electric. He stayed away from the shoulder shimmy and pitched with focus and concentration, retiring the final 19 batters he faced. He struck out eight.

Rios, whose season got off to a rough start with a hit-by-pitch that broke a bone in his left hand and missed more than six weeks, never heated up offensively, finishing the season with a .255 batting average, 22 points below his career number, and four home runs.

But his fifth-inning double down the third-base line Wednesday proved to be the game’s biggest swing. He turned on curveball reliever Mike Fiers, facing his first batter after Alex Gordon’s ground-rule double chased starter Collin McHugh.

The ball hugged the third-base line, scooting past Luis Valbuena. Salvador Perez, who led off the inning getting hit by a pitch, and Gordon scored, giving the Royals a 3-2 lead.

“For Alex to come up and hit that ball down the right-field line to give us the lead, we felt really good at that point because we were at a point in the game where we could call our bullpen if we needed it, but Johnny was still throwing the ball really well,” Royals manager Ned Yost said. “We felt like at that point we were in really, really good shape.”

After Alcides Escboar’s perfectly executed sacrifice bunt moved Rios to third, Zobrist stepped in from the left side and lofted a fly ball tracked down by right fielder George Springer, too deep for a play at the plate. Rios scored and the Royals led 4-2.

“Alex Rios has worked so hard and been through so much this year,” Yost said, “so for him to give us the lead was huge.”

Rios also was a Game 4 hero, starting the Royals’ eighth-inning rally with a single. He scored the first of five runs in the inning that turned a four-run deficit into a one-run lead on the way to a 9-6 victory.

To cap his day Wednesday, Zobrist made a leaping grab of Carlos Correa’s soft liner in short right field.

Then it was Morales’ turn. In the eighth, he stood in against lefty Dallas Keuchel, who may win the American League Cy Young Award.

With two runners on, Morales ended any doubt about the outcome. His home run to left field was his third of the series and the exclamation point on the triumph that sends the Royals to the American League Championship Series that starts Friday at Kauffman Stadium.