Los Angeles Angels, who had the best record in baseball, tumble back to earth in postseason
The Los Angeles Angels won more games than any team in baseball this season.
But 98 victories were all the Angels could muster. The Royals won 8-3 on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium and finished off a three-game sweep of the Angels in the American League Division Series.
“It’s tough. It stings,” said Angels manager Mike Scioscia. “We’re all feeling this. We expected better results.”
The Angels got one run in the first inning on Sunday on a home run by Mike Trout, but the Royals scored three in their half of the inning and never looked back.
Trout’s home run was the highlight of the series for the young outfielder.
Although Trout has the inside track for the MVP award in the America League, he batted just .083 in the ALDS and made the final out for his team.
It was indicative of the entire team. Josh Hamilton didn’t have a hit and Albert Pujols hit a mere .167.
The Angels led baseball with 773 runs scored. But they lost 3-2 in 11 innings in the opener, then fell 4-1 in 11 innings in game two. That’s six runs in three games.
Los Angeles had just 18 hits in 31 innings. The lack of scoring punch ultimately proved to be too much for the Angels to overcome.
“The (Royals) starters threw strikes, relied on their defense, and pitched the way they have all season for those guys,” Scioscia said. “Two close games in Southern California, this one obviously got away from us a little bit. The Royals have a terrific pitching satff and those guys all performed very well for them.”
Second “division series”
Everyone knows the Royals are in the playoffs for the first time since 1985, but technically this wasn’t their first appearance in the “division series” round of baseball’s postseason.
In 1981, a player’s strike cut the regular season in half. Back then, there were two divisions in each league, and the division champs played in a best-of-five League Championship Series to settle the AL and NL pennants. But with the strike, baseball created an additional best-of-five round of the postseason, playing off the first- and second-half champions in each division before the LCS.
The Royals won the second half in the AL West but were swept by the first-half champion Oakland A’s in three games. The AL and NL Division Series wouldn’t become an official playoff round until 1994, when baseball went to three divisions in each league and added a wild-card team.
Sunday night’s victory also marked the second postseason series sweep in Royals franchise history. The Royals won the 1980 AL Championship Series 3-0 over the Yankees before losing the World Series in six games to the Phillies.
Aside from 1981, the only other time the Royals were swept out of the playoffs was in 1984 to the Tigers in the ALCS, which became a best-of-seven series in 1985. Coincidentally, the Royals were down 3-1 in 1985 to Toronto before coming back to win.
Crown seat for fan
Tim Grimes, the Royals fan whose battle with cancer has inspired a social media rally for donations, was invited by team president Dan Glass to sit in the Crown Seats at Kauffman Stadium on Sunday for game three of the American League Division Series against the Los Angeles Angels.
Grimes, 28, has an advanced form of melanoma. His GoFundMe page has produced $30,000 in donations.
His friends waved a sign at a late-season Royals game that read: “TIM DRIVES THE BUS AGAINST CANCER,” and are asking for people to donate $10 every time the Royals win.
This story was originally published October 5, 2014 at 11:49 PM with the headline "Los Angeles Angels, who had the best record in baseball, tumble back to earth in postseason."