Bobby Witt Jr. shares credit with dominant KC Royals arms for Wild Card Series start

The KC Royals, playing in a park where they suffered two excruciating walk-off losses during their first road trip of the season, squeaked by Baltimore in the first game of their American League Wild Card Series Tuesday afternoon. Kansas City beat the Orioles 1-0 to give themselves the chance to eliminate the O's when the teams reconvene at Oriole Park at Camden Yards for the second game of this best-of-three opening round of the MLB Playoffs.

It would be easy, as it was so often and so easily during the regular season, to hand the bulk of the credit for Kansas City's victory to Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City's resident superstar who's already drawing comparisons to Hall of Famer George Brett. Witt, after all, accounted for his club's, and the game's, only run when he shot a sixth-inning single between Baltimore third baseman Ramón Urías and shortstop Gunnar Henderson to score Maikel Garcia from third. Garcia had drawn a one-out walk from Oriole ace Corbin Burnes, stolen second, and advanced to third on Michael Massey's infield grounder.

But let's not give Witt all the credit, or even most of it. Split the accolades evenly between him and the quartet of Kansas City pitchers who shut down Baltimore's powerful bats.

The pitching couldn't have been better for the KC Royals vs. Orioles in Game 1

That Kansas City whitewashed the Orioles, whose 235 home runs were better than every major league team except the Yankees this year, tells you just about everything you need to know about how good starter Cole Ragans and relievers Sam Long, Kris Bubic, and Lucas Erceg were from start to finish.

There's a little more, however.

Ragans struck out eight in his six innings and didn't walk a single Oriole.

Sam Long, who took over from Ragans to begin the seventh, retired Adley Rutschman, Colton Cowser, and Urías in order in the one frame he worked. Cramps for Ragans? What cramps? We hardly noticed.

Kris Bubic came on for the eighth and put down the first two Orioles he faced, but walked Henderson and allowed a single to Jordan Westburg before bowing to Lucas Erceg, who promptly got Anthony Santander, who punished opposing pitchers for 44 homers during the regular season, on a grounder to Witt to extinguish the Orioles' budding rally.

Erceg, who became the Royals' closer after Oakland shipped him to KC in a trade deadline deal, threw a three-up, three-down ninth to complete the Royal shutout and put the club on the cusp of a trip to the AL Division Series. They can clinch that trip, and a date with the Yankees in New York this weekend, by beating Baltimore again Wednesday afternoon.

And if the Royals do to the Orioles what they did Tuesday, they can consider a ticket punched to The Bronx.

Wednesday's first pitch is set for 3:38 p.m. CDT. Kansas City's Seth Lugo (16-9, 3.00) is scheduled to face Zach Eflin (10-9, 3.59).

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