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Since the growth of Twitter, it has allowed fans and players to connect like never before. One Kansas City Royals fan sent a tweet to Royals rookie reliever Brandon Finnegan, asking him if he could hook him up with playoff tickets.

Nicholas Knappe, the fan who sent the request, got a response a little more than an hour later from Finnegan. In fact, he got more than what he asked.

Finnegan asked if he and his girlfriend could attend Tuesday’s game in Kansas City. Knappe responded and said yes. Finnegan added that he could snag two more tickets.

But that is not where it ends.

Due to Game 3 being rained out, Finnegan followed up with Knappe on Monday afternoon to see if he could attend a game on another day. Knappe was appreciative of Finnegan for helping out and offered to take him out for dinner in Kansas City. However, Finnegan said he did not have to pay for it and will cover dinner himself instead.

The Twitter conversation between Knappe and Finnegan went viral today. Knappe heard about the positive reception from the public and tweeted his thoughts.

In addition to the Royals receiving a lot of positive hype from the media and being labeled as America’s team, this is another positive story for the Royals.

Finnegan became the first player from the 2014 MLB draft to be promoted to the majors. He struck out three players against the Oakland Athletics on September 30 in the AL Wild Card Game. On October 3, during Game 2 of the American League Divisional Series against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Finnegan came on in relief and won, becoming the youngest relief pitcher in Royals postseason history to earn a win.

The Royals and Baltimore Orioles play Game 3 tonight and will have Game 4 tomorrow afternoon, both at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals lead the series 2-0.

Follow @Farzin21

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Assuming Mother Nature is on her best behavior, the American League Championship Series between the Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Royals will resume Tuesday night in Kansas City.

That means it’s time for the Royals to unleash their secret weapon: right fielder Norichika Aoki. 

Clutch hitting by Alex Gordon and Alcides Escobar gave the Royals an early 2-0 series edge, but Aoki will be the one to take them to the World Series, a place they haven’t been since 1985.

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Aoki is of the smaller variety, a 5’9″ slap-hitter with speed for days.

The postseason is a game of inches and every base counts. With 67 steals over the last three seasons, Aoki is always a threat to change the game with his speed.

Even if all Aoki does is distract the pitcher when he’s on first base, he’ll be making a major impact. We saw Orioles closer Zach Britton have a meltdown in Game 2 trying to keep an eye on Terrance Gore at second base. Aoki has that same potential.

Of course, in order to show off those wheels, Aoki must first get on base. That hasn’t been a problem for the 32-year-old.

What he lacks in power, Aoki more than makes up for in consistency. In three seasons in the major leagues, he’s never produced a batting average lower than .285.

Aoki has been especially dangerous in his home park. In 254 at-bats, including the postseason, Aoki is a .323 career hitter at Kauffman Stadium. That bodes well for the Royals, who are hosting the Orioles in Games 3-5 (if necessary).

Aoki has a .343 batting average against Baltimore this year with eight runs scored in 35 at-bats. Only one of those 35 at-bats resulted in a strikeout. 

That figure suggests Aoki is making solid contact each time he comes to the plate. Anything can happen when the ball is in play, and right now, Aoki is doing exactly that. 

What makes Aoki so tough to get out is that he’s essentially matchup-proof. Left-handed hitters tend to struggle against lefty pitching, but that’s never been the case for Aoki. In fact, according to ESPN.com, he hit much better against southpaws (.363 in 124 at-bats) during the regular season than he did versus right-handers (.259 in 367 at-bats).

Orioles relievers Zach Britton and Andrew Miller were dominant during the regular season, combining for a 1.82 ERA across 138.2 innings. However, Aoki’s prowess against lefties neutralizes what would have been a clear advantage for Baltimore.

After hitting leadoff for most of the regular season, Royals manager Ned Yost discovered late in the season that Aoki was a better fit in the No. 2 spot. Moving down in the order has made a world of difference for Aoki, who is hitting .385 in the 2-hole compared to just .270 as a leadoff hitter.

With so many strengths and very few weaknesses, Aoki has the ability to take over this series, and when he does, the Royals will be partying like it’s 1985.

Eric Hosmer paid for the last round of drinks. Now it’s your turn, Nori.

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The Detroit Tigers’ 2014 season certainly had its ups and downs. During a roller coaster ride of a year, Detroit started the campaign with an offseason full of hope and promise. Then the roller coaster officially started.

The Tigers experienced more highs and lows than most. They went from a runaway division favorite to being in danger of missing the playoffs. In the end, thanks to some key performances and acquisitions, the team pulled out a fourth consecutive American League Central title.

Unfortunately, the success found in the division did not carry over to the playoffs as Detroit was swept by Baltimore in three games.

Here are some of those high and low points, or in other words, the most defining moments of the season.

All stats courtesy of http://www.baseball-reference.com/ unless otherwise noted.

Begin Slideshow

There was a point during the American League Wild Card Game that Ned Yost was crowned King Bonehead of Manager Earth, with his punishment being eternal mockery.

But then his Kansas City Royals stormed back to beat the Oakland A’s. Then they swept the 98-win Los Angeles Angels in the division series. Now they hold a 2-0 lead over the Baltimore Orioles in the championship series that puts them just two wins away from the World Series.

The way things are going, it feels like the only thing separating Yost‘s Royals from a 3-0 lead in the ALCS is Monday night’s rainout of Game 3. With a 6-0 postseason record to his name, Yost can do no wrong.

Or so it seems based on appearances, anyway. But in reality? Eh…Maybe not.

As much it might seem like he has, Yost hasn’t quit making the kind of decisions that invite #Yosted to appear on Twitter. He made them against the A’s, he made them against the Angels, and he’s now making them against the Orioles.

So how are Yost‘s Royals still standing? It’s complicated, but here’s one reason: The Kansas City skipper’s #Yosted low point has already come and gone.

That came in the AL Wild Card Game. Between a doomed double steal and four sacrifice bunts, Yost gifted the A’s five outs. In asking young starting pitcher Yordano Ventura to do a reliever’s work, he also gifted them three runs. Though the Royals won 9-8, Yost did everything in his power to make them lose.

In referring specifically to the Ventura move, pitching god-turned TBS analyst Pedro Martinez had the right idea about what would have become of Yost if the Royals had lost:

Not just the goat. The ugly goat. That’s a whole ‘nother level of goat.

That the Royals survived and saved Yost from that fate was the bright side. The not-so-bright side was that they weren’t going to last much longer if he continued to push his luck to such an absurd degree.

Fortunately, there’s the reason why Yost‘s #Yosted low point is in the past: Comparatively speaking, his luck pushing has actually toned down quite a bit.

And because it has, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that every button he’s pushed since the AL Wild Card Game has felt like the right one. Or, at the least, not the wrong one.

ALDS Games 1, 2 and 3

It almost says it all that Yost called for only one sac bunt in Kansas City’s three-game sweep of the Angels in the ALDS. Outside of that, he only made a couple of iffy pitching decisions.

One was choosing to let Jason Vargas face Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Howie Kendrick for a third time in a pressure-packed sixth inning in Game 1. Thanks to Norichika Aoki’s circus catch, a questionable decision was made to look like the right decision.

Then there was the Greg Holland conundrum. Yost had chances to bring his hard-throwing closer into tie games late in Games 1 and 2, thereby prioritizing the lead the Royals didn’t have over the lead they might have. By trusting lesser relievers to keep the Angels from walking off, he was rolling the dice.

Inevitably, he rolled true both times. Thanks to solid relief work and clutch dingers from Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer, twice preserving Holland for the save worked out fine.

That set the stage for a drama-less Game 3. A three-run double by Alex Gordon and dingers by Hosmer and Moustakas led the charge to a series-clinching 8-3 win, in which Yost was saved from having to make any controversial decisions.

As such, he had extras in his pocket for the ALCS. And while he’s used a couple of them, the ones he has made fall under the same umbrella as the ones he made in the ALDS: not too bad and ultimately harmless.

ALCS Game 1

Yost‘s first real spot of bother in the ALCS came in the fifth inning of Game 1 when the Orioles started getting to staff ace James Shields.

With two outs, the bases loaded and the Royals clinging to a 5-2 lead, something of a Vargas situation confronted Yost when the lefty-swinging Ryan Flaherty strode to the plate. Yost could have called in the lefty-throwing Brandon Finnegan to exploit Flaherty‘s platoon split for the third out.

Instead, he struck with Shields and watched a two-run single turn a 5-2 lead into a 5-4 lead.

That could have been a regrettable decision. Same goes for the bunts Yost called for in the ninth inning with the score tied 5-5. In asking first Jarrod Dyson and then Lorenzo Cain to bunt against a clearly wild Zach Britton, Yost twice tried to give a pitcher who couldn’t find the plate a free out.

Thanks to Gordon and Moustakas, however, none of this ended up mattering.

Their dingers in the 10th turned a 5-5 tie into an 8-5 lead and, ultimately, an 8-6 win that gave the Royals a 1-0 series lead and further boosted Yost‘s postseason profile heading into Game 2.

And in Game 2…

ALCS Game 2

In keeping with a general theme, Yost played with fire in Game 2 when he chose to stick with a struggling starter longer than he should have. This time, it was Ventura‘s turn.

Lifting Ventura, whose command was off from the start, in the fifth inning could have prevented the Orioles from erasing a 4-3 Royals lead. Lifting him then might also have prevented him from developing the shoulder tightness that forced him from the game in the sixth.

Fortunately, the word on Ventura is that tightness is water under the bridge. And in the end, it was thanks to a bunt that him giving up the lead also became an afterthought.

In the top of the ninth inning, the score was 4-4 with Britton on the mound, Omar Infante at first base and Moustakas at the plate. Yost called for him to lay one down, thereby taking the bat out of the Royals’ leading postseason home run hitter’s hands.

Or course, it worked out. Moustakas‘ bunt got the speedy Terrance Gore to second base, and Alcides Escobar’s double brought him home for a 5-4 lead. After another run was tacked on, Holland came in to wrap up a 6-4 win.

All of this leaves us standing on a precipice from which to compare what could have happened under Yost‘s watch to what did happen under his watch.

The list of things that fall under the former category includes Yost‘s bungling of the AL Wild Card Game barring the Royals from proper October baseball. Elsewhere, it includes decisions in four other games that could have meant L’s for the Royals instead of W’s.

What did happen, of course, was that the Royals pulled off an improbable win against the A’s and have gone on to win every game since, putting Yost in a position to be regarded as a mad genius.

Which begs the question: Is Yost smarter than he gets credit for, or is he just lucky?

The answer is the same one that applies to pretty much all managers who win in October: a little bit of both.

It has indeed taken some good fortune to build Yost‘s 6-0 postseason record. That the Royals haven’t been beaten by any of his iffy decisions is part of it, but the bigger part of it has to do with him benefiting from the Royals’ unexpected new toy: power.

After hitting only 95 home runs in the regular season, the Royals have hit eight in six postseason games. And so far, they’ve won only one game in which they didn’t homer: that crazy Wild Card Game.

More than anything, this power is why Yost was absolutely right when he said (via HardballTalk) after Game 2: “They’re playing their best baseball of the year right now, and it’s sure the best time to play it.”

This is not to say that Yost has done nothing to help. It’s a lot easier to notice and nitpick his questionable decisions, but he’s made some good ones too.

Compared to the first three postseason games, Yost‘s bullpen management in Games 1 and 2 of the ALCS has been quite good. Particularly his aggressive use of Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis in Game 1.

Also, the one bunt Yost has called for in the ALCS was perfectly defensible. In the words of Grantland’s Ben Lindbergh:

One good bunt doesn’t absolve Yost of so many bad bunts. Likewise, a couple good pitching maneuvers doesn’t absolve him of so many risky ones.

But after watching him try to sabotage his own team in the AL Wild Card Game, Yost is beginning to look less and less like an ugly goat. He’s gone from being a stick in the Royals’ gears to being a much steadier guiding hand at the wheel of a Cinderella team, one that’s been tons of fun to watch.

So let’s end this thing with a blatant Simpsons rip-off: A Toast to the Yost Who Can Boast the Most.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.  

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

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Part of the beauty of the postseason is discovery. So here’s a piece of advice: It is not necessary to wait all the way until February before sending your new crush, Lorenzo Cain, a Valentine’s Day greeting. Jarrod Dyson, Terrance Gore and Mike Moustakas? Them, too.   

Kansas City is, after all, the corporate home of Hallmark Cards, Inc.   

And now, clearly, America’s Team.   

C’mon, admit it. Last time you fell for someone this hard, it was freshman year of high school, the homecoming dance was right around the corner and you were dreaming of your first dinner date in a world beyond Chuck E. Cheese.

How do I know this? Two reasons.

One, like everyone else, I am in slack-jawed admiration of what the Royals are doing right now (and slack-jawed is a rough place to be with Kansas City, because it leaves the delicious barbecue sauce drooling out of your mouth cartoon-like).

Two, television ratings on TBS are up 26 percent over the network’s comparable League Championship Series telecast last year, Dodgers vs. Cardinals. In Game 2 of the Orioles-Royals series,  4.3 million total viewers tuned in compared to 3.4 million last year. And you thought the Dodgers were a marquee team.

No offense to Buck Showalter’s Baltimore Orioles, who are a great story themselves. And you can bet the birds on their caps will continue to grin all the way until the last out of their season, whenever that moment may come.

But the way things are going, Monday night’s rain notwithstanding, that will be sooner rather than later. Since the advent of the LCS in 1969, no team has ever lost a series after winning the first two games on the road. For one thing, the Orioles have to figure out a way to keep the ball in the yard. No team in the majors hit fewer homers than Kansas City’s 95 this season, yet only the Cardinals (11) have slugged more than the Royals (eight) this postseason.

Moustakas, who had one home run in his final 163 regular-season at-bats, now has four in 22 postseason at-bats.

The Moose is loose, and Kansas City is giving everyone else the blues. Oakland, Baltimore, Jon Lester, Zach Britton, you name ’em.

These Royals are ascending the charts with as rapidly as Lorde’s Grammy-winning song by the same name did last year. Inspiration for Lorde’s “Royals”, by the way? A photo in a 1976 edition National Geographic magazine showing George Brett signing autographs, in uniform, “Royals” emblazoned across his chest.

True, artists can be trendsetters. But talk about being ahead of the curve. My Lord, Lorde is nearly as quick as Ned Yost‘s rabbits.

Which brings me to another point: Given the way social media continually delivers a speed-bag pummeling on Yost, how can you not root for every dugout decision of his to work out, no matter how wacky it might seem? To hear the denizens of Tweeter (as former manager Jim Leyland once called them) carry on, you expect Yost to arrive in the dugout each night with his jersey on backwards and a corncob pipe stuck between his teeth, clutching a dog-eared copy of Baseball for Dummies.

Some of this stuff borders on character assassination. Look, the guy might not be Whitey Herzog or Dick Howser. But at least give him some credit. At 6-0 in the playoffs, the Royals are the first club with a postseason winning streak that long since the 2007 Rockies. Every now and again, something touched by Yost does not turn to toast.

Take the ninth inning of Game 2, when the Royals busted a 4-4 tie. Omar Infante fought back from an 0-2 count to single on a swinging bunt, Yost sent Gore in to pinch run, Moustakas bunted Gore to second (and oh, how the know-it-alls despise the bunt), Alcides Escobar smacked an RBI double and things went from there until Kansas City led 6-4.

In the dugout before the ninth inning, guess who envisioned the way all of that could play out? Yeah, Manager Goober, who laid it all out to Escobar in advance right there, seconds before it unfolded.

“I already had a plan in my mind,” Yost said at Sunday’s off-day press conference in Kansas City. “And I told Esky…look, this is what’s going to happen. Omar is going to get on base, I’m going to pinch-run Gore for Omar, they’re going to bring in [Zach] Britton, Mous is going to bunt him over and you’re going to drive him in.

“Esky got a smile on his face and he said, ‘I like that plan.’ “

Turned out, it was an excellent plan. A brilliant plan. A plan that surely will leave those who can’t find fault with it grumbling that Yost at least didn’t use proper English, or something like that.

There is so much to like about these Royals, from plans to speed to gloves. And man, are people digging them.

Back to the television ratings for just a moment. Normally , I’m about as interested in ratings as I am in the pile of my wife’s shoes in our closet. But Kansas City and Baltimore represent the two smallest market sizes in ALCS history, with Kansas City ranking 31st among 56 metered markets.

I love it when someone other than the Yankees and Red Sox play and, gasp, people actually, you know, watch. Imagine that. Crazy as it sounds, apparently, the only way the Dodgers’ and Cardinals’ 2013 NLCS could have topped these ratings would have been if Yasiel Puig conducted a Dodger Dog eating contest during the seventh-inning stretches.

Maybe next thing you know, exciting, smaller-market teams like Kansas City will start to snag some of those national television spots during the regular season, and like some twisted March of the Zombies at Halloween, they’ll actually demonstrate staying power. People will wistfully look back at the days when the national games were all Derek Jeter, all the time and say, boy, did we miss out.

Hey, stranger things have happened. Like the second-place Royals thoroughly killing it in October (so far).

A friend’s wife spent most of her girlhood in a state of puppy love over George Brett, and I told her this story a few years ago: First time I ever met him, way back, he said he had time for an interview but said he had to do a few things first and that I should meet him in the clubhouse in 15 minutes.

So I did. He found me, smiled and cheerfully cracked, “So what’s your beef, jerky?”

And I thought, this Hall of Fame player, this legendary bachelor, this guy who stole all of those girls’ hearts…did so with lines like this?

I don’t even wanna know what Cain and Alex Gordon are saying this week. But I guarantee, it’s gold. Hey, they’re Royals.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. He has over two decades of experience covering MLB, including 14 years as a national baseball columnist at CBSSports.com.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball @ScottMillerBbl.

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Four Decembers ago, Dayton Moore and Doug Melvin locked horns, both men in charge of major league rosters desperate to win immediately or immediately thereafter.

Moore, the general manager of the Kansas City Royals, and Melvin, the GM of the Milwaukee Brewers, pitched each other back and forth on how to send Zack Greinke to Milwaukee. The Brewers, a team on the cusp, needed Greinke to make them a legitimate playoff contender in 2011. The Royals, a team going nowhere, had no use for Greinke and needed young major league talent in return.

Greinke was the main piece of the deal, and shortstop Alcides Escobar the big return piece for the Royals, but Lorenzo Cain was one of the sticking points for Moore. He wanted him included, and while Melvin was hesitant, Greinke’s impact was too great to hold out—and the Brewers’ GM eventually included Cain, among others, with Escobar.

Almost four years later, the baseball universe now knows why Moore insisted on Cain’s inclusion. Cain, a versatile outfielder, is a key reason the Royals are up 2-0 on the Baltimore Orioles after Saturday’s 6-4 win in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series, two wins away from the World Series.

“That [trade] was the start of putting together a championship baseball team,” manager Ned Yost said in his postgame press conference. “That’s where it started, with that Greinke trade.”

Cain is 6-for-8 in the ALCS—he went 4-for-5 with an RBI and two runs in Game 2—and 10-for-27 (.370) in his first six postseason games. He has also played stellar defense, adding to his highlight reel with two fantastic catches Saturday, including one that he seemed to run a marathon to reach in the right-center gap and another in the seventh to end the inning with two runners in scoring position in a tied game.

“I’m just trying to do the best I can to be a playmaker behind [the pitchers],” Cain told the TBS broadcast after the game. “I felt like I was in right field [on that one].”

Not saying Lorenzo Cain has range, but he also has two TD catches on CBS and an interception on ESPN2.

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) October 11, 2014

Cain’s four hits in Game 2 also tied a franchise record for most in a single playoff game. George Brett did it twice.

“I want to be an all-around player, swing the bat and play solid defense and steal bags as well,” Cain told MLB Network after the game. “I still got work to do, I still got things to work on but I’m trying to improve each and every day and become a great ballplayer.”

Cain’s star has been budding since before the Greinke trade. The Brewers called him up midway through the 2010 season, and in 158 plate appearances, he hit .306/.348/.415 with 11 doubles and seven stolen bases. He also played wonderful defense in that short time, but the Brewers had traded for Carlos Gomez the year before and already had Ryan Braun and Corey Hart entrenched in the outfield.

They didn’t want to let Cain go, but he was expendable at the time.

“Lorenzo was really raw at that time,” said Yost, who managed the Brewers from 2003 to 2008 and saw plenty of Brewers prospects over that time. “But you could tell with his athleticism that he might turn into one heck of a player, and he sure has.”

This season was Cain’s breakout campaign. After struggling to find himself in three seasons with the Royals, Cain, who only found baseball after being cut from his high school basketball team, played himself into the regular lineup after the first month of the regular season, hitting .333/.364/.381, and proved he was worthy of staying in it during the next month with a .342/.400/.474 line and .874 OPS. Cain finished the season hitting .301/.339/.412 with a .751 OPS and 108 OPS-plus.

Defensively, Cain has been a wizard. He was second in the league with 24 defensive runs saved behind teammate Alex Gordon and second in ultimate zone rating, also behind Gordon. It can be argued that Gordon’s outstanding defensive season, which is no fluke, was aided by having Cain patrolling center field for more than 700 innings.

Those numbers are evidence that at 28 years old, Cain is finally fulfilling the potential the Brewers and Royals saw four years ago. And this postseason stage is the perfect setting for the baseball world to see the wannabe basketball player-turned-baseball stud become an October star.

“I’m really happy about it,” Yost said. “He had a great day today, four hits, made some great plays in the outfield, none bigger for me than that ball J.J. Hardy hit down the right-field line [in the seventh]. He came out of nowhere and caught it. I thought for sure that ball was going to drop when it first left the bat, and all of the sudden here he comes and makes the play.

“The country is seeing a very exciting player in Lorenzo Cain.”

All signs point to Cain continuing to be an impact player on both offense and defense for the rest of the series, and he is 4-for-12 lifetime (.333) against Game 3 starter Wei-Yin Chen. If this breakout run continues, it will make the Orioles’ road to a comeback much more difficult.

Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News, and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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The Kansas City Royals might have to continue their postseason push without Yordano Ventura after the pitcher suffered a shoulder injury in his Game 2 start in the American League Championship Series.

The Royals made an official diagnosis:

Jon Morosi of Fox Sports first reported the injury.

Eye on Baseball and Jesse Spector of Sporting News had an update after the game:

Another warning sign was his diminished velocity, as Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs pointed out:

Ventura shut down the Los Angeles Angels in his only other start of the postseason, allowing just one run in seven innings to help the Royals win Game 2 of the American League Division Series. This is just a continuation of what he showcased all year long, tallying a 14-10 record with a 3.20 ERA in his first full season in the majors.

While James Shields is considered the team’s ace thanks to his past success and experience, Ventura had the best ERA of all of Kansas City’s qualified starters (Danny Duffy had a better mark but did not pitch enough innings). 

The Royals will hope this injury does not turn out to be serious in case he is needed later in the series or in the Fall Classic. Otherwise, the team will need more production out of Duffy, Jason Vargas and possibly Jeremy Guthrie.

Follow Rob Goldberg on Twitter for the latest breaking news and analysis.

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The Detroit Tigers made a statement when they acquired David Price from the Tampa Bay Rays at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline.

With a starting rotation that already featured a pair of Cy Young Award winners in Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander as well as Anibal Sanchez and Rick Porcello, adding Price gave the Tigers arguably the top staff in the American League—a unit built for the postseason.

“Simply put, Price makes the Tigers’ rotation the envy of the bulk of the baseball world,” wrote Grantland’s Jonah Keri in the wake of the trade. “While Detroit was going to make the postseason with or without Price, he’ll give them an undeniable edge in October.”

Naturally, one would think that being traded to a playoff contender, let alone a preseason favorite to win the World Series such as the Tigers, would come with a tremendous amount of pressure.

But for Price, a four-time All-Star and winner of the 2012 AL Cy Young Award, being expected to help his team reach the postseason is nothing new.

“I really haven’t felt any pressure with the Tigers,” Price told Bleacher Report. “The only thing that’s really changed is that I have new teammates and a new home crowd, but it’s still the same game I’ve played my entire life and I know I just need to go out there and have fun.”

However, while Price was strong down the stretch for the Tigers and helped them clinch the AL Central with a scoreless outing on the final day of the season, his journey to the postseason with his new club was anything but smooth.

And with an underwhelming postseason resume, it’s safe to say that the 29-year-old left-hander has plenty to prove this October.

Price performed as advertised in his first four starts with Detroit, as he picked up his third complete game of the season, pitched to a 2.35 ERA and held opposing hitters to a miserable .157/.202/.306 batting line. He worked at least eight innings in three of the four outings, striking out 32 batters in 30.2 innings.

Then came Price’s home start on Aug. 27 against the New York Yankees, when he allowed a career-worst eight runs on 12 hits and departed the game after only two innings.

The loss dropped the Tigers to 2.5 games behind the surging Kansas City Royals in the division and brought concerns about the team’s second-half struggles to a head.

Though the overall 3.59 ERA and 82 strikeouts in 77.2 innings appear solid at first glance, it was a very mixed bag of results in 11 Tigers starts for Price. He surrendered 22 runs over four poor starts, yet just nine in his other seven.

“Staying consistent is the biggest thing, just going out there every fifth day and giving the team a chance to win,” Price explained when asked about his late-season struggles.

“It’s something I haven’t done as well with the Tigers as I have in the past, but it’s a long process and my work is never done. I look for ways to get better every day and I know the results will come.”

And as a pitcher supported by Tampa Bay’s No. 27-ranked offense just two months ago, he’s simply enjoyed being part of his new team, on which he’s just one of numerous perennial All-Stars.

“You know, it’s kind of surreal being around these guys,” he said.

“Our team is stacked with superstars and really good veterans like Torii Hunter, Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez, who show the younger guys how to go about their business. To me, I think that’s been the coolest part.”

As for his Cy Young Award-winning rotation mates Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, the three of them already seem to be clicking. 

“We sit there during the game and discuss a bunch of different stuff. For example, Verlander and I were talking about how Scherzer started throwing a cutter last night. There’s always some type of pitching conversation taking place.”

Unfortunately, both hurlers failed to tell him their secrets for getting to the field, an external pressure the left-hander didn’t see coming.

“It’s a new city and I’m just trying to make sure I don’t get lost going to and from the field,” he said while laughing.

“I think the first five times I got lost even while using my GPS, but I’ve been getting more comfortable with my surroundings and it’s gotten better as time has gone on.”

But with a must-win ALDS Game 3 matchup with the Orioles on the horizon, Price now will have to answer questions about his prior struggles in the postseason. The Tigers’ season depends on it.

“Detroit’s drastic change of direction since landing Price has shifted its needs,” wrote Bleacher Report’s Anthony Witrado back in late August. “Now the Tigers are asking something historic of their newest marquee member, one they initially acquired to make a deep team even deeper instead of out of necessity.”

Price’s first taste of the postseason came as a rookie in 2008, when he emerged as a late-inning weapon out of the Rays bullpen and helped the team reach the World Series. He pitched to a 1.59 ERA over five outings spanning 5.2 innings.

But the left-hander’s last three trips to the postseason have been a different story.

Price has yet to record a victory in the postseason as a starter, as he notched both his win and save in 2008 in relief.

His October struggles also played a role in the Rays’ failure to beat Texas in back-to-back division series (2010-11), while his lone 2013 ALDS start in Game 2 against the Red Sox was by far the worst of his postseason career.

With Boston already leading the best-of-five series, 1-0, Price was shelled for seven runs on nine hits, including six extra-base hits with a pair of home runs by David Ortiz, over seven shaky innings. The Rays ultimately dropped the contest, 7-4, and were eliminated from the playoffs in four games.

Price acknowledged that his pitch execution, which he referred to as the “name of the game,” in his previous playoffs outings has been disappointing.

“Executing pitches was something I didn’t do in a couple starts,” he conceded. “But other than a few innings I still feel like I’ve thrown the ball well and haven’t worried about the results.”

Luckily, Price will have an opportunity to rewrite his own postseason narrative when he takes the mound for the Tigers in Game 3 of the ALDS against Baltimore on Sunday.

“My goal obviously is to pitch deep into the game, because the longer I stay in there, there’s a good chance we’re going to put up some runs and win a ballgame.”

David Price has become one of baseball’s more decorated pitchers since breaking into the major leagues back in 2008, but there’s still one thing missing from his mantle:

“I just want to win a World Series.”

Well it’s going to take a big reversal of October fortunes for the Tigers and from Price himself to help make that happen, as they now face elimination down 0-2 to the Baltimore Orioles.

That path to redemption starts Sunday, and the Tigers had better hope that Price is up for the challenge.

David Price spoke to Bleacher Report as part of the new Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare video game campaign. It will be available in stores on Nov. 4 for all gamers looking to get involved.

For those wondering about Price’s gaming style, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he’s anything but a camper.

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With two stud pitchers on the mound in Jon Lester for the Oakland A’s and James Shields for the Kansas City Royals in the American League Wild Card Game, it can be expected that runs will come at a premium for either side on Tuesday in Kansas City.

Unfortunately for both teams, that has already been the theme for quite some time.

After trading away slugger Yoenis Cespedes on July 31, the A’s were held off the scoreboard seven times, while the Royals finished the season ninth in the AL in runs scored and don’t have a single player with 20 homers and 75 runs batted in on the season.

So it’s safe to say that the way to win this game is by playing small ball, and that’s where the edge starts to tilt toward Kansas City.

The Royals had 33 sacrifice hits and 47 sacrifice flies on the season, while the A’s had 19 sacrifice hits (tied for the fewest in the majors) and 43 sacrifice flys, according to Baseball-Reference.com. Kansas City also stole the most bases among teams in the majors with 153 on the season, while Oakland had just 83.

One of the key catalysts for the Royals offense is shortstop Alcides Escobar, and he is expected to have a big game on Tuesday against Lester.

In 17 career at-bats against the Oakland southpaw, Escobar has a .353 average with six hits and no strikeouts. This season, Escobar was 3-for-7 off Lester. 

Escobar has also found success since manager Ned Yost moved him from the bottom of the batting order to the leadoff spot in mid-September.

In the 16 games he hit from the top spot, Escobar batted .362 with a .478 slugging percentage. Yost announced Monday during a press conference that the shortstop with 31 stolen bases on the season will again hit leadoff in the AL Wild Card Game.

In these winner-take-all games, a Game 7 mentality is required for everyone. While the stars are expected to perform at their best, it’s often the players who fly under people’s radars that end up making a name for themselves in October.

On Tuesday night, expect Alcides Escobar to become one of those players.

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Now it is time to worry about their chances to stay alive.

The Kansas City Royals finally—finally!—spewed buckets of water all over their 29-year playoff drought Friday night, beating the Chicago White Sox to clinch at least an American League wild-card berth. The celebration was glorious, and the city should be euphoric as October brings it something more than Kansas City Chiefs football for the first time since 1985, when the Royals won their only World Series.

However, now it is time to seriously assess their chances to advance beyond next week’s one-game crapshoot, and that dissection starts with the team’s historically inept offensive attack/whimper.

If you don’t feel like poring through stats and want a quick take on that part of the team, do a Twitter search for “Royals offense” and have a laugh. The Twitterverse is full of observations to give you a decent idea of what the Royals bring offensively, game after game after game. 

That was the stupidest inning of Royals offense since at least last night

— Dan Lucero (@danluceroshow) September 26, 2014

I mean a leadoff double is a rally killer for this offense sometimes. Good grief. #royals

— Tom (@murphballer) September 26, 2014

The Royals offense. RT @ElizabethBanks: Happy National One Hit Wonder Day! What’s your favorite one hit wonder?

— Joshua Brisco (@jbbrisco) September 25, 2014

The numbers back up the jokes and frustration, unfortunately for Kansas City faithful. The Royals will likely become the first team in major league history to make the playoffs while finishing dead last in the majors in home runs and walks. Oddly enough, this team has the fewest strikeouts in the majors by a big margin, so one would think walks and accidental home runs would come every now and then. But with the Royals, those things are even more rare than that. 

They have hit one home run since the end of play on Sept. 17. They have a propensity for taking the first pitch of an at-bat, which often puts them behind in the count, which leads to pitches out of the strike zone, which leads the Royals to swing at pitches out of the zone at a rate near the top of their league. And as common sense tells us, when you put those pitches into play, they often lead to outs. That concept is simple.

What is not simple is keeping track of the franchise’s hitting coaches since 2012. There have been six including current man in charge Dale Sveum, who came in less than a year after the team named Pedro Grifol hitting coach in 2013. Seriously, it’s ridiculous the way this team rolls through people in that position.

And the crazy thing is, the Royals are trying to hit the ball over the outfield wall. That’s part of their philosophy.

“I think we’ve got a group of young power hitters who are capable of hitting home runs,” manager Ned Yost told Vahe Gregorian of The Kansas City Star when Sveum took over for Grifol. “Our offense was built more around singles and doubles, but it’s difficult to get three or four singles in a row to score a run. 

“We have to have the ability to open it up a little more, use the power that we have to take advantage of a quick strike. A walk, a base hit and boom—there’s three runs. I think that’s the major difference in philosophy.”

The Royals can scapegoat all the hitting coaches they want, and they clearly have, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are offensively deficient going into the franchise’s most important game since Game 7 of the 1985 World Series. Assuming the Detroit Tigers win the AL Central—they have a one-game lead with two to play—the Royals will have one game to score enough runs to ensure this playoff “run” is more than just a few hours long.

They have gotten here with good starting pitching, totally dominant relief pitching, outstanding defense and great team speed, and in spite of wretched offensive production.

The Royals are likely going to face the Oakland A’s in the AL Wild Card Game on Tuesday, and probably will do so at home. But the venue does not matter if the A’s are going to bring Jon Lester and his 2.46 ERA and 1.10 WHIP to the mound for that showdown. It leaves little hope for the Royals to score in crooked numbers. Yost tweaked the rotation last week so that No. 1 starter James Shields could pitch in this game, but there isn’t much the manager can do for the lineup.

The team’s best all-around hitter, Alex Gordon, hit .178/.318/.274 with a .592 OPS from Sept. 2 through Thursday. On Friday, Gordon went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.

The team’s two home run leaders besides Gordon, Mike Moustakas (15) and Salvador Perez (16), are below league average offensively for the season with OPS+ marks of 72 and 91, respectively.

Eric Hosmer, the third overall pick in 2008 and a player dubbed as a future star power hitter, has nine homers this season, and his 101 OPS+ makes him very ordinary.

Quite simply, no one in this Royals lineup scares anyone else. Other aspects of their club do, and they should, but the bats are brushed away with first-pitch strikes and others out of the zone. There is little there to threaten most pitchers, let alone an ace like Lester.

The Royals have the bullpen, defense and speed that make other teams drool, but you can’t win a game with no runs, and that is why this party 29 years in the making won’t be long for October.

Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News, and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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