2015 American League Division Series
The 2015 American League Division Series were two best-of-five-game series in Major League Baseball’s 2015 postseason to determine the participating teams in the 2015 American League Championship Series. The three divisional winners and a fourth team—the winner of a one-game Wild Card playoff— played in two series. Fox Sports 1 carried the majority of games in the United States, while Sportsnet primarily simulcast Fox Sports 1's coverage in Canada. MLB Network had exclusive coverage of Game 3 of the Kansas City Royals-Houston Astros series in both the United States and Canada, and Game 2 of the Toronto Blue Jays-Texas Rangers series in the U.S. only. The ALDS began on October 8 and ran until October 14. The Toronto Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals had home field advantage in this round of the playoffs. With the New York Yankees being eliminated by the Astros in the AL Wild Card Game, this is the first time in ALDS history that all four ALDS teams were expansion teams.
These matchups were:
- Kansas City Royals vs Houston Astros : Royals win series 3–2.
- Toronto Blue Jays vs Texas Rangers : Blue Jays win series 3–2.
This was the second time that both ALDS winners overcame a 2–1 series deficit to advance to the ALCS.
The Royals would go on to defeat the Blue Jays in the ALCS, then win the 2015 World Series over the National League champion New York Mets, the Royals first World Series title since 1985.
Matchups
Kansas City Royals vs. Houston Astros
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Texas Rangers
Houston vs. Kansas City
Game 1
The Astros quickly quieted a raucous Kansas City crowd by scoring two runs in the 1st inning, both coming on RBI groundouts from Colby Rasmus and Evan Gattis respectively. Jose Altuve would add an RBI single in the next inning to give Houston a 3–0 lead. Kendrys Morales would get the Royals on the board with a home run in the bottom of the frame to make it 3–1. A 49-minute no-dome delay prompted Kansas City manager Ned Yost to pull starter Yordano Ventura from the game, while Houston stuck with Collin McHugh who would only surrender another shot from Morales in the 4th in six innings. The Astros bullpen would shut out Kansas City from there while George Springer and Rasmus would add shots to provide Houston with all the insurance runs they would need to steal home field advantage from the Royals in taking a 1–0 series lead.Game 2
Early on, this game looked like a mirror image of the first game with Houston taking a quick 3–0 lead in the first two innings on an RBI double from Colby Rasmus in the 1st, and then a two-run single from George Springer in the 2nd. Just like Game 1, Kansas City added a home run in the bottom of the 2nd, this time from Salvador Pérez to make it 3-1 heading into the third inning.Rasmus continued his hot hitting in that inning with a home run to give the Astros a 4–1 lead, but in the bottom of the frame the Royals got the run back when Ben Zobrist grounded into a double play, which scored Alex RÃos from 3rd base to make it 4–2.The score would remain 4-2 until the bottom of the sixth, where the Royals mustered the first of their many comebacks of this postseason. With the Astros threatening to take a 2–0 series lead back to Houston, where the Royals would have to face eventual AL Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel, Lorenzo Cain got a rally started with a double. Eric Hosmer then drove him in with an RBI single. Two batters later, with the bases now loaded, the Astros brought in Josh Fields to face Perez. Fields threw four straight balls to walk in the game-tying run. Fields did recover and struck out the next two batters to get out of the jam, but now the game was tied at four.
In the bottom of the 7th, Will Harris relieved Fields, but surrendered an immediate triple to Alcides Escobar. Zobrist then drove in Escobar with an RBI single to give Kansas City the 5–4 lead. That was all the vaunted Royals bullpen needed as Ryan Madson and Wade Davis pitched scoreless 8th and 9th innings respectively to even the series.
Game 3
had assembled a perfect 15–0 record at Minute Maid Park during the regular season, and he continued his winning ways with another win in Game 3. It was initially a pitchers' duel between Keuchel and Edinson Vólquez until Keuchel surrendered his only run of the game on a Lorenzo Cain home run. The Royals' lead didn't last long though, as in the bottom of the 5th, catcher Jason Castro, not known for his hitting, got a hold of a 1-out, 2-strike pitch for a two-run single up the middle for the first postseason hit of his career. Carlos Gómez added an RBI single in the 6th, and Chris Carter added a homer in the 7th on his way to a 3-hit night. Closer Luke Gregerson surrendered a home run to Alex Gordon in the 9th, but he closed out the Royals from there to put the Astros one win away from advancing to the 2015 ALCS.Game 4
Kansas City opened the scoring of this game with a 2-run homer from Salvador Pérez in the top of the 2nd. However, Carlos Gómez and Carlos Correa hit home runs in the bottom of the 2nd and 3rd innings respectively to tie the game. Correa would drive in another run in the 5th with a double to give Houston a 3–2 lead. Then in the 7th, Correa hit another home run, this time driving in 2 runs, followed immediately by a Colby Rasmus home run to give the Astros a lead of 6–2.Now trailing by four runs and six outs away from being eliminated from the postseason, Kansas City opened the eighth with five straight singles off relievers Will Harris and Tony Sipp, with RBI hits by Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer making it 6–4 and loading the bases with no outs. Kendrys Morales followed with a hard, one-bouncer off Sipp's glove. The ball took two more hops and got past the top of Carlos Correa's mitt, rolling into center field as two runs scored to tie it at six. Alex Gordon's RBI groundout off Luke Gregerson later in the inning put Kansas City ahead. Hosmer launched a two-run homer in the ninth and Wade Davis pitched a 2-inning save to save the Royals' season.
This marked the second time in franchise history that Kansas City had rallied from a four-run deficit after seven innings to win a postseason game. The first came in 2014, when the Royals trailed the Oakland Athletics 7–3 in the eighth of their AL Wild Card Game before eventually winning in the 12th. These are the only two instances in Major League history of a team taking a must-win game after trailing by four runs after seven innings., though the Boston Red Sox trailed by seven runs in the middle of the seventh inning while on the brink of elimination in Game 5 of the 2008 American League Championship Series.
Game 5
was two pitches away from potentially having a perfect game. The first was a pitch that Evan Gattis hit down the left field line and was fielded by Mike Moustakas in foul territory. Had Moustakas had a clean throw to first base, Kansas City would have been out of the inning, but Moustakas' throw was off the mark, bringing first baseman Eric Hosmer off the bag, and Hosmer couldn't hang onto the ball to tag out Gattis, thus giving Gattis a base hit. On the next pitch, Luis Valbuena sent the ball into the Astros bullpen for a two-run home run. That would be the last baserunner Cueto would allow, as he retired the last nineteen Astros batters he faced. Cueto became the first pitcher to retire the last nineteen batters he faced in a postseason game since Roy Halladay's no-hitter in 2010 where he retired 21 in a row.In the 4th, Lorenzo Cain reached base on a single. Then Hosmer hit a single to center field with Cain running on the pitch. Center fielder Carlos Gómez slipped onto his backside when he fielded the ball, which allowed Cain to go all the way home to make it a 2–1 game. This would be the first of two times during the postseason that Cain would score from 1st base on a single from Hosmer.
In the 5th, Salvador Pérez reached base when he was hit by a Collin McHugh pitch. The next batter, Alex Gordon hit a ball to deep right-center field, which bounced into the stands for a ground rule double to put runners on 2nd and 3rd. At this point Houston brought in Mike Fiers to replace McHugh on the mound to face Alex RÃos. On a 1-1 pitch, Rios hit the ball down the left-field line that got by the third baseman for a double to score both runners and give Kansas City a 3–2 lead. Alcides Escobar then bunted Rios to third for the first out of the inning. Ben Zobrist then hit a ball to right-center field, which was enough to get Rios home with a sacrifice fly to give the Royals a 4–2 lead.
Dallas Keuchel was brought in for a relief appearance on just two days of rest in the 8th inning and quickly surrendered a double to Escobar down the right-field line. After Zobrist lined out to Jose Altuve at second base, Keuchel intentionally walked Cain to put runners on first and second base. Hosmer popped out for the second out to bring up Kendrys Morales. Keuchel worked a 1-2 count when he just missed outside to make it a 2-2 count. On the next pitch, Morales lined the ball to the left-center field bleachers for a three-run home run to just about put the game away. Wade Davis pitched a perfect ninth with Paulo Orlando making the final out with a catch against the wall to send the Royals to back-to-back ALCS appearances for the first time since the 1984 and 1985 teams did so.