Giancarlo Stanton powers Yankees to Game 3 win vs. Royals

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Five hours before the New York Yankees’ pivotal division series game against the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday, a pitching machine set up well off the third-base side of the mound fired balls at an angle toward Giancarlo Stanton. The Yankees’ slugger was looking to acclimate himself to the Kauffman Stadium batter’s eye and find his swing, aware of how imperative it is for New York’s postseason success.

Stanton found it. And because of it, the Yankees are one game from the American League Championship Series.

He hit a no-doubt, go-ahead home run in the eighth inning of Game 3, and newly minted closer Luke Weaver held strong for a five-out save to secure a 3-2 victory Wednesday night in front of a rowdy crowd of 40,312. New York holds a 2-1 lead in its ALDS and will start reigning AL Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole in Game 4 on Thursday night.

The home run capped a 3-for-5 night for Stanton, who drove in Juan Soto with a rocket double to break a scoreless tie in the fourth inning and added a single — followed by his first stolen base in more than four years — in the sixth.

“Can’t put all that work in and have zero results,” Stanton said, “so I’m just glad I was working on the right things and was able to do something.”

Stanton’s 12th postseason home run — in only 109 at-bats — came three innings after the Royals had tied the score. Royals reliever Kris Bubic, who had surrendered only two home runs in 33 innings this season, left a 3-1 slider over the plate, and Stanton golfed it 417 feet onto a staircase in left-center field.

“From first at-bat to the last at-bat, I could see how locked in he was,” Yankees third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “He was doing his thing all day. I mean, even from in the cage work before the game, watching him swing, you see he was really locked in with his work and everything, so I expected a big day from him today.”

Stanton’s big day spoiled the first postseason home game for the Royals since they won the World Series in 2015. The crowd, which included  Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, was treated to a pitchers’ duel in the early innings between Royals starter Seth Lugo and Yankees starter Clarke Schmidt, who traded zeros over the first three innings.

Soto’s leadoff walk in the fourth set up Stanton’s two-out double, which left his bat at 114.1 mph and caromed off the fence in left-center field. In his first at-bat, he had smashed a ground ball to shortstop  Bobby Witt Jr. at 108.2 mph, and when Stanton is hitting the ball hard and up the middle, his teammates believe good outcomes will soon follow.

“He works, man. He works,” Yankees left fielder Alex Verdugo said. “He gets after it … and today you really saw it kind of take over.”

Stanton’s surprise stolen base in the sixth inning, his first since Aug. 3, 2020, lit up the Yankees dugout — “probably better than the homer, to be honest,” Stanton said. But New York couldn’t capitalize.

The Royals missed opportunities, too, particularly in the eighth, when Witt and Salvador Perez singled off Weaver to put runners on first and third.  Yuli Gurriel’s fly out to center field ended the threat, and Weaver, a former Royal who made the Yankees out of spring training as a long reliever, continued his unexpected excellence in the closer role that he assumed in early September.

“I know it’s kind of silly,” Weaver said. “I’ve had a few saves now here and at the back end of the year, but I think I’m just a man on a mission.”

The Yankees can secure their 19th ALCS appearance with a win Thursday, and they expect the same sort of hostile crowd that greeted them with boos all night — particularly when Chisholm came to the plate. His words following the Royals’ Game 2 victory — “They just got lucky,” Chisholm said — made him a marked man at Kauffman Stadium.

“I ain’t never seen nobody boo a bum,” said Chisholm, who went 0-for-4 after hitting a ninth-inning home run in Game 2.

With outcomes like Wednesdays, nobody will ever accuse the Yankees of being bums. But with the specter of Royals ace Cole Ragans pitching on full rest at Yankee Stadium in a potential Game 5, the Yankees don’t want to leave the possibility to chance.

“We need to wrap it up [Thursday],” Stanton said. “No wiggle room. We’ve got to get it done.”