ICYMI: Royals Win Best New MLB Wildcard Game Ever

((ht: mlb.com))

This was a great baseball game with some odd decisions....

The Kansas City Royals won their first playoff game in nearly 30 years Tuesday night in one of the most improbably ways ever.

The Royals beat the Oakland A's 9-8 in 12 innings. The game was won by Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez. His single was a walk-off winner.

Part of the 40,000 plus fans at a sold-out Kaufman Stadium are probably still there celebrating as the Royals will move on to the Division Playoffs to fact the Los Angeles Angels.

The game featured the A's going up 7-3 as late as the 6th inning. And they took a 8-7 lead in the 11th inning, but Kansas City fought back.

The other feature of the game was a highly questionable decision by Royals manager Ned Yost.

When staring pitcher James Shields began to wear down and struggle in the 6th, Yost skipped his strong relief corps and brought in starting pitcher Yordani Ventura to face Brandon Moss who'd already hit a homer during the game.

Ventura threw a straight fastball that Moss parked over the outfield wall.

But the resilient Royals kept fighting and got the win. And that's all that matters.

Here's your walk off from Perez:

Tom Hamilton Comes Out Of His Shoes Again...

((HT: FS Indians/MLB))

Thanks, again, to Jason Giambi...

Another pinch-hit homer...another game-winning pinch-hit homer...


And the Indians are still in the American League Wild Card hunt...

ICYMI: Rays and O's Play 18-Inning Almost 7 Hour Marathon

Baseball is a lot of things, most of the references you are probably thinking of would have to do with running a marathon.

The analogy certainly fit Friday night as the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays played an 18-inning, 6 hour 54 minute game that ended around 2 a.m Saturday morning.

The Rays won the game 5-4 on a David DeJesus single and took over the top spot in the American League Wild-Card chase.

21 Pitchers were used in the game. Which accounted for every pitcher on both teams rosters.....and oh, by the way, both teams play on Saturday 11 hours after Friday's game ended.

DeJesus's game winner is right here: