Royals, Orioles to meet in American League Championship Series as kindred spirits

It’s kind of amazing that the Royals and Orioles are meeting for the first time in a playoff series.

Their stars have aligned for much of the last few decades. Both were superb in the 1970s and early 1980s, and it seemed only a matter of time before they’d find each other as division winners.

But that didn’t happen.

The franchises were mostly lost in the wilderness for the last 25 years, with the Royals owning the game’s longest postseason drought and the Orioles reaching the playoffs just twice between 1984 and 2011.

But here they are, something of kindred spirits, battling in the American League Championship Series that starts Friday in Baltimore.

Both teams arrive in sweeping fashion, completing their series on Sunday. The Orioles took out the Central Division champion Tigers, while the Royals put the finishing touches on the West Division champion Angels.

The Orioles, under fifth-year manager Buck Showalter, rolled to the East Division championship with a 96-66 record, finishing 12 games in front of the second-place Yankees.

Both teams have been on the rise the last few years, with the Orioles breaking through with a playoff appearance in 2012. They lost that year to the Yankees in the American League Division Series.

In 2013, the Royals turned in their first winning record in a decade.

The Orioles mash. Baltimore led baseball with 211 home runs. Nelson Cruz led the majors with 40, and his two-run blast on Sunday was the winning margin in the 2-1 clinching triumph in Detroit.

In the first two games of their series, the Orioles scored 21 runs, smacking around Tigers aces Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.

By contrast, the Royals finished last in baseball with 95 home runs, with Alex Gordon leading the team with 19.

But the virtues of pitching, defense and speed carried the Royals throughout the season and through the playoffs that started with an AL Wild Card Game victory over the Oakland A’s.

They held the Angels to one run in each of the first two ALDS games at Angel Stadium, and both games went 11 innings. They stole seven bases against Oakland. The outfield play was spectacular, especially center fielder Lorenzo Cain.

The Royals won the season series with the Orioles 4-3, with all of the games played in April and May. Several were memorable.

On April 25, Royals starter Yordano Ventura collected his second major-league victory. He went eight innings and struck out eight in a 5-0 win at Baltimore.

Two days later, Royals second baseman Omar Infante matched a career best with six RBIs in a 9-3 victory.

The Orioles’ Wei-Yin Chen and Chris Tillman threw gems on consecutive nights when the teams met at Kauffman Stadium. Chen struck out six in seven innings in a 2-1 victory, and Tillman went the distance in a 4-0 victory the next day.

That series ended with with Gordon blasting a pair of three-run homers in a Royals’ victory on a Sunday afternoon.

That was on May 18. The teams’ next meeting will be Friday.

This story was originally published October 6, 2014 at 12:38 AM with the headline "Royals, Orioles to meet in American League Championship Series as kindred spirits."