Royals, Blue Jays jersey primed for ALCS showdown

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- More than 24 hours have Austin Romine Womens Jersey passed since Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista celebrated the biggest home run of his career with the mother of all bat flips. The wide-ranging reactions around baseball have helped draw a line between old-schoolers who advocate "respecting the game" and entertainment buffs who see nothing wrong with giving athletes the latitude to emote on the big stage.

The Texas Rangers, who lost to Toronto in the teams' American League Division Series, assumed the role of etiquette police -- chastising Bautista for his exuberance after he cranked a Sam Dyson pitch over the left-field fence to seal a 6-3 victory Wednesday.

The Kansas City Royals, who will face Toronto in the league championship series starting Friday night at Kauffman Stadium, aren't nearly as agitated over Bautista's gesture. After a pre-series workout Thursday, they refrained from WWE smackdown talk and good-naturedly dispensed style points for Bautista's home run celebration.

"It was an impressive bat flip," Royals outfielder Chris Kreider Authentic Jersey Lorenzo Cain said. "I don't know how far it went, but it probably landed in the dugout from what I saw. That's how it goes when emotions are riding high like that. I kind of have a little flip, but nothing to that extent."
Realistically, the stakes are high enough -- and the Royals and Blue Jays play with a similar intensity -- that their LCS would be fraught with emotion regardless of the buildup. It's going to take more than a little lumber tossing to put the match to this blaze.

With all due respect to the Houston Astros and the Rangers, the Royals and Blue Jays have reason to feel poetic justice has been served with this matchup. Kansas City posted the best record in the league, at 95-67, and Toronto was right behind at 93-69. The Blue Jays led the majors with a run differential of plus-221, and Kansas City ranked third in the AL behind the Jays and Astros at plus-83.

Relations between the AL's two best teams http://www.authenticlakersstore.com/authentic-27-jordan-hill-jersey... were strained the last time they took the field together, a four-game series at Rogers Centre in late July and early August. In the series finale, Edinson Volquez jump-started the hostilities by hitting Josh Donaldson with a pitch in the first inning, and things went downhill until Toronto reliever Aaron Sanchez plunked Alcides Escobar and both benches and bullpens emptied in the eighth inning.

Volquez, who will start the ALCS opener against Toronto's Marco Estrada, took a parting shot before the teams went their separate ways by accusing Donaldson of "crying like a baby." In the macho world of athletic competition, them's fightin' words.
The Blue Jays, coincidentally, reeled off 11 straight wins starting with that 5-2 victory on Aug. 2, and several Toronto players have described the series as a galvanizing experience.
"We had talked about it a little bit when they came in," Toronto first baseman Chris Colabello said. "They were the standard in the American League at that point, and we figured if we could compete with those guys and win the series at home, people were going to start taking us more seriously. I don't necessarily know if they felt that way, but it meant a lot to us."

If there's a flash point for hostility http://www.authenticbruinsshop.com in the rematch, it could come in the tug-of-war over the inner 3-4 inches of home plate. The Jays led the majors with 232 home runs this season, and if Volquez and fellow starters Yordano Ventura and Johnny Cueto allow Toronto's sluggers to lean over the plate with impunity, plenty of long-ball-related carnage could ensue.
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