Kansas City Royals History: 1985 Team Completes ALCS Comeback

Series Recap

With a series this crazy, it’s best to explain how this matchup reached the point of needing a winner-take-all Game 7. As you know already, Toronto jumped out to an early lead. The Blue Jays scored six runs within the first four innings of Game 1 to cruise to a 6-1 win.

In Game 2, the Kansas City Royals let a 3-0 lead slip away to the point where they needed a run in the ninth inning off a solo homer from Pat Sheridan to send the game to extra innings. The road team then took the lead in the top of the 10th when Willie Wilson scored on Frank White‘s single. However, Toronto scored twice in the bottom half to take a healthy two-games-to-none lead to Kansas City.

The Royals got back into the series with a massive 6-5 victory in Game 3. Trailing 2-0, the Blue Jays scored all five of their runs in the top of the fifth inning. A solo homer from Jim Sundberg and George Brett‘s second blast of the night—a two-run shot—tied the score after six innings. In the eighth inning, Brett also scored the go-ahead run on a bloop single by Steve Balboni.

Toronto moved to the verge of winning the series with a ninth-inning rally to win Game 4 by a 3-1 score. That’s when the wheels came off for the Blue Jays. The Kansas City Royals completed the shutout they almost had in Game 4 in a 2-0 Game 5 win.

The series returned to Ontario with the Blue Jays still needing just one win to reach their first World Series. An even Game 6 fell the visitors way by a 5-3 score, as Brett hit his third home run of the series that gave the Royals the lead for good.

It also helped him win ALCS MVP honors.