BALTIMORE — As Bobby Witt Jr. prepared to make his much-anticipated playoff debut for the Kansas City Royals, he took a moment after the final notes of the national anthem rang out at Camden Yards on Tuesday to soak it all in.
The bright lights on a cloudy afternoon. The 41,506 roaring souls in the stands, most supporting the host Baltimore Orioles. The orange towels twirling in their hands.
“I’m like, ‘This is where you want to be,”‘ Witt said afterward. “This is the spot you want to be in. And this is what makes you a baseball player. This is what you dream of.”
Witt showed why he is one of the game’s biggest young stars, bringing home the only run with a single Tuesday to back six terrific innings from another playoff first-timer, Cole Ragans, and helping the Royals return from a nine-year postseason absence with a 1-0 victory over the Orioles in Game 1 of their AL Wild Card Series.
“It’s kind of fitting for him to drive in the run. He’s been the leader of the offence — him and (Salvador Perez) — all year,” KC’s Michael Massey said. “Having him up in that situation is what we want as a team.”
Witt, the 24-year-old shortstop who led the majors with 211 hits and a .332 batting average this season, bounced the ball through the infield off a 95 mph, first-pitch cutter from 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes with two outs in the sixth.
Burnes used that cutter to get Witt out in his first two at-bats.
“He took some pretty bad swings on it, weak contact, so it was a pretty good pitch,” Burnes said. “He didn’t hit it very hard. It just found a hole, and that was the difference.”
Maikel Garcia came around to score after drawing a walk, stealing second — Burnes allowed runners to swipe a major league-high 41 bases this season — and moving to third on a groundout.
Garcia is another postseason rookie, as is Lucas Erceg, who earned a four-out save, emblematic of an up-and-coming Royals club that lost 106 games last season but used a 30-win improvement to get back to October for the first time since winning the 2015 World Series.
Witt copped to some butterflies in the ninth, and Erceg said he needed to slow himself down after realizing he wasn’t sticking to his normal routine on the mound. But otherwise, these KC Kids sure seemed to be right at ease in the glare when games matter the most.
“Pretty much just be yourself,” Witt said. “That’s what we do as a team.”
Now the Royals can end this best-of-three series and advance to an AL Division Series against the New York Yankees by winning Game 2 in Baltimore on Wednesday. Kansas City sends All-Star Seth Lugo to the mound to face Zach Eflin.
Baltimore has lost its last nine postseason games.
Ragans left after 80 pitches because of cramping in his left calf, and the bullpen handled things the rest of the way. The All-Star lefty was terrific, mixing a 98 mph fastball with a variety of off-speed offerings while allowing just four hits and striking out eight.
Burnes looked every bit the ace Baltimore hoped it was getting when it acquired him from Milwaukee in February.
“He did his part,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said.
The AL’s All-Star starter this season exited to a standing ovation after giving up a leadoff single in the ninth. He allowed one run, five hits and that one key free pass to Garcia.
“The walk hurt,” Burnes said. “The walk cost us the game.”
He became the first starter to throw a pitch in the ninth inning of a postseason game since Washington’s Stephen Strasburg in Game 6 of the 2019 World Series.
But Baltimore’s sluggers — the team’s 235 homers trailed only the Yankees — could not come through.
The Orioles got a runner to third in the third inning, but Jordan Westburg flied out to the warning track in left field. They put men at the corners in the fifth, but Ragans struck out James McCann and 2023 AL Rookie of the Year Gunnar Henderson.
“A big spot,” said Ragans.
Hyde’s take? “That hurt.”
And in the eighth, with a pair on and two out, Erceg replaced Kris Bubic and got Anthony Santander to ground into a fielder’s choice with thousands of spectators on their feet.
“It’s going to be louder. It’s going to be bigger, whatever,” said Witt, whose father was a pitcher in the majors. “But you just have to know this is the game I grew up playing, loving.”
Trainer’s Room
Royals: Vinnie Pasquantino came off the injured list after being out since Aug. 29 with a broken right thumb. He went 0 for 3 with a walk as the DH.
Up Next
Lugo (16-9, 3.00 ERA) will be making his first postseason start. Eflin went 10-9 with a 3.59 ERA combined for Tampa Bay and Baltimore in 2024.