Kansas City Royals’ Billy Butler watches his RBI single during the first inning of the AL wild-card playoff baseball game against the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014, in Kansas City, Mo.KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Kansas City Royals had waited 29 years to reach the postseason. They weren’t going down without a fight.
Salvador Perez singled down the left-field line with two outs in the 12th inning, allowing Christian Colon to score from second base and give the longsuffering Royals a 9-8 victory over the Oakland Athletics in a wild American League wild-card game Tuesday night.
Quite a start to October baseball – even if this one appeared to be over in September with plenty of time to spare.
The A’s raced out to a 7-3 lead by the sixth inning, but the Royals countered with three runs in the eighth. Nori Aoki’s sacrifice fly off Sean Doolittle in the ninth forced extra innings.
The teams kept trading blows over the next couple innings, as midnight came and went on the East Coast and the tension continued to build. Brandon Finnegan finally cracked after tossing two scoreless innings, but the Royals were there to pick up their pitching one last time.